Enough to buy meaningful data in your market, and that depends on what a click costs in your trade. UK advertisers averaged £1.72 per click in 2024, though trades vary widely. For many local businesses a sensible test is £300 to £600 a month for two to three months, judged on enquiries, not clicks. Any management fee sits on top of that.
There is no universal right number, and anyone who gives you one without asking about your trade and your margins is guessing. But there is a sensible way to work out your number, and honest benchmark data to anchor it. That is what this article gives you.
The most useful public benchmark comes from LocaliQ’s 2025 UK Paid Advertising Benchmark Report, which analysed more than 600 UK advertisers and over 10,000 campaign cycles. Across all industries, the average search advertising cost per click was £1.72 in 2024, up 28 per cent on the year before. The average click-through rate was 4.3 per cent, and 3.65 per cent of clicks converted into an action such as an enquiry. 1
Averages hide big differences between trades. Clicks for solicitors averaged £2.93, the most expensive in the report, while retail clicks cost far less. Agency pricing guides put typical UK CPCs for trades such as plumbers and electricians around £1.50 to £3, with legal and finance keywords reaching £5 to £12 or more. 2 Your trade sets your click cost before you spend a penny on anything else.
| Trade or sector | Indicative cost per click | Source |
|---|---|---|
| All-industry UK average (search ads) | £1.72 | LocaliQ UK benchmark report, April 2025 1 |
| Solicitors and legal | £2.93 average; some legal keywords £6 to £12 | LocaliQ 2025; Rezaid UK pricing guide, May 2025 2 |
| Trades (plumbers, electricians and similar) | Around £1.50 to £3 | Rezaid UK pricing guide, May 2025 2 |
| Retail and e-commerce | Around £0.60 to £1.50 | Rezaid UK pricing guide, May 2025 2 |
Work backwards from enquiries. Take your trade’s click cost, decide how many enquiries would make the spend worthwhile, and do the maths. At the LocaliQ average conversion rate of 3.65 per cent, a hundred clicks produce roughly three to four enquiries. At the average click cost of £1.72, a hundred clicks cost about £172. So a £500 month buys around 290 clicks and, at average rates, perhaps ten or eleven enquiries. 1
Now be honest about your own numbers, because averages are not your account. If your website turns clicks into enquiries well, you beat the average; if the page is weak, you will underperform it and blame the ads. Clicks that never become enquiries are the single biggest waste in small-business advertising, which is why we wrote a separate article on Google Ads getting clicks but no enquiries. 3 The other question is what an enquiry is worth to you. Ten enquiries a month is cheap for a conservatory installer and expensive for a candle seller. Only your margins can judge the spend.
More than most people realise. You set an average daily budget for each campaign, and Google applies a monthly spending limit so you will not be charged more than your daily budget multiplied by the average number of days in a month. Costs are mostly cost-per-click: you pay when someone clicks, up to your maximum bid. You can start, pause or stop whenever you like. 4 The control is real. The catch is that control only helps if someone is actually watching the account, which is the next question.
On top of the click spend, and it deserves its own line in your maths. If you pay an agency or freelancer to run the account, their fee is separate from what Google charges. Ours, for context, starts from £345 a month plus VAT. So a realistic total for a small local campaign is the management fee plus the click budget: £345 plus £400 of clicks is £745 a month all in, plus VAT on the fee.
That total is the number to judge, and it changes the answer by business size. On a very small budget, a fee can eat most of the month’s money, and running a simple campaign yourself, at least at first, can be the better option. As the spend grows, the maths flips: wasted clicks and missed settings start costing more than the fee. Our article on whether to run Google Ads yourself or pay someone to manage them works through that decision properly. 5
For most local service businesses, a test of £300 to £600 a month on clicks, run for two to three months, buys enough data to judge. That is roughly 150 to 350 clicks a month at typical trade prices, which is enough to see patterns in search terms, costs and enquiries. Below that, the numbers get thin and every week feels like a verdict on too little evidence. Much above it, you are scaling before you have proof.
Two honest caveats. First, in expensive trades the same test needs more money: at £6 a click, £300 buys fifty clicks, which tells you very little, and it may be that ads are simply the wrong first channel for you. Our article on SEO or Google Ads, which to pay for first, covers that choice. 6 Second, judge the test on enquiries and their quality, never on clicks or impressions. Clicks are what you buy. Enquiries are what you keep.
For many local trades, yes, as a test budget. At the UK average click cost of £1.72, £500 buys around 290 clicks, enough to produce and judge real enquiries over two to three months. In expensive trades such as legal or finance, the same money buys very few clicks, so the test needs more budget or a different channel.
Across all industries, UK search advertisers averaged £1.72 per click in 2024, up 28 per cent year on year, according to LocaliQ’s 2025 UK benchmark report. Trades vary widely: retail clicks can cost under £1, while legal and finance keywords can exceed £6 to £12. 1
Usually both, separately. Google charges for the clicks, billed to your account’s payment method. If an agency manages the campaigns, their management fee is a separate charge from them. When comparing costs, always add the two together: the true monthly cost of advertising is the click spend plus any management fee.
Mainly competition. LocaliQ’s UK data shows the average cost per click rose 28 per cent year on year, driven by more advertisers bidding in the same auctions and greater use of automated bidding. 1 Rising click costs make enquiry tracking and landing-page quality matter more, because every wasted click costs more than it did.
Yes. You set an average daily budget per campaign, and Google enforces a monthly spending limit based on it, so charges stay within that ceiling. Some days spend more and some less, but the month does not exceed the limit. 4
[1] LocaliQ, “2025 UK Paid Advertising Benchmark Report” (April 2025; over 600 UK advertisers and 10,000 campaign cycles, 2023-2024 data). https://localiq.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025-UK-Paid-Advertising-Benchmark-Report.pdf
[2] Rezaid, “How Much Do Google Ads Cost UK: Full 2025 Pricing Guide” (30 May 2025; agency guide, used for indicative trade ranges). https://www.rezaid.co.uk/google-ads-cost-uk-full-2025-pricing-guide/
[3] Bamsh Knowledge Centre, “Why are my Google Ads getting clicks but no enquiries?” https://bamsh.co.uk/why-are-my-google-ads-getting-clicks-but-no-enquiries/
[4] Google, “Google Ads budget and cost” (undated, checked 20 October 2026). https://business.google.com/uk/google-ads/campaign-budget/
[5] Bamsh Knowledge Centre, “Should I run Google Ads myself or pay someone to manage them?” https://bamsh.co.uk/should-i-run-google-ads-myself-or-pay-someone-to-manage-them/
[6] Bamsh Knowledge Centre, “SEO or Google Ads: which should your business pay for first?” https://bamsh.co.uk/seo-or-google-ads-which-should-your-business-pay-for-first/
