Pricing
A flat fee by spend band, a setup fee, and a £150 audit
Three management tiers: £249 a month for ad spend up to £1,000, £399 up to £3,000, £599 up to £8,000, with a 3-month minimum and then monthly. A £199 one-off setup when an account is built or rebuilt. A £150 written audit for accounts already spending, credited against setup. One business per sector and area on the monthly plans, confirmed personally in the reply.
Spend up to £1,000 a month
Starter
Spend up to £1,000 a month: one Search account, one or two campaigns
£249 /month
- Search Terms report read every week, negatives added the same day
- Keywords, match types and responsive search ads maintained
- Conversion actions checked monthly, calls and forms counted
- A written monthly report: spend, cost per lead, what changed, what is next
Spend up to £3,000 a month
Growth
Spend up to £3,000 a month: Search plus Shopping, Performance Max or remarketing
£399 /month
- Everything in Starter
- Shopping feed or Performance Max asset groups managed alongside Search
- Landing page changes requested from the data, with the copy written by us
- Microsoft Ads import and upkeep when the numbers justify it
Spend up to £8,000 a month
Scale
Spend up to £8,000 a month: several campaign types, locations or product lines
£599 /month
- Everything in Growth
- Weekly bid strategy and budget review across campaign types
- Offline conversion import from your CRM, so bidding learns from real customers
- A monthly call on the report, and experiments run with a written hypothesis
Prices exclude VAT. Spend above £8,000 a month is quoted. Ad spend is paid to Google or Microsoft on your card, never marked up.
Side by side
What changes between the tiers
| Starter | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly ad spend | Up to £1,000 | Up to £3,000 | Up to £8,000 |
| Campaign types | Search | Plus Shopping, PMax or remarketing | Several types or locations |
| Microsoft Ads | No | When the numbers justify it | Included |
| Landing page changes | Recommended | Made by us | Made by us, with experiments |
| Offline conversion import | No | No | From your CRM |
One-off, no retainer
Setup once, or an audit first
At the start of a monthly plan
Account setup: £199
One-off, at the start of a monthly plan: the account built or rebuilt, tracking proven, the first campaigns live.
- Account structure: campaigns, ad groups, keywords and match types agreed in writing before anything spends
- Conversion tracking installed and tested: forms, calls, purchases, with Consent Mode
- Negative keyword lists seeded from your sector and from the Search Terms of any old campaigns
- Responsive search ads written for each ad group, with assets (sitelinks, callouts, call assets)
- Location, language, ad schedule and device settings checked against the business, not the defaults
- Auto-apply recommendations switched off; a billing check so spend goes to Google on your own card
Stand-alone, credited against setup
PPC audit: £150, 5 working days
A written review of an account that is already spending, for a business that wants to know where the money goes before it changes anything. If you go on to a monthly plan, the £150 comes off the £199 setup fee.
Does it pay?
Your spend, your CPC, your conversion rate
Type in your spend, your cost per click, the share of clicks that become an enquiry, what a customer is worth and how many enquiries you win. The fee is picked from the spend band, so the cost per enquiry shown is ad spend plus our fee.
- Clicks a month at that CPC
- 667
- Enquiries a month
- 33.3
- Cost per enquiry, spend plus the Starter fee
- £37
- Customers those enquiries become
- 13.3
- Revenue against £1,249 all-in
- £5,333
- Return multiple, and enquiries to break even
- 4.3x / 8
Your figures, your maths; the fee is the Starter tier for a spend of £1,000. Nothing here predicts the auction: your real CPC and conversion rate come from the account. It shows what the ads plus the fee have to produce to be worth it.
What moves the fee
The spend band, and nothing else
The fee follows the amount of money the account handles each month, because that is what sets the hours. It does not follow the number of keywords, the sector, or how competitive your searches are; a hard sector takes longer, not more fee. And it does not follow success: an account whose cost per lead halves pays the same next month, which is why our reports contain the word “reduce” as often as “increase”.
The full argument, and what to ask any agency about its fee, is in our guide to management fees versus a percentage of spend.
Every tier includes
The non-negotiables
- The Search Terms report read every week, negatives added the same day
- Conversion actions proven at setup and checked every month
- Auto-apply recommendations off; Google's suggestions read and declined in writing
- The account in your name, our access removable in one click
- A written monthly report with what we changed, what we refused and what is next
- One named person who answers the phone
- One business per sector and area
Not included, on purpose
What you will not find in the fee
Some things sit outside every tier because they are a different product, or because most accounts do not need them.
- Ad spend. Paid to Google and Microsoft on your card. No mark-up, no handling fee, no minimum.
- A new landing page built from scratch. Changes to existing pages are on Growth and above; a new build is quoted, because it depends on what your site can host.
- Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok and Amazon advertising. Different auctions, different skills.
- A cost-per-lead guarantee. Nobody controls the auction. We guarantee the routine and show the numbers monthly.
Questions about pricing
Is my sector and area still available?
Probably, and the reply to the quote form confirms it. One business per sector and area on the monthly plans, confirmed personally in the reply; the first to start keeps it.
What happens when my spend crosses into the next band?
The fee moves to the next tier from the following month, and we tell you before it happens, in the report, with the impression share numbers that made us recommend the extra spend.
Why is there a setup fee?
Because building or rebuilding an account properly takes most of a working week: structure agreed in writing, conversion tracking installed and proven, negatives seeded, ads written, settings checked against the business. £199 once. If you have paid for the audit, the £150 comes off it.
Why a three-month minimum?
Because Smart Bidding needs a month of clean conversion data before its numbers mean anything. After three months it is monthly, and you leave with a month's notice and the account intact.
Can I pay for the audit and do the changes myself?
Yes. The £150 audit is a stand-alone product, and the change list is written so that you or your current agency can apply it.
Tell us your spend. The tier, the fee and the first changes come back in writing.
Your monthly spend and your sector are enough for the fee. Add the customer ID and the reply also has the first three things we would change.