Service
PPC management services with the management fee published
PPC management services build and run paid search and paid social campaigns for a business. Here that is Google and Meta management from $450/mo plus your own ad spend, on accounts you own.
In one line
PPC management, from $450/mo plus your ad spend, is the build and ongoing optimization of paid search and paid social campaigns. Here the management fee is published per tier and separated from ad spend, the ad accounts stay in your name, and conversion tracking is set up before campaigns are switched on.
PPC management services and what each tier costs
Starter
Up to $3k/mo ad spend
plus your ad spend
$375/mo billed yearly
- 1 platform
- Campaign build + management
- Conversion tracking set up
- Monthly report
- Not included: Ad spend itself
- Not included: Landing page builds
- Not included: Creative production
Growth
Up to $10k/mo ad spend
plus your ad spend
$750/mo billed yearly
- 2 platforms
- Everything in Starter
- A/B testing
- Audience + remarketing set-up
- Not included: Ad spend itself
Scale
$10k+/mo ad spend
12% of ad spend, minimum $1,800/mo
- All platforms
- Everything in Growth
- Dedicated account manager
- Weekly optimization
- Not included: Ad spend itself
These ppc management services are billed at the price shown, with no scoping call in the way. Campaigns live within 10 business days.
Every tier is billed monthly, and the scope is fixed by a brief you agree before anything is invoiced.
Page one is national agencies whose pages explain what PPC management is and then ask for a call. The percentage-of-spend model is standard and the percentage itself is almost never published.
Everything each tier includes and excludes
The same list that drives the price cards, laid out so the tiers can be read against each other. Exclusions are printed because an unstated exclusion is what turns a good month into an argument.
Starter
Up to $3k/mo ad spend
Included
- 1 platform
- Campaign build + management
- Conversion tracking set up
- Monthly report
Not included
- Ad spend itself
- Landing page builds
- Creative production
Growth
Up to $10k/mo ad spend
Included
- 2 platforms
- Everything in Starter
- A/B testing
- Audience + remarketing set-up
Not included
- Ad spend itself
Scale
$10k+/mo ad spend
Included
- All platforms
- Everything in Growth
- Dedicated account manager
- Weekly optimization
Not included
- Ad spend itself
Which tier you actually need
Tiers are set by your ad spend, because that is what drives the workload. Below the Starter band the management fee is a large share of the total, and we would rather say so than sell into it.
All three ppc management services run the same process and the same reporting. What changes between them is volume.
Starter
One platform, up to about $3,000 a month in spend, with one clear conversion worth optimizing toward.
You are on this tier when: You have a single offer and a working landing page, and nothing is being tracked properly yet.
Growth
Two platforms up to about $10,000 a month, where testing and remarketing start to pay for themselves.
You are on this tier when: You have enough conversion volume for an A/B test to reach a conclusion inside a month.
Scale
Spend above $10,000 a month, where weekly optimization and a dedicated manager change the return.
You are on this tier when: Small percentage improvements are now worth more than the entire management fee.
You own the ad account, and it matters more than the fee
Short answer
Campaigns run in ad accounts opened under your business, not inside an agency account. If the engagement ends you keep the account, the history, the conversion data and the audiences, which is what actually determines your switching cost.
Agency-owned accounts are common and rarely explained at purchase. The consequence appears only at the exit, when the performance history that makes future campaigns cheaper does not come with you.
This is one of our published vendor vetting criteria rather than a preference, and it applies to every tier.
Most people think you need tens of thousands of dollars or more to make Google Ads work, and that is just not true.
Why this matters
What a paid ads month actually contains
Management fees are quoted as a percentage of spend so often that the work behind them goes undescribed. Here is the work, in the order it happens.
How a month actually runs
Order, brief, production, delivery, report. The same four steps every month, so a second month can be compared against a first.
- 1
Days 1 to 5
Account and tracking
Ad accounts opened or audited under your business, conversion tracking configured and tested.
- 2
Days 5 to 10
Build and launch
Campaign structure, audiences and creative slots built. Campaigns are live within 10 business days.
- 3
Ongoing
Optimization
Bid, budget and audience work, with A/B testing from Growth and weekly optimization at Scale.
- 4
Month end
Report
Spend, fee and outcome, stated separately so the cost of management is never hidden inside the media cost.
When you try and speak to everyone, you kind of end up speaking to no one. And when you have a small budget, you need to get really specific. You cannot waste anything.
Why this matters
A typical PPC agency
- Fee
- A percentage, unpublished
- Ad account
- Often owned by the agency
- Spend
- Sometimes billed through the agency
- Tracking
- Assumed to exist
- Reporting
- Blended cost figures
The Super Panel
- Fee
- Published fee, and 12% only at Scale
- Ad account
- Opened under you, always
- Spend
- Paid by you to the platform
- Tracking
- Configured and verified before launch
- Reporting
- Spend, fee and result stated separately
The four fee models, and what each one does to your incentives
Percentage of ad spend is the most common model, at 15 to 20 percent (read 2026-09-06).
A flat retainer removes that pressure entirely. Nobody earns more because your budget went up.
The hybrid model is a base fee plus a percentage above a threshold, and performance pricing charges per lead, which reliably turns into an argument about what counted as a lead.
- Starter and Growth here are flat: the fee does not move when your spend does
- Scale is 12 percent of spend with a minimum, below the 15 to 20 percent (read 2026-09-06) standard
- No tier charges per lead, because attribution disputes are not worth the alignment
The effective rate nobody publishes
Short answer
A flat fee is a percentage too; it is just not labelled one. At $3,000 of monthly spend the Starter fee works out at 15 percent, and at $1,000 of spend the same fee is 45 percent.
That maths applies to every flat-fee provider, including this one.
Growth at $10,000 of spend is 9 percent, and at $4,000 it is 22.5 percent.
Scale is 12 percent with an $1,800 minimum, so the minimum is what you actually pay until spend passes $15,000.
No page in either search result publishes this calculation, which is odd, because it is the only way to compare a flat fee against a percentage quote.
What the price buys at each tier
How small is too small to advertise
Short answer
Below roughly $3,000 of monthly ad spend, the management fee is a large share of what you are spending in total. That is true of every provider, this one included. It is the number most likely to make paid ads the wrong purchase.
The industry answers this by excluding you: published minimum monthly fees run $750 to $5,000, and one ranking provider requires $5,000 of spend before it will take the account.
The honest alternative at that budget is to run it yourself on the platform controls until the spend justifies a manager.
Google documents the platform budget controls.
The fees that are not on this page because they do not exist
No setup fee, where $500 to $1,500 is the published norm. No onboarding fee, where a competitor ranking on this term collects $399 at signup.
No reporting fee, no creative surcharge and no tool pass-through. There are two numbers in this arrangement: the monthly fee, and the ad spend you pay the platform directly.
The onboarding figure is published by a competitor publishing a $399 onboarding fee.
What the fee does not cover
Ad spend excluded, at every tier and without exception. It is paid by you straight to the platform.
Landing page builds and creative production are excluded too. A campaign is only as good as the page it points at, and that page is a different piece of work with a different price.
If the page is the weak link, landing pages are priced under web design.
What a Google Partner badge certifies, and what it does not
The Google Partners badge is the most-cited credential in this industry, and it is worth knowing exactly what it measures.
Partner status is assessed on three things: performance, spend and certifications. The requirements are checked daily, and a company that stops meeting them has a sixty-day grace period before the benefits go.
Every one of those is a measure of account activity and training. None of them is a measure of what happened to a client’s business. A buyer reading the badge as evidence of results is reading something the program does not assess.
That is worth holding next to the pricing question. Agencies such as Third Marble Marketing and Catmo Marketing publish flat monthly retainer figures while much of the market uses percentage-of-ad-spend pricing.
Neither shape says anything about outcomes. Return on ad spend is decided by the offer and the landing page, which is why a productized service prices the management rather than the result.
What this does not say: Google states the requirement categories and the grace period; the exact numeric thresholds are adjusted over time and are not fixed by this row.
| Google Ads Help, How to become a Google Partner or Premier Partner - performance, spend and certification requirements | read 2026-09-06 |
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Who owns the ad account when the relationship ends
Ad account ownership is the question that produces the ugliest agency exits, and Google’s own manager-account documentation settles most of it in advance.
Linking a manager account does not by default confer administrative ownership of a client account. Unlinking removes the manager’s access, and the client account keeps its campaign history and its features. The client can unlink unilaterally.
The caveat is real and worth stating: this governs an account the client already owned.
Here the same rule is applied to a new account. Your Google Ads campaign budget goes to the platform, never through us, and a monthly retainer buys management of it rather than control of it.
What this does not say: This governs accounts the client already owned. An account the agency created in its own manager remains the agency's unless ownership is transferred.
| Google Ads Help, Manager Accounts (MCC): about ownership of client accounts | read 2026-09-06 |
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The price on the card is the management fee and nothing else: no setup fee, platform fee, creative fee, tool fee, contract penalty or early termination fee. Month to month.
PPC, one of eight lines, is judged on what the account reports: click-through rate, cost per click, conversion rate and cost per lead. Search terms and negative keywords are reviewed monthly, and bid adjustments follow.
