Facebook ads cost whatever you set your budget to, so you can start at £5 a day. The more useful question is what a lead or sale costs. In the UK, typical cost per click runs from about 30p to £1.50, and typical cost per lead from £5 to £40 for local services, though B2B and high-ticket offers run well above that. These are rough ranges, not quotes.
Plan on at least £300 to £600 a month of ad spend to learn anything useful, plus the fee for whoever runs it.
How does Facebook and Instagram ad pricing work?
Meta sells ad space by auction. Every time someone opens Facebook or Instagram, advertisers compete for that moment, and the winner is chosen by bid, estimated action rate and ad quality, not by the biggest cheque alone.
You will see three numbers. CPM is the cost per 1,000 impressions, typically around £5 to £12 in the UK, a guide only. CPC is the cost per click on a link. Cost per result is what you pay for the thing you chose as your goal, such as a lead form completion or a purchase.
Instagram sits in the same system, so Instagram ads cost roughly the same as Facebook ads, and you can run both from one campaign through placements. Stories and Reels often come out cheaper per impression, but they do not always deliver better leads.
What does a Facebook lead cost in the UK?
Headline numbers mislead people here. A cost per lead of £8 sounds good until you learn half those leads never answer the phone.
Typical ranges for lead-style campaigns, as a guide: local services such as cleaners, trades and salons often see £5 to £25 per lead. Health, beauty and fitness enquiries sit around £8 to £30. Property, finance and legal can sit at £30 to £100 or more, since competition and customer value are both higher. B2B services usually exceed £50.
Cost per sale is a different animal. If you convert one in four leads into a customer and pay £15 a lead, that is £60 per customer. If one in ten converts, it is £150. The sum worth doing is the second one.
What is a sensible Facebook ads budget for a small business?
Meta’s system needs about 50 optimisation events a week per ad set to settle out of its learning phase. At £15 per lead that is £750 a week, which is out of reach for most small firms. So aim for fewer ad sets and a broad audience, or pick a more frequent action such as a form that asks for fewer details.
A practical starting point for a local business is £10 to £20 a day, roughly £300 to £600 a month, with a single campaign and two or three ads. Run it for four weeks before judging. Under £5 a day, Facebook rarely gathers enough data to tell you anything.
Remember VAT. Meta can add VAT to UK ad spend, which a VAT-registered business can usually reclaim. Check your billing page.
What pushes Facebook ad costs up?
Narrow targeting. A tiny audience, for example 25 to 34 year olds within three miles of Pudsey who like yoga, makes you pay more because few people fit and the auction is thin.
Weak creative. Ads people scroll past get low engagement, and Meta charges more to show them. Seasonality. November and December, with Black Friday and Christmas, push CPMs up sharply, sometimes by half again. And poor follow-up. If your form is long or your site is slow, your cost per lead rises even when the cost per click does not.
Competition matters as well. A Leeds solicitor and a Leeds hair salon face very different auctions.
What brings Facebook ad costs down?
Better creative is the biggest lever. A short vertical video of a real person on site, shown at the start with a clear offer, usually beats a polished stock image. Test three or four versions and cut the worst after a week.
Next, broaden targeting and let Meta find buyers. Install the Meta Pixel and Conversions API so it learns from real results, and use an Instant Form with two or three questions. Add a qualifying question, such as budget range, to cut tyre-kickers. You will pay slightly more per lead and get far better leads.
Tracking matters here as much as on search. The principles in our guide to conversion tracking apply to the pixel too.
How should you judge what Facebook ads cost you?
Work backwards from the customer. Suppose a new client is worth £400 profit and one lead in five buys. You can afford up to £80 per lead before you lose money, and a target of £30 to £40 leaves room for your fee and some mistakes.
Watch frequency as well. When the same people see an ad more than three or four times in a fortnight, costs creep up and results sag. That is the signal to refresh the creative or widen the audience, not to raise the budget.
Keep a simple weekly log of spend, leads, calls answered and customers won. Ten minutes on a Friday tells you more than any dashboard.
Are Facebook ads cheaper than Google Ads?
Per click, usually yes. Per customer, it depends, because someone searching Google already wants what you sell, while someone scrolling Facebook was not looking. We cover that decision in Facebook ads vs Google Ads, so I will not repeat it here.
For a wider look at where paid media money goes, see the fee side in PPC management fees in the UK, and if your audience is professional, LinkedIn advertising prices look very different. Younger audiences may be worth testing on TikTok.
We run campaigns through our Meta advertising service, with the ad account in your own name.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum I can spend on Facebook ads?
Meta lets you set a daily budget as low as a few pounds. Anything under £5 a day is more of a trial than a campaign.
How much should a local business spend per month?
£300 to £600 is a fair first test. Honestly, I would rather see £450 spent well on one offer for a month than £150 spread across three.
Do Instagram ads cost more than Facebook ads?
Slightly more per click at times, though the gap is small and varies by placement and audience. You buy both from the same Ads Manager account, and Meta chooses where each ad appears unless you override it.
Is boosting a post the same as running an ad?
No. Boosting is a simplified version with fewer goals and controls and is usually a poor way to buy leads. Use Ads Manager and choose a lead or sales objective.
How quickly will I see leads?
Often within a few days. Meaningful trends take two to four weeks. Patience is part of the cost. And so is a good offer.
If you would like an honest estimate of what a lead would cost in your sector and area, send us the details and we will give you a realistic range before you spend anything.
