There is no single rate, because agencies price PPC management three main ways: a percentage of your ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a hybrid of the two. Each model rewards different behaviour. What you pay depends on spend level, account complexity, and how much strategic and creative work sits alongside the media buying.
The number matters less than the model behind it, so read the structure before you read the figure. Two agencies can quote the same monthly fee and be selling very different things, because the pricing model shapes the incentives, and the incentives shape what actually gets done in your account.
You pay the agency a set percentage of what you spend on the platforms. The appeal is simple alignment at first glance: as you invest more, they earn more. The catch is the incentive it creates. A pure percentage model rewards spending more, not necessarily spending better. When the honest recommendation is to cut a bloated budget or pause an inefficient campaign, a percentage fee quietly argues against it. It also tends to under reward the fixed work of strategy, testing and build that does not scale with spend. It can suit accounts with large, stable budgets where the management workload genuinely tracks the spend.
You pay a fixed monthly fee regardless of spend. This decouples the agency’s pay from how much you invest, which removes the pressure to inflate budgets and makes your costs predictable. The trade off runs the other way: a flat retainer is priced against an expected scope of work, so if your account balloons in complexity, the agency can be incentivised to cap effort rather than keep pace. The number here is really a proxy for hours and seniority, so what you are buying is the scope, not the round figure.
A base retainer plus a smaller percentage of spend, or a base plus a performance component. Done well, a hybrid tries to capture the best of both: the retainer funds the fixed strategic and build work, and the variable slice keeps some alignment with scale. Done poorly, it just stacks two fees. The thing to interrogate is what the variable portion is tied to and whether it rewards outcomes you actually care about.
None of these is inherently honest or dishonest. Each simply points effort in a direction. Your job is to make sure the direction it points matches what your account needs right now.
Pricing conversations get clearer once you stop asking “what is the rate” and start asking “what is driving the rate.” A few things move it more than anything else.
Larger budgets and more campaigns, feeds and markets mean more surface area to manage and more room for a mistake to cost real money. More scope, more senior time, higher fee.
A single country store with one Shopping feed is a different job from a multi market catalogue with thousands of SKUs, a shopping feed to maintain, and several campaign types running at once. Complexity, not just spend, is often the real cost driver.
This is the big one buyers underestimate. Are you paying only for someone to manage bids and budgets, or does the engagement include strategy, landing page and conversion work, creative, feed optimisation and reporting? A low fee that covers only in platform management can cost more in the end than a fuller scope, because the parts that actually move performance sit outside the ad platform. PPC rarely fails in the auction. It fails on the landing page, the offer and the feed.
You are buying people’s time and judgement. An account run day to day by a senior strategist is priced differently from one handed to a junior working off a template. Ask who actually touches your account, not just whose name is on the proposal.
A brand new build with tracking to set up, campaigns to structure and a learning period to fund carries more upfront work than a mature account that needs steady optimisation. The intensity of the work is rarely flat across the engagement.
Put the fee next to the scope every time. A percentage that looks cheap on a small budget can become expensive as you scale, while a retainer that looks high can be good value if it includes the strategy and conversion work that a bare bones quote leaves out. Ask each agency to spell out exactly what is included, who does the work, and what happens to the fee as your spend grows or your account gets more complex. The right model is the one whose incentives line up with the decision you most need made well over the next year, whether that is disciplined efficiency, aggressive scaling, or a rebuild. For a fuller breakdown of agency pricing across the whole marketing engagement, not just PPC, see our ecommerce marketing agency cost guide. As for our own PPC pricing, the right structure depends on your spend, scope and account complexity, so we set it against your account rather than a rate card.
Most use one of three models: a percentage of your ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a hybrid that combines a base fee with a variable component. Each creates different incentives, so the model matters as much as the headline number.
Neither is universally better. Percentage of spend aligns pay with scale but can reward spending more rather than spending better. A flat retainer removes that pressure and makes costs predictable, but is priced against a defined scope. The right one depends on your goals.
Usually because they are quoting different scopes. One fee may cover only in platform management, while another includes strategy, conversion work, creative and feed optimisation. Always compare what is included and who does the work, not just the number.
Scope of work beyond the media buy. Landing pages, offers, tracking and product feeds move performance as much as bid management. A cheap fee that ignores them often costs more overall.
Our specific model and rates depend on your ad spend, account complexity, and how much strategy and creative sit alongside the media buying, so we set the structure against your account rather than quoting a single rate up front.
Tell us your budget and what you need managed, and we will show you which structure fits.