How much should a small business spend on Facebook ads per month?

A realistic starting range is £400 to £1,000 a month in ad spend, paid directly to Meta, plus a management fee if an agency runs it. That gives the campaign enough data to optimise. Scale up only once your cost per lead is proven and profitable.

What is a good cost per lead on Facebook ads in the UK?

For most UK small businesses a cost per lead of roughly £8 to £30 is typical once the campaign is optimised, depending on industry, audience and creative. Strong video of real work and a clear local offer are the fastest ways to bring that figure down.

Are Facebook ads cheaper than Google Ads?

Facebook usually has a lower cost per click because it reaches people while they scroll rather than bidding on searches. Google clicks cost more but often convert faster because the searcher is ready to buy. Judge by cost per booked job, and ideally run both — Google to capture demand, Meta to create it and retarget.

Do I pay Scalepoint for the ad spend or just management?

You pay a fixed management fee — Meta Ads at £395/month — and your ad spend goes directly to Meta at cost, with no markup. You see exactly what is fee and what is spend, and the ad account and audiences stay in your name, so you own them whether or not we keep working together.

How quickly do Facebook ads start working?

Meta ads can produce reach and clicks within hours of going live, but they need a learning period — roughly the first one to two weeks — to optimise toward leads. Cost per lead then improves as the pixel gathers conversion data and the best creative and audiences emerge.

GUIDE · Meta Ads

How much do Facebook ads cost in the UK?

By Craig W., Founder·Last updated 17 June 2026·8 min read

The short answer

Most UK small businesses should budget £400 to £1,000 a month for Facebook and Instagram ads to start, paid directly to Meta. Clicks typically cost £0.40 to £1.50 and cost per 1,000 views (CPM) runs £5 to £12, giving a cost per lead of roughly £8 to £30. A management fee applies on top if an agency runs it.

Facebook ads (and Instagram — they run on the same Meta platform) are usually the cheapest way for a small business to reach a local audience at scale. But "how much do they cost" has three different answers, and mixing them up is how budgets get wasted. Here is what UK small businesses actually pay, and what moves the number.

The three costs, kept separate

Ad spend — what you pay Meta directly to show your ads. This is your budget, set by you, and it goes to the platform, not the agency.
Management fee — what an agency charges to build, run and optimise the campaigns. A fixed monthly fee, separate from spend.
Cost per result — what each click, lead or sale actually costs once the campaign is running. This is the number that decides ROI.

At Scalepoint, ad spend passes straight to Meta at cost with no markup — our fee here, the platform’s spend there. Meta Ads management is £395/month, and you own the ad account and audiences.

What Facebook ads cost per click and per view

Meta sells attention two main ways: by the click (CPC) and by the thousand impressions (CPM). UK costs are lower than Google because you are reaching people as they scroll, not bidding on high-intent searches. These are typical ranges — treat them as illustrative planning numbers, since your industry, audience and creative move them a lot.

Typical UK Meta ad costs (illustrative)
Metric	Typical UK range	What it means
Cost per click (CPC)	£0.40–£1.50	Each click to your site or profile
Cost per 1,000 views (CPM)	£5–£12	Reaching 1,000 people in the feed
Cost per lead	£8–£30	An enquiry via a lead form or the site
Cost per 1,000 reached (awareness)	£3–£8	Pure reach campaigns

A sensible starting budget

For a local small business, £400 to £1,000 a month of ad spend is a realistic starting range. Meta needs roughly 50 conversions per ad set per week to optimise well, so going too low starves the algorithm of data. At a £15 cost per lead, £600 a month buys around 40 leads — enough volume to learn from and improve.

Start at a level that gives the campaign data, prove the cost per lead, then scale the spend into whatever is working. More budget on an unproven campaign just loses money faster.

What changes your cost

Creative quality — real photos and short video of your work outperform stock imagery and cut cost per lead more than any other lever.
Audience — tightly targeted local audiences cost more per view but convert better; broad audiences are cheaper but noisier.
Objective — awareness is cheapest, traffic mid-range, lead and sales campaigns cost more per result but are worth more.
Season and competition — costs rise when more advertisers compete (run-up to Christmas, for example).
Offer — a clear, relevant offer lifts conversion rate, which lowers cost per lead without touching the budget.

The management fee on top

Running Meta well is ongoing work: audience research, creative testing, the pixel and conversions API, retargeting and reporting. Scalepoint manages Meta Ads at £395/month as a standalone service, or inside the Spark bundle at £750/month combined with Google Ads. The fee is fixed and separate from your ad spend — no per-lead charge, no markup, and the ad account stays in your name.

No VAT — the price you see is the price you pay. Scalepoint is under the £90k VAT threshold, so there is nothing to add to the quoted fee.

Is Facebook cheaper than Google Ads?

Usually yes on cost per click — Meta interrupts people rather than bidding on searches, so clicks are cheaper. But Google captures people actively looking to buy, so its leads often convert faster. For most local businesses the two work best together: Google to capture ready-to-buy demand, Meta to create demand and retarget the people who did not convert first time.