Google Ads in 2026: what 33 accounts I run show.
By Conner Crowe · Q3 2026, July to September · Published , wording updated · Download the data · Next edition January 2027
These are 33 Google Ads accounts I manage: healthcare practices, home-services companies, online stores and other local businesses. It shows what they paid and how their accounts behaved from 1 July to 30 September 2026, not what Google costs everyone. N next to a figure is how many accounts it comes from.
The short version
- I looked at 33 Google Ads accounts I manage, from July to September 2026: healthcare practices, home-services companies, online stores and other local businesses.
- A click cost the typical account $8.53 (N = 33). It varied a lot by kind of business: the online stores typically paid $1.78 (N = 4) and home services $13.27 (N = 11).
- For the 23 accounts after calls and forms whose lead counts I trust, a lead cost the typical one $119 (N = 23).
- Google listed the searches behind only about half the spend: 52% for the typical account (N = 11). Of the spend it listed, the typical account put 30.7% into searches that got 2 or more clicks and no lead or sale (N = 25).
- 6 of 29 accounts after calls and forms counted something that isn’t a lead, like a map tap or a page scroll, or counted a tap on a call button as a phone lead (N = 29).
- $8.53 typical cost per click, all 33 accounts (N = 33)
- 52% of spend had its searches listed in the search terms report, typical account (N = 11)
- 30.7% of the listed spend went on searches with 2+ clicks and no conversion, typical account (N = 25)
- 23 of 31 search accounts lost more showings to budget than to Ad Rank (N = 31)
The N changes from figure to figure because not every account can answer every question. Performance Max accounts have no search terms or Quality Score, and accounts whose lead count I can’t trust stay out of cost-per-lead and waste figures. The method sets out who is in each number, and the per-account CSV has every row I can publish.
Click prices varied by
kind of business.
A click cost the typical account $8.53 (N = 33). The online stores tracking purchases typically paid $1.78 (N = 4). Among businesses after calls and forms, healthcare paid least: the middle half of them paid $2.05 to $6.98 (N = 8). Home services typically paid $13.27 (N = 11), and the single dearest click in the sample was a roofer at $34.14 (N = 1).
So judge your click price against your own kind of business, never the 33-account figure. For how search click prices moved over four summers in the 12 accounts I manage that ran every summer from 2023 to 2026 (N = 12), see the Google Ads CPC trend.
Cost per click by kind of business, July to September 2026
Each account's cost per click for the quarter. The dot is the typical account, the bar the middle half, the line the full range. A missing mark is a figure I don't show, for the reason under the chart.
Three of the four stores put 92% or more of spend into Performance Max. The mixed group has the widest spread: a consumer retail account at $1.17 sits in the same group as a professional-services account at $20.12. Where a figure says not shown, it would give back the number of an account I don’t show as its own row.
The numbers behind the chart
| Kind of business | N | Typical cost per click | Full range | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Healthcare | 8 | Not shown | $1.31 to $7.88 | $2.05 to $6.98 |
| Home services | 11 | $13.27 | $7.73 to $34.14 | $11.93 to $19.48 |
| Ecommerce, purchase-tracked | 4 | $1.78 | Not shown | Not shown |
| Other lead gen: local, retail, legal and B2B | 10 | $10.47 | $1.17 to $20.12 | $8.66 to $14.80 |
| All accounts | 33 | $8.53 | $0.82 to $34.14 | $3.36 to $13.27 |
The middle half is shown only where N is 4 or more, using the inclusive method.
A lead cost $119,
where the count was honest.
For the 23 accounts after calls and forms whose lead counts I trust, the typical account paid $119 a lead, and the middle half of them paid $75 to $210 (N = 23). Healthcare leads typically cost $40 (N = 6), home services $163 (N = 9) and the mixed group $194 (N = 8).
I left 6 of the 29 lead-gen accounts out: five because their lead count was broken, padded or full of things that aren’t leads, one because it logged too few leads to price. Those six still count in the findings on what gets counted.
