Average CPA on Google Ads

Google publishes no average CPA. Costs are set per auction; you set the budget and the target. The best published proxy is the LocaliQ 2026 search-ads survey: $66.69 average cost per lead overall, ranging from about $27 (arts) to $132 (legal) by industry.

Auction-based pay-per-click; advertiser sets own bids and daily budget (target CPA via Smart Bidding). No rate card, no stated minimum spend.Google's pricing page now routes to its bidding tools and frames Smart Bidding as AI setting bids per individual auction▸Google · checked 2026. So any "official Google CPA benchmark" you see quoted is third-party survey data, and the survey's vintage is the first thing to check. Verified 2026-08-01.

Scope note: the survey covers Google Ads and Microsoft Ads search campaigns▸LocaliQ · 2026 survey, not display, Performance Max in isolation, or social. Cost per lead is its conversion-cost metric.

On search, your realized CPA is CPC ÷ conversion rate; automated bidding moves the CPC side per auction against your target▸Google Help · checked 2026. Set the target from your history and your break-even ceiling, not from the survey: the survey tells you whether your market is a $30 or a $130 neighbourhood, nothing more. Full strategy mechanics and failure modes on Target CPA. Cross-engine arbitrage against the same keywords: Google vs Microsoft. Search-vs-social decision: Google vs Meta.