Google Ads cost-per-click varies enormously by category in Australia — from under a dollar to well over $50 — and most of that variation is explained by how competitive and high-value the category is, not by anything arbitrary.
Why costs vary so much
Google Ads runs on an auction. The more advertisers bidding for a given search term, and the more valuable a conversion is worth to them, the higher the cost per click gets bid up. Legal and finance categories have extremely high-value conversions (a single client can be worth tens of thousands of dollars), which supports cost-per-click well past $50 for the most competitive terms. Low-value, low-competition categories can sit under $2.
Rough ranges by category type
- High-value professional services (legal, finance): often $15–$60+ per click on competitive terms
- Trades and home services: typically $5–$25 per click, higher for emergency/urgent terms
- Healthcare and allied health: typically $3–$15 per click
- eCommerce (Shopping ads specifically): often $0.30–$3 per click, varies hugely by product category
- B2B/professional services: typically $5–$20 per click depending on how specialised the service is
These are rough, illustrative ranges, not a quote — your actual cost per click depends on your specific keywords, quality score and competition at the time.
What actually determines your budget
Cost-per-click tells you what a click costs, not what you should spend. The right budget depends on: how many clicks you realistically need per month to generate enough conversions, your conversion rate, and what a converted customer is worth to your business. A $3,000 monthly budget in a $2 CPC category buys 1,500 clicks; the same budget in a $30 CPC category buys 100.
The mistake we see most often
Businesses set a budget based on what feels affordable, without checking whether that budget can produce a meaningful number of clicks in their actual cost-per-click category. A $500 monthly budget in a $40 CPC legal category buys around 12 clicks — not enough data to learn anything, let alone convert reliably. Budget needs to be sized to the category, not to a comfortable round number.
What to do before committing a budget
Research the realistic cost-per-click for your specific terms (Google’s own Keyword Planner gives a rough estimate), calculate how many clicks your budget actually buys, and sanity-check whether that volume is enough to produce a meaningful number of conversions given your expected conversion rate.
Use our Google Ads ROI Calculator to model this against your own numbers, or see our Google Ads service and our pricing page for what a properly run campaign actually costs.