Cost per lead by kind of business, clean lead counts only
One wide range pulls the axis out: a single account at $765. Read each group against its own row.
The numbers behind the chart
| Kind of business | N | Typical cost per lead | Full range | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Healthcare | 6 | $40 | $6 to $119 | $12 to $67 |
| Home services | 9 | $163 | Not shown | $112 to $196 |
| Other lead gen: local, retail, legal and B2B | 8 | $194 | $24 to $765 | $114 to $287 |
| All clean lead gen | 23 | $119 | $6 to $765 | $75 to $210 |
A lead here is the action the account counts: a tracked call, a form or a Local Services lead. It isn’t a booked job, and the gap between the two is the subject of the lead quality library. If yours is climbing, split the click price from the conversion rate first.
The home-services $163 comes from nine accounts (N = 9). I kept one account in with a flag, because 39% of its phone-call conversions were click-to-call taps rather than connected calls (N = 1). I left out two accounts whose lead counts can’t be priced: one converted 0.2% of its clicks, and one counted scroll and form-start events. Four of the nine include Local Services leads in their account total, and the Local Services section splits those out. Cost per lead by trade for the same quarter, with the July edition alongside, is in the home services benchmark.
The healthcare low end of $6 is a specialist practice that counts every call from an ad as a conversion, which likely includes existing patients (N = 1). The mixed group runs from $24 to $765 because it holds eight unrelated businesses, from consumer retail to professional services, and two of them logged fewer than 10 conversions in the quarter. Read that row as eight separate examples, not a typical value. The fuller healthcare breakdown is in the healthcare Google Ads benchmark.
Google showed me the searches
behind about half the spend.
The search terms report is Google’s list of what people typed before they clicked an ad. In the 11 accounts where my pull returned every row, the searches it listed covered a typical 52% of account spend (N = 11). The range was 20% to 71%, and the middle half sat between 48% and 56%. The rest of the money bought clicks on searches the report never listed.
Google’s own help page gives the reason: search terms without enough query activity are left out to meet its data privacy standards (Google Ads Help, About the search terms report, read 3 October 2026). I only counted complete pulls here. The other accounts either hit the 1,000-row cap on my query or had no completeness check, so their visible share is a floor rather than a reading.
Every negative keyword you add is chosen from that visible half. The waste figure in the next section applies only to it.
Nearly a third of the spend I could
see bought no conversions.
Of the search-term spend Google listed, the typical account put 30.7% into searches that got 2 or more clicks and no conversion in the quarter (N = 25). The range was 10.0% to 56.5%, and the middle half sat between 23.9% and 34.6%.
Listed search spend on 2+ click, zero-conversion searches
Share of the search-term spend each account could see, July to September 2026.
The numbers behind the chart
| Kind of business | N | Typical zero-conversion share | Full range | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Healthcare | 6 | 26.5% | 10.0% to 41.0% | 17.0% to 31.3% |
| Home services | 9 | 27.2% | Not shown | 23.9% to 34.0% |
| Ecommerce, Search campaigns only | 2 | Not shown | Not shown | N under 4 |
| Other lead gen: local, retail, legal and B2B | 8 | 31.9% | 23.9% to 56.5% | 28.0% to 34.7% |
| All clean accounts with term data | 25 | 30.7% | 10.0% to 56.5% | 23.9% to 34.6% |
Two caveats before you quote it. A quarter is short, so a search with 2 clicks and no conversion in July to September might convert in October. And waste is only as real as the tracking behind it. An account that counts calls and ignores forms will show its form-driving searches as waste. Ten of the 25 accounts in this number count calls only, so read their share as a ceiling. The six excluded accounts are out of it entirely.
The wasted-spend number people still quote is ten years old. Disruptive Advertising had audited 2,167 accounts as of 1 March 2016 and put the median account’s wasted spend at 75.8% (Disruptive Advertising, 2016). That audit read waste from the search terms report too. Today Google leaves low-volume searches out of that report, so any waste figure covers only the spend it shows. Mine is a different measure: searches with 2 or more clicks, inside one quarter, in the visible half of spend only, read through the Google Ads API.
