How much do Facebook ads cost?

There is no fixed price. Meta runs an auction whenever someone is eligible to see your ad, and Meta says the highest bid doesn't always win, because predicted response and ad quality count too. So you set a budget, and the auction decides what each result costs.

Steps

1. Pick one goal. Sales, leads or visits. Cost per result differs a lot by goal (see the benchmarks below).
2. Set a daily budget. Meta's developer documentation says a daily budget is an average and that "up to 25% more than your daily budget may be spent", so a $10 budget can reach $12.50 on a strong day.
3. Start at a workable floor. Stackmatix puts the official minimum at $1 a day per ad set and a practical floor at $10-$20 a day per ad set.
4. Wait before judging. Shopify's help center advises waiting 4-5 days after launch before making optimization decisions.

To split one budget across several audiences, see our guide to setting a Facebook ads budget.

WordStream by LocaliQ reports a 2026 average of $0.60 per click on traffic campaigns, down from $0.70. Lead campaigns average $1.80 per click and $27.39 per lead.

For online stores, Coupler's roundup of WordStream and Triple Whale data (July 2025 to July 2026) shows ecommerce campaigns averaging $38.99 per acquisition and a 1.53% conversion rate. A click is not a customer, so judge an ad by what a purchase or lead costs, not by the click price.

These are averages across thousands of accounts, not a quote for your shop. Use Facebook ads benchmarks to see how yours compares, and good ROAS for Facebook ads to check a result against your margin.

Shopify's help center says to use Meta's Ads Manager for ad creation across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or Audience Network. Meta renames screens often, so if a label differs, search the help page titles linked in the sources.

Steps

1. Open Ads Manager and select Create to open the Create a Campaign window.
2. Choose the campaign objective that matches your goal.
3. At the ad set level, set your budget (daily or lifetime) and a schedule with a start date and end date, or run continuously. A lifetime budget paces spend across the ad set's run, a daily budget paces it day by day.
4. At the ad level, add your image or video, text and link, then publish.
5. To change the budget later, edit the campaign or ad set and update the budget field, following Meta's Change Your Budget page.

For the full launch process, read how to run Facebook ads; if this is your first campaign, start with Facebook ads for beginners.

Most likely a billing threshold. Meta charges you whenever your ad costs reach your threshold, and again on your monthly bill date for any leftover costs. A new account's threshold starts small and can rise after successful payments, so you can see several charges in a month even with one ad running. You can set a maximum payment threshold to cap automatic payments.

Ad spend goes to Meta. Images and video are a separate cost, whether you pay a designer, UGC creators or a tool.

If you want a tool, we built ScaleShot to make image and short video ads and launch them to your Meta account, and it asks before it changes anything. Our plans include 500 credits per period and start at $19.95 for the first 2 weeks, then $42 every 2 weeks, with a 14-day money-back guarantee. A Fast image costs 10 credits, an HQ image 20, and video 10 credits per second. ScaleShot runs Meta ads only, does not guarantee sales, and Meta bills ad spend separately.

• Budget too small to learn. Stackmatix says Meta needs 50 weekly optimization events and suggests $50-$150 a day in total for the learning phase. If you can't fund that, pick a goal with more frequent events, such as visits or leads, rather than purchases.
• Editing every day. Constant changes restart your read on what works. Give each change the 4-5 days Shopify suggests.
• Judging by cost per click. A cheap click that never buys is expensive. Compare cost per lead or purchase.
• Ignoring seasonality. Stackmatix reports Q4 CPMs rising 15-25% on holiday competition.
• Mixing up daily and lifetime budgets. Check which one you chose at the ad set level before you publish.