Digital Marketing Industry Pricing Survey from Credo (updated 2019)

PPC agency and consultant rates

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Every always asks us “how much does a PPC agency cost?”, to which we explain that it depends on many factors such as but not limited to their location, their size, the type of work they’re offering (services, strategy, or both), and how senior they are.

We crunched the numbers that came back from our survey to find the answer for you to begin with though. The way to interpret this data is to remember that these are averages and a starting point for a conversation, but depending on how you pull the levers a firm will be more or less expensive. We have tried to slice and dice the data for you so that you can see how this happens on average.

But once again, it will depend on the factors listed above. An agency based in New York City will usually cost more than an agency in Kalamazoo, Michigan simply because of the average price of talent.

So let’s look at the data.

Interesting takeaways from this section:

• PPC agencies on average have higher monthly minimums and retainers than consultants;
• US PPC firms are more expensive than worldwide averages (which is consistent across our dataset);
• 32.89% of our worldwide PPC firm respondents report charging under $100 per hour for their PPC work;
• Only 1.88% of our respondents report charging more than $300 an hour for their PPC work.

A quick caveat that we only noticed after putting together this section is that we did not specify in the survey whether this was client spend or the firm’s take from the project for project minimums and monthly retainers. So, the data for those sections should be viewed directionally.

Average PPC firm rates worldwide

First let’s look at the average rates of PPC firms worldwide.

PPC firm worldwide hourly rates

Here are the PPC firm worldwide hourly rates, for all company sizes:

The raw data:

PPC firm worldwide project minimums

Here are the project minimums that the PPC firms across the world reported that they take:

The raw data:

Here are the single project minimums for PPC firms worldwide, based on company size:

That chart is a bit busy, so here is the raw data:

The interesting takeaways in this section are:

• As the company gets bigger, their single project minimums go up. In fact, once a PPC firm gets above 5 their minimums are much more likely to be over $5,000.
• A full 53.95% of PPC firms worldwide take single projects under $2,000 in value.
• Only 1.97% of firms do not take one-time projects (eg audits).
• No PPC  firms in our dataset with 20+ employees only do retainers. This is different from SEO.

PPC firm worldwide retainer minimums

Here are the PPC firm worldwide monthly retainer rates as reported by our 152 respondents:

The raw data:

Interesting takeaways include:

• 54.61% of PPC firms worldwide take monthly retainers of less than $2,000;
• Only 10.52% of PPC firms worldwide have a monthly minimum above $4,000.
• 7.24% of firms say they have no minimum.

Average PPC rates in US and UK

Here are the average rates for US and UK PPC firms.

US PPC firm hourly rates

The raw data:

UK PPC firm hourly rates

Here are the average hourly rates for UK PPC firms:

The raw data:

UK PPC firms need to charge more!

Average PPC agency rates

Now let’s look at average PPC agency rates.

PPC agency worldwide hourly rates

Here are the worldwide PPC agency average hourly rates:

Raw data:

PPC agency worldwide project minimums

Here are the reported project minimums for the PPC agencies in our dataset, of which there are 112:

The raw data:

PPC agency project minimums (US)

Here are the US PPC agency project minimums from our dataset:

The raw data:

Interesting takeaways from this section are:

• US PPC agencies are only nominally more picky in the project sizes they take.
• Still a very large number (43.48%) take projects under $2,000 and 17.38% take them under $1,000.

PPC agency worldwide retainer minimums

Here are the worldwide PPC agency retainer minimums from our 112 respondents:

The raw data:

PPC agency monthly retainer minimum (US)

Here are the US PPC agency monthly retainer minimums as reported by our 69 respondents:

The raw data:

Interesting takeaways include:

• A higher percentage of US PPC agencies (compared to worldwide) have a minimum between $1,000-$2,000 per month;
• A full 13% of US PPC agencies have a monthly minimum over $5,000. This is higher than the worldwide average.

US PPC agencies are, from our data, more expensive than the worldwide averages.

Average PPC consultant rates

Now let’s look at PPC consultant rates worldwide and US specific.

PPC consultant worldwide hourly rates

Here are the PPC consultant worldwide hourly rates from our dataset containing 40 PPC consultants:

The raw data:

PPC consultant worldwide project minimums

Here are the PPC consultant worldwide project minimums, of which there were 40 respondents:

The raw data:

US PPC consultant project minimums

Here are the US PPC consultant projects minimums from our dataset, in which there were 20 respondents. Thus, we are showing the raw numbers here instead of percentages:

The raw data:

PPC consultant worldwide retainer minimums

Here are the PPC consultant worldwide monthly retainer minimums from the 40 respondents in our dataset:

The raw data: