The short answer: You set your own budget for Facebook and Instagram ads, and you can start with a few pounds a day. One large UK dataset puts the typical cost per click at about £1 to £1.50. To get enough results to learn from, most small businesses need to spend a few hundred pounds a month with Meta. If you want someone to make the ads and run them, Northern charges £300 to £600 a month to manage paid social campaigns, or £600 to £1,200 a month when we also make the images, video and copy as part of our digital marketing work. Your ad spend is paid to Meta directly.
How does Facebook and Instagram ad pricing work?
Facebook and Instagram ads are both run through Meta Ads Manager. One campaign can show on both. Like Google, Meta runs an auction each time there's space for an ad. It weighs up your bid, how likely people are to respond to your ad, and how good the ad is.
You choose a budget in one of two ways:
- Daily budget: the average amount you're happy to spend each day.
- Lifetime budget: a total for the whole campaign, spread over the dates you choose.
- have something people want when they see it, such as a product, an offer or an event
- can show it well in a picture or a short video
- make it easy to act straight away, with a simple form or a fast landing page
- Decide what result you want, such as an enquiry or a sale.
- Estimate what each result might cost. If you don't know, start with £20 to £40 per lead as a guess and adjust.
- Aim for enough results to learn from. Meta's system needs regular conversions to work out who to show ads to.
- Multiply the two. Twenty leads at £30 each is £600 a month.
- Ad management: £300 to £600 a month. We plan, build and run your paid social campaigns, alongside any Google Ads, as part of our PPC service.
- Ads plus content creation: £600 to £1,200 a month. We also make the ad creative: images, short videos and copy, made for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. This sits within our digital marketing service.
You also pick a goal, such as website traffic, leads or sales. Meta then shows your ads to the people it thinks are most likely to do that thing. Meta publishes its own guidance on minimum budgets, which change by currency and goal.
How much does a click cost on Facebook in the UK?
The most useful UK figure we've found comes from SuperAds, which analyses a large set of Meta ad accounts. For Great Britain, across all industries, it puts the median cost per click at roughly £1.18 between July 2025 and July 2026. The lowest month was October 2025 at £1.02 and the highest was December 2025 at £1.49 (SuperAds UK Facebook CPC benchmarks).
That December peak is normal. Big retailers pile in before Christmas, so everyone pays more to be seen. If you can, plan bigger pushes for quieter months.
For comparison, LocaliQ's 2026 benchmarks, based on US campaigns, put the average cost per click at $0.60 for traffic campaigns and $1.80 for lead campaigns (LocaliQ Facebook advertising benchmarks). These are typical market figures, not a price list. Your costs will depend on your audience, your offer and your ads.
How much does a lead cost from Facebook ads?
LocaliQ puts the average cost per lead at $27.39 for campaigns using the leads objective in 2026 (LocaliQ). Again, that's US data across all industries, so use it as a rough marker.
Social ads usually cost less per click than Google Ads. That's because the people seeing them aren't searching for you. They're scrolling. So social ads work best when you:
If people only buy what you sell when they have a problem, such as a boiler repair, search ads on Google often work better. Many businesses use both: Google to catch people searching now, and social to reach people before they search.
How much should a small business spend on Facebook ads each month?
There's no single right number, but here's a sensible way to work it out.
A budget that only buys a handful of results a week makes it hard for Meta to learn, and your costs bounce around. It's often better to run one well-funded campaign than spread the same money across five.
Run it for at least four to six weeks before you judge it. Early results are often more expensive while the system learns.
What does it cost to have Facebook and Instagram ads made and run for you?
The ad spend is only part of the cost. Someone has to make the ads, set up the campaigns, test what works and report on it. That can be you, a freelancer or an agency.
Northern offers two levels, and both are about ads that bring in sales:
To be clear about what we don't do: we don't offer social media management. We won't post on your page every day or reply to comments. We make content and run ads that are built to bring in customers, and we report on the sales they bring in, not likes.
If you want a bigger piece of video, such as a brand film you can cut into lots of ads, that's a videography project, charged at £900 to £1,800 a day.
What makes Facebook ads cost more or less?
Your creative
The ad itself is the biggest lever. A clear, eye-catching image or video that people stop for will lower your costs. Tired creative that people have seen ten times pushes costs up.
Your audience
Very narrow audiences can be expensive. Very broad ones can waste money. Most small businesses do well with a clear location and letting Meta find the right people within it.
The time of year
Costs rise in November and December. Retail and gift businesses need to plan for this.
Your landing page and tracking
If your page is slow or confusing, you pay for clicks that never convert. And without the Meta Pixel and conversion tracking set up properly, Meta can't learn who your buyers are.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum budget for Facebook ads?
Meta lets you start with a small daily budget, and the exact minimum depends on your currency and campaign goal. In practice, a few pounds a day is enough to test, but most businesses need a few hundred pounds a month to get reliable results.
Are Instagram ads more expensive than Facebook ads?
They're bought through the same system, Meta Ads Manager, and one campaign can run on both. Costs vary by audience and ad format. Letting Meta choose where to show your ads usually gives the lowest overall cost.
How much does a Facebook ad click cost in the UK?
SuperAds data puts the UK median at roughly £1.18 per click between July 2025 and July 2026, ranging from about £1.02 to £1.49 by month. Your own cost depends on your industry, audience and creative.
Do I pay Meta or the agency for my ads?
With Northern, you pay Meta directly from your own ad account. Our fee for making and running the ads is separate, so you always see what Meta charges.
Do you offer social media management?
No. Northern makes social content and runs social ads designed to bring in sales. We don't run day-to-day posting or community management.
How long before Facebook ads work?
Give a new campaign four to six weeks. The first couple of weeks are often more expensive while Meta learns who responds.
Want to know what your ads should cost?
We help businesses in Newcastle, Sunderland and across the UK turn social ad spend into sales. Tell us what you sell and who buys it, and we'll suggest a starting budget and the kind of ads to test. Get in touch.