The six kinds of search that kept showing up
- Competitor business names. Someone searching for a named rival, sometimes with a city attached. The most common pattern in the healthcare accounts and one retail account.
- Manufacturer and product-brand names. A model or brand query from a shopper comparing one exact product, often one the advertiser doesn’t stock.
- Cost research. Questions in the shape of “how much does X cost per square foot”. Early research with no contact intent in the quarter.
- Out-of-area searches. Terms naming places outside the service area, which location targeting let through.
- “Free” and rate shopping. Free-service searches, plus rate and financing research.
- Navigational searches for another provider. Someone trying to reach a different clinic, hospital scheduling line or showroom, who clicked the ad on the way.
If you want to know where your own account leaks, my free Google Ads audit ranks the top three leaks by spend impact, and the wasted ad spend library covers each leak in turn.
Most accounts hit their
budget before their rank.
When an ad doesn’t show on a search it could have, Google gives one of two reasons: the budget ran out, or the ad’s rank was too low. In 23 of 31 accounts running search ads, budget cost them more showings than rank did (N = 31). Taking the middle account on each measure separately: 33.9% of eligible searches shown, 37.9% lost to budget and 26.2% lost to rank (N = 31).
Three accounts reported impression share at Google’s floor, which it shows as 10% when the real figure is below that, so their share is an upper bound. The eight accounts where rank loss was larger included two lead-gen accounts that carry a tracking flag and one of the stores. If rank is your bigger loss, budget isn’t what’s holding you back, and the raise-bids math shows whether a higher bid pays.
Accounts short on budget spent more of it in the morning
Twenty lead-gen accounts reported spend by hour (N = 20). The 12 that lost 35% or more of their showings to budget typically put 60% of the quarter’s spend into the hours from 7am to noon (hour blocks 7 through 11), account time (N = 12). The 8 that lost less typically put 43.5% there (N = 8).
| Accounts that | N | Typical spend share, hours 7 to 11 | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lost 35% or more of impression share to budget | 12 | 60% | 26% to 67% |
| Lost under 35% of impression share to budget | 8 | 43.5% | 29% to 48% |
Three accounts break the split. An account that only runs 8am to 6pm landed at 48%. A small account on manual CPC bidding lost 66% to budget and put only 26% of spend into the morning, with 39% in midnight to 6am instead. The other nine budget-capped accounts landed between 56% and 67%. My read is that a capped daily budget gets spent on the first searches of the day, which leaves less for the afternoon. Check your own hour report before you decide where your money goes.
Over a third of keyword spend
had no Quality Score.
Quality Score is Google’s 1 to 10 grade for a keyword’s ad and landing page. The typical account had 38% of its keyword spend on keywords with no score at all (N = 31). The middle half of accounts had between 19.5% and 70% of keyword spend unscored.
Good scores were rare. The typical account had 4% of keyword spend on keywords scored 7 to 10 (N = 31), and 9 of the 31 had no keyword spend at all in that band. At the low end, the typical account had 5% of keyword spend on scores of 1 to 3 (N = 31), but 4 of 31 had 49% or more there. The two Performance Max-only stores report no keyword Quality Score and aren’t in this N.
When more than a third of the spend has no score, Quality Score can’t tell you much about an account. I use it to find the worst keywords, not to grade the whole thing.
Desktop only won
for online stores.
For businesses after calls and forms, mobile turned clicks into leads at a higher rate than desktop in 21 of 23 accounts with clean tracking (N = 23), though in 3 of those 21 the gap was 0.2 points or less. On all four stores tracking purchases it went the other way: desktop clicks cost more than mobile clicks and desktop converted at a higher rate, though one store had too few purchases to read (N = 4).
The two lead-gen exceptions were a general-care healthcare account, where desktop converted at 10.1% against 5.2% on mobile (N = 1), and a fencing account where the two sat 0.2 points apart (N = 1). Part of the mobile lead is built into the tracking: 10 of these 23 accounts count phone calls only, and calls come from phones.
