Facebook Ads in Australia cost between $1.15 and $3.20 per click and between $11 and $20 per 1,000 impressions in 2026. For a Brisbane service business, the more useful number is cost per enquiry, which typically runs $15 to $60 depending on your industry, targeting, and how well your ad connects with the person seeing it.
These figures shift depending on what you're selling, who you're targeting, and whether you're running a managed campaign or just hitting Boost Post. Understanding which factors drive costs up, and which ones you can control, helps you set a budget that makes sense before you spend a dollar.
Cost per click: $1.15 to $3.20 AUD. Cost per 1,000 impressions: $11 to $20 AUD. Cost per lead: $15 to $50 AUD depending on industry. Cost per enquiry for Brisbane trades and service businesses: $15 to $60 with a well-managed campaign.
How Facebook Ads pricing works
Facebook doesn't charge a fixed rate per ad. It runs a real-time auction every time there's an opportunity to show an ad to a user. Your bid, your ad quality, and the likelihood of that user taking action all determine whether you win the placement and what you pay.
Facebook uses three pricing models.
Cost per click (CPC): You pay when someone clicks your ad. Used for campaigns driving traffic to a landing page or phone number.
Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM): You pay for every thousand times your ad appears. Typically used for brand awareness campaigns.
Cost per lead (CPL): You pay when someone completes a lead form. The most relevant model for service businesses running lead generation campaigns.
Facebook's algorithm adjusts your effective cost based on ad relevance. A highly relevant ad wins placements at a lower cost than a poor-quality ad with a higher bid. Creative quality and audience targeting matter as much as budget. Two businesses in the same industry spending the same amount can get very different results.
Facebook Ads costs in Australia in 2026
These are the average cost benchmarks for Australian advertisers in 2026.
| Metric | Australian average |
|---|---|
| Cost per click (CPC) | $1.15 to $3.20 AUD |
| Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) | $11 to $20 AUD |
| Cost per lead (CPL) | $15 to $50 AUD (varies by industry) |
Australia runs consistently higher than the US average. The global Facebook CPC average sits around US$0.87, but Australian businesses, particularly in competitive industries like professional services, healthcare, and home improvement, pay more. The Australian average CPC across industries is approximately $2.10.
Industries with higher CPC in Australia include finance and insurance ($3.50 or more per click), healthcare ($2.80 or more), and legal and professional services ($3.00 or more). Trades and service businesses in Brisbane typically pay $1.50 to $3.00 per click for lead generation campaigns targeting local suburbs.
Industries at the lower end include apparel and retail ($0.50 to $1.20 per click) and food and hospitality ($0.70 to $1.50 per click).
What determines your actual Facebook Ads cost
The benchmarks above are starting points. Your actual cost depends on several factors you can influence.
Target audience. Narrow, high-demand audiences cost more to reach. A plumber targeting homeowners in a specific Brisbane suburb pays more per click than someone targeting broad interests nationally. The narrower audience typically converts at a higher rate, which offsets the higher per-click cost.
Campaign objective. Awareness campaigns run cheaper. Lead generation campaigns, where Facebook optimises for people likely to submit a form, cost more per result. That premium is justified when the results are actual enquiries rather than impressions.
Ad placement. Ads in Facebook's main feed cost more than right-column or Stories placements. Meta's automatic placements let the algorithm find the cheapest spots for your goal.
Ad relevance and creative quality. Facebook scores your ad's relevance based on engagement signals. A high-relevance ad wins placements at a lower cost than a low-relevance ad with a higher bid. Poor creative is one of the most common reasons Facebook Ads costs more than necessary for Brisbane businesses.
Competition and seasonality. Ad costs across most industries spike from October to December as more businesses compete for the same attention. Running campaigns outside peak seasons reduces costs without reducing audience quality.
What a Facebook Ads budget looks like for a Brisbane service business
Budget determines what you can test and how fast you see results. For local service businesses in Brisbane:
$500 per month: Covers a single focused campaign with one audience and one offer. Generates enough data to learn whether the campaign is working, but not enough to run multiple tests simultaneously. A good starting point for a sole trader testing the channel before committing more.
$1,000 to $1,500 per month: Enough to run two or three audience variations and test creative. You can target multiple suburbs and run separate warm and cold audience campaigns. Most Brisbane trades businesses start seeing consistent enquiries at this level.
$2,000 or more per month: Supports separate campaigns by service type, retargeting of website visitors, and scaling of what's working. At this level you're running Facebook Ads as a lead generation system rather than an experiment.
Management fees are separate from ad spend. If you're working with an agency for Facebook Ads management in Brisbane, expect to pay $500 to $1,000 per month in fees on top of your ad budget. The total combined investment is what delivers results.
If you're still deciding between Facebook and search advertising, our comparison of Facebook Ads vs Google Ads for Brisbane tradies covers which channel suits which business type.
How to get more from your Facebook Ads spend
The difference between a campaign that generates enquiries and one that burns through budget comes down to a few controllable factors.
Match your objective to your goal. If you want phone calls and form submissions, use the Leads or Conversions objective rather than Traffic. Facebook optimises for whatever you tell it to optimise for. Choosing the wrong objective is one of the most common reasons campaigns underperform.
Send traffic to a page that converts. A well-targeted ad driving to a slow, generic website wastes the click. Your landing page needs a clear offer, a visible phone number, and a short form. Without one, you're paying for clicks that bounce.
Test creative, not just audiences. Ad creative (the image, headline, and first line of copy) has more impact on cost than most business owners realise. Two ads with the same offer to the same audience can differ by 50 percent in cost per lead based on creative alone.
Give the algorithm time. Facebook's learning phase needs approximately 50 results per ad set before it optimises reliably. Cutting campaigns after one week is usually too early to judge results. Budget for at least four to six weeks before drawing conclusions.
For the broader question of whether Facebook Ads is worth running for your type of business, read our guide on whether Facebook Ads is worth it for small Brisbane businesses.
