Google Ads vs Facebook Ads CPA

Intent decides it. Google captures demand that already exists: high conversion rates, higher click prices. Meta creates demand in the feed: cheaper reach, lower conversion rates, more variance from creative. The same offer usually costs less wherever its buyer already is, searching or scrolling.

Search side: the LocaliQ 2026 survey pegs average search cost per lead at $66.69 with a $5.42 average CPC▸LocaliQ · 2026 survey. Meta side: no fresh vintage-labelled benchmark exists; Meta itself publishes only auction mechanics and a $5 starting-budget floor▸Meta · checked 2026. So a published head-to-head CPA table is not honestly constructible in 2026, and this page does not fake one. What is constructible: your own two-cell test, below.

• Emergency plumber, $250 average job: demand exists only at the moment of need. Nobody discovers a burst pipe in a feed. Search wins on conversion rate; pay the $8-plus home-services CPC and take the intent (vertical page).
• $45 novelty DTC product: nobody searches for a product category they do not know exists. Discovery creates the demand; Meta wins by default and creative volume is the real cost driver (ecommerce framing).
• B2B software trial, $12k ACV: both work different stages: search converts the aware, feed builds the pool. Split by funnel job and read blended, not head-to-head.

With no history: put the first dollars where intent is provable. One workable starting shape: roughly 60% search (brand + highest-intent non-brand), 40% Meta prospecting with three distinct creative angles. Then move budget monthly toward whichever cell delivers cheaper marginal acquisitions against your ceiling, measured on backend conversions with a fixed attribution window. That is an allocation heuristic from this site, not a published benchmark, and your first 90 days of data outrank it. Per-platform mechanics: Google, Meta.