The ad account is in your name. Access not ownership is what we hold, so no transfer is ever needed.
What we cannot show you, and what to check instead
Three of the agencies ranking for this term carry star ratings with hundreds of reviews, and one is a Google Premier Partner. There is none of that here, and none of it will be invented.
What can be checked instead is on this page: the fee, the spend ceiling on each tier, the exclusions, the effective rate at your own budget, and who owns the ad account.
- Ask any provider for the effective percentage at your spend level
- Ask whether the fee is charged per platform
- Ask who the ad account is opened under
- Ask what the setup fee is, before signing rather than after
How billing works, and what cancelling changes
Short answer
The management fee is billed monthly in advance and separately from ad spend, which you pay the platform directly. There is no minimum contract and no notice period, so cancelling stops the next renewal rather than triggering a penalty.
Campaigns pause when you say so. The account, its history and its audiences were always in your name, so what ends is our access rather than your asset.
The same policy is set out in what cancelling Google & Meta Ads means in the terms.
When paid ads should wait
Short answer
Paid ads waste money when the landing page cannot convert, when nothing is measurable, or when the budget is too small to gather data. Below roughly $1,000 a month in spend, the fee is a large share of the total and the account never learns enough to optimize.
- Your monthly ad budget is very small. The management fee dominates and the data stays too thin to act on.
- The landing page is not ready. Landing page builds are excluded at every tier.
- You cannot measure a conversion. Without tracking, optimization is decoration.
- You need creative produced. Creative production is excluded at every tier.
Questions before you order
Google Ads management pricing is published here rather than quoted, and repeated on the pricing page. Fee and ad spend stay separate lines, and the account stays in your name.
Budget below the floor these tiers assume, or an account you would keep? Say so before you order. The account stays yours either way, and we will say if the budget is too thin.
How much does PPC management cost per month?
Starter is $450/mo plus your ad spend, for one platform up to $3,000 of monthly spend. Growth is $900/mo plus spend, for two platforms up to $10,000. Scale is 12% of ad spend with a $1,800/mo minimum.
Does the fee include my ad spend?
No. The ad spend itself is excluded at every tier and paid by you directly to the platform, so nothing about your budget passes through us. The fee and the spend are always two separate numbers.
Is there a setup or onboarding fee?
No. Setup fees of $500 to $1,500 are the published norm, and one agency ranking on this term collects $399 at signup. There is none here, and no reporting fee or creative surcharge either.
Who owns the Google Ads account, me or you?
You do. Accounts are opened in your business name, and the account, its spend history and its audiences stay with you. Cancelling ends our access rather than your ownership.
What is the minimum ad spend you will work with?
There is no hard floor, but below roughly $3,000 a month the fee is a large share of your total, and we would rather say so. Published industry minimums run $750 to $5,000, and one provider requires $5,000 of spend before taking an account.
Is there a minimum contract or a notice period?
Neither. Billing is monthly and there is no minimum term and no notice period, so cancelling stops the next renewal. Campaigns pause when you say so.
Why is the Scale tier priced as a percentage when the others are flat?
Because above about $10,000 of spend a flat fee stops matching the work. Scale is 12% with an $1,800 minimum, which sits under the 15 to 20 percent (read 2026-09-06) industry standard, and the minimum is what you pay until spend passes $15,000.
Do you build the landing pages the ads point at?
No. Landing page builds and creative production are excluded from every tier and priced under web design instead. A campaign pointed at a weak page is the commonest reason paid ads underperform.
Do you charge separately per platform?
No. Many agencies apply their percentage per platform, so Google plus Meta becomes 30% of combined spend. Adding a platform here moves you a tier rather than multiplying the fee.
How soon do campaigns go live after I order?
Within 10 business days of the brief being agreed. Conversion tracking is verified before spend starts, because an untracked campaign cannot be judged at any fee.
Sources cited here
| Source | Cited |
|---|---|
| Google Ads policies | Cited for platform constraints on what can run. |
| Google’s guidance on conversion tracking | Cited for the pre-launch tracking gate. |
Start Google & Meta Ads from $450/mo
Pick a tier and send the order. You get a brief form and a start date within one business day, and nothing is charged until that brief is agreed.
Entry point $300/mo. Cancel any time. No long contracts.
Still deciding?
Read how the process runs end to end: order, brief, production, delivery, report.
How it worksSources
| Keyword Planner search volumes are rounded, averaged over 12 months and shown for exact match only | Google Ads Help, read 2026-09-06 |
|---|---|
| The FTC's Endorsement Guides: what people are asking | US Federal Trade Commission, read 2026-09-06 |
Each link was opened on the date shown. Where a figure is illustrative rather than measured, the page says so beside it.