All the mobile and desktop findings
| Finding | Accounts | N | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile converted at a higher rate than desktop | Lead gen, clean tracking | 23 | 21 of 23 |
| Mobile clicks cost more than desktop clicks | Lead gen, both CPCs reported | 21 | 16 of 21 |
| Median mobile share of clicks | Lead gen, clean tracking | 23 | 83.8% |
| Desktop clicks cost more than mobile clicks | Ecommerce, purchase-tracked | 4 | All 4 |
| Desktop converted at a higher rate than mobile | Ecommerce, purchase-tracked | 4 | All 4 (one on too few purchases to read) |
One in five counted
the wrong thing.
6 of 29 accounts after calls and forms told Google to count something that isn’t a lead, or a click standing in for a call (N = 29). That matters because, where an account uses a conversion-based bid strategy, Google bids toward whatever the account counts, so those actions shape who the ads go looking for.
- 3 of 29 counted map-direction taps, store visits, page scrolls or someone starting a form (N = 29). They’re out of the cost-per-lead figures.
- 3 of 29 counted a tap on a call or text button, or a click on the phone number, as a phone lead (N = 29). They stay in with a flag, because the click sat alongside real calls and forms.
- 12 of 29 counted phone calls only, with no form or website lead (N = 29).
- 0 of 4 stores counted cart, page-view or engagement actions as a purchase (N = 4).
The clearest cases, each N = 1. In one local retail account, 72% of the leads it counted were map-direction taps and store visits. One home-services account logged more conversions than clicks, a 114% conversion rate, every one of them a 50% scroll event or someone starting to type in a form. In another, 39% of phone leads were click-to-call taps. A fourth counted only calls from ads and converted 0.2% of its clicks.
Google’s “all conversions” column, which adds up every action an account tracks, is no help either. In lead gen it typically ran 2.3x the leads the account counted (N = 22), and above 10x in 5 of 22. In the stores it typically ran 373x the purchases (N = 4), because analytics engagement events pile into it. None of the four stores counted cart or page-view events as a purchase, a contrast with the ecommerce tracking accuracy benchmark, where 2 of 3 stores counted cart or checkout events in an earlier window. If any of this sounds like your account, the conversion tracking diagnostics walk through how to confirm it.
All the conversion-counting findings
| Finding | N | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Counted a non-lead action or a click proxy as a primary conversion | 29 | 6 of 29 |
| of which: map-direction taps, store visits, scroll depth or form starts | 29 | 3 of 29 |
| of which: click-to-call taps, text-button clicks or phone-number clicks counted as phone leads | 29 | 3 of 29 |
| Optimized on phone calls only, with no form or website lead action as primary | 29 | 12 of 29 |
| All conversions divided by primary conversions, lead gen, median | 22 | 2.3x (range 1.0x to 504x) |
| Lead-gen accounts where all conversions ran above 10x primary | 22 | 5 of 22 |
| All conversions divided by primary conversions, purchase-tracked ecommerce | 4 | Median 373x |
| Purchase accounts counting cart, page-view or engagement actions as primary | 4 | 0 of 4 |
In 4 accounts, Local Services leads
cost a fraction of search leads.
Local Services Ads are Google’s pay-per-lead ads for local service businesses. Four home-services accounts ran both (N = 4). In every one, a search lead cost more than a Local Services lead in the same account and quarter: 3.8x to 14.3x as much (N = 4). In the 3 accounts I can show as rows, a Local Services lead cost $31.65 to $45.59 against $137.68 to $562.28 for a search lead (N = 3). Three of the four gave Local Services 6% of spend or less (N = 4).
