Marketing & agency
Facebook Ads Cost Calculator
Estimates social advertising cost, where creative fatigue drives the trend.
Result
Reach and frequency are separated because they fail differently. Too little frequency and the campaign does not register at all, so the spend is wasted on people who never noticed. Too much and you are buying repeated impressions to an audience that has already decided, which shows up as a rising cost per result while impressions stay cheap. Social traffic also converts differently from search: someone clicking a search ad for an emergency repair is looking for you, while someone seeing a social ad was doing something else, so a lower click-through and a lower close rate are normal here rather than a sign of failure.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Impressions or clicks needed times the rate, derived from the customers wanted and the conversion rate. Social platforms price by auction against audience demand, and the characteristic pattern is that cost rises over time on the same audience as frequency builds and the creative stops working.
What moves the number
- Audience size and how often it sees the ad.
- Creative performance, which decays.
- Competition for the same audience.
- Seasonality, which moves rates substantially.
Where this one goes wrong
Rising cost on a stable campaign is usually frequency and creative fatigue rather than a worsening audience, which means new creative is the fix and raising budget on tired creative accelerates the problem. Watch frequency as the leading indicator. Seasonal competition also moves rates considerably, with retail periods raising the price of attention for everyone regardless of what they are selling.
Before you quote
- Watch frequency as the leading indicator of fatigue.
- Refresh creative before performance declines, not after.
- Expect seasonal rate increases in competitive periods.
Questions
About this calculator
Why does my social advertising get more expensive?
Frequency and creative fatigue, usually. The same audience seeing the same creative responds less over time, so cost rises on a stable campaign. New creative is the fix, and raising budget on tired creative accelerates the decline.
How do I know when creative is tired?
Frequency is the leading indicator, rising while performance falls. Watching it lets creative be refreshed before performance declines rather than after, which avoids the period of paying more for worse results.
Why do rates jump at certain times of year?
Competition for attention. Retail periods raise the auction price for everyone regardless of what they are selling, which means a campaign running through those weeks pays more for the same audience without anything changing on its side.
The formula
impressions = reach x frequency; spend = impressions / 1000 x CPM; clicks = impressions x click-through rate
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How to use this calculator
- Start from. Enter your own figure; the page starts at A monthly budget.
- Monthly budget ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $1,500.
- Times each person sees it. Below about two, a campaign rarely registers. Far above it, you are paying to annoy the same people.
- Cost per thousand impressions ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $12.
- Click-through rate (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 1.2%.
- Clicks that become an enquiry (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 4%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to gross profit after the ad spend, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Start from | A monthly budget |
| Monthly budget | $1,500 |
| Times each person sees it | 3 |
| Cost per thousand impressions | $12 |
| Click-through rate | 1.2% |
| Clicks that become an enquiry | 4% |
| Enquiries you win | 20% |
| Average job value | $950 |
| Gross margin | 45% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Gross profit after the ad spend main result | $3,630 |
| Monthly spend | $1,500 |
| Impressions | 125,000 |
| People reached | 41,667 |
| Clicks | 1,500 |
| Enquiries | 60 |
| Jobs won | 12 |
| Effective cost per click | $1.00 |
| Cost per enquiry | $25 |
| Cost to win one job | $125 |
$1,500 buys 125,000 impressions, reaching 41,667 people 3 times each. That yields 1,500 clicks, 60 enquiries and 12 jobs, leaving $3,630 of gross profit after the spend.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only monthly budget, this is what happens to gross profit after the ad spend. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Monthly budget ($) | Gross profit after the ad spend |
|---|---|
| $750 | $1,815 |
| $1,125 | $2,723 |
| $1,500 example above | $3,630 |
| $2,250 | $5,445 |
| $3,000 | $7,260 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Start from
- Choose from A monthly budget, The audience I want to reach, and how often.
- Monthly budget ($)
- A money amount, between 0 and 1000000, starting at $1,500.
- Times each person sees it
- Below about two, a campaign rarely registers. Far above it, you are paying to annoy the same people.
- Cost per thousand impressions ($)
- A money amount, between 0 and 500, starting at $12.
- Click-through rate (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 100, starting at 1.2%.
- Clicks that become an enquiry (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 100, starting at 4%.
- Enquiries you win (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 100, starting at 20%.
- Average job value ($)
- A money amount, between 0 and 500000, starting at $950.
- Gross margin (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 95, starting at 45%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gross profit after the ad spend | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Monthly spend | A money figure. |
| Impressions | A number. |
| People reached | A number. |
| Clicks | A number. |
| Enquiries | A number. |
| Jobs won | A number. |
| Effective cost per click | A money figure. |
| Cost per enquiry | A money figure. |
| Cost to win one job | A money figure. |
Attribution is the weak link
Return and cost-per-lead figures depend on knowing which enquiries came from which source, and most home-services businesses do not track that reliably. If the source data is guesswork, so is the return.
Keep going
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