PPC agency and consultant rates

The average PPC company worldwide charges $136.85 per hour. The average US-based PPC agency charges $151.88 per hour.

PPC agencies and solo providers tend to have more streamlined pricing for their services than SEO providers. The most common pricing setup we see is a flat monthly fee up to a certain budget spend, and above that budget level, they then charge a percentage of spend. Many PPC and paid advertising providers also charge an extra amount for every additional channel that they manage for you.

Here are the highlights of the PPC pricing results, with graphs below:

• Marketing providers worldwide from our dataset charge on average $112.22 per hour.
• The average PPC company worldwide charges $136.85 per hour.
• The average PPC agency worldwide charges $136.87 per hour
• The average PPC agency in the US charges $151.88 per hour
• 84.74% of PPC agencies charge between $50-$150/hr
• Only 9.74% charge more than $200/hr
• 29.37% (close to 1 in 3) charges less than $100/hr
• 20.45% of PPC agencies will take single projects (audits etc) under $1k
• 40.26% of PPC agencies will take single projects (audits etc) under $2k
• 15% of PPC agencies will not take single projects less than $5k
• Only 1.3% of PPC respondents do not take single projects
• 51.62% of PPC respondents have a retainer minimum under $2k/mo (this was a surprise)
• Only 11.36% of respondents have a minimum of over $5k/mo
• Only 5.84% have no minimum

At this point, I should also point out that when you are hiring for a PPC agency or consultant you need to take into account their fees in addition to your ad spend, which is separate.

When a company fails to take into account their agency’s fees in their ROI/ROAS calculations and projections, channels can end up unprofitable without the company realizing it.

I often see companies fail to do this with an in-house team as well. If a company is spending $10,000 per month and makes $20,000, that’s great. But if their PPC person costs $5,000 per month then their ROAS may be 2:1 (which is decent) but their ROI is only 1.3:1.

This makes a big difference when determining when to scale spend based on if a channel is break-even or profitable!

This page last updated on November 4, 2021 by John Doherty