| Trade | N | Local Services cost per lead | Search cost per lead | Search costs this many times more | Share of spend on Local Services |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Painting | 1 | $31.65 | $137.68 | 4.4x | 6% |
| Pest control | 1 | $45.59 | $174.14 | 3.8x | 1% |
| Roofing | 1 | $39.27 | $562.28 | 14.3x | 1% |
One of the four is an account I don’t show as a row, so the table has three rows and no typical figure. Don’t read this as Local Services beating search like for like. A Local Services lead is a call or message Google charges for, while a search conversion is whatever the account tracks, so the two counts use different definitions. And the Local Services side is thin: in the pest control and roofing accounts it ran at 1% of spend, too small to lean on. How many Local Services leads arrive also depends on how many Google sends, so more budget doesn’t always buy more. What it does show is that in all four accounts, the source with the lower cost per lead, as each counts it, got the smaller share of spend (N = 4), which is worth a look if you run both. The trade-by-trade version is in the home services benchmark.
If you run Google Ads,
here’s what I’d check.
- Compare your prices with your own kind of business. The online stores typically paid $1.78 a click (N = 4) and home services $13.27 (N = 11). The overall figure tells you little about yours.
- Check what your account counts as a lead. 6 of 29 accounts here counted something that isn’t one (N = 29), and on conversion-based bidding Google bids toward whatever you count. How to confirm yours.
- Read the search terms report knowing it’s half the story. Cut the searches that never turn into leads, but remember Google hides the rest. The wasted ad spend library covers each leak.
- Before raising bids, check why your ad isn’t showing. 23 of 31 accounts here lost more showings to budget than to rank (N = 31). If budget is your limit, a higher bid won’t fix it. The raise-bids math.
Who is in each number,
and how sure to be.
Source and window
Every figure comes from read-only Google Ads API queries on accounts I have managed. No client is ever named. Nothing was written to any account. The window is fixed: to , in each account’s own time zone. Accounts that were closed or cancelled returned no data and aren’t in the sample. These are accounts I manage, so how I run them is part of every number. Read them as what these businesses paid, not as a measure of all of Google.
Inclusion and exclusion
- Minimum spend. An account needed at least $300 of spend in the window to be included. All 33 cleared it.
- The 33. 8 healthcare, 11 home services, 4 purchase-tracked ecommerce, and 10 other lead-gen accounts: 6 local and retail, 2 law firms and 2 B2B. Law firms and B2B sit inside the other lead-gen group, because at N = 2 a group figure would give back one account’s number.
- Accounts without a row. Some accounts belong to clients I name elsewhere on this site. They count in every typical figure and total here, but I don’t show them as their own row, because a row would publish a named client’s numbers. Ten of the 33 are held back that way, so the CSV has 23 rows. Where a group figure would let you work one of them back out from the rows I do show, the cell says not shown.
- Excluded accounts. 6 of the 29 lead-gen accounts are excluded from cost-per-lead and waste figures: one flagged as undertracking, one with too few leads in the quarter to price, one flagged as over-counting, one that behaves like undertracking on review, and two counting map-direction taps or store visits as primary conversions. All six are counted in the tracking findings.
- Flagged, not excluded. Three accounts count a click proxy (a click-to-call tap, a text-button click or a phone-number click) among their phone leads. The rule I held: a click counted as a phone lead next to real calls and forms stays in with a flag; a non-lead action counted as a lead takes the account out. Each flagged account is marked in the CSV.
- Search terms visibility. Only accounts where the pull returned every row (under the 1,000-row cap) count toward the 52% figure.
- Performance Max-only accounts. Two stores have no search terms, keyword Quality Score or Search impression share, so they drop out of those Ns.
Definitions
- Lead or conversion. The primary conversions column, meaning the actions the account counts toward bidding. For lead gen that’s tracked calls, forms and Local Services leads. For ecommerce it’s purchases.
- Cost per click and cost per lead. Account cost divided by clicks, and by primary conversions, for the full quarter.
- Zero-conversion term spend. Spend on search terms with 2 or more clicks and zero conversions in the window, as a share of all spend visible in the search terms report.
- Visible share. Spend on the rows the search terms report returned, divided by total account spend.
- Impression share. Search impression share and the shares lost to budget and to rank, spend-weighted across each account’s Search campaigns.
- Quality Score bands. Share of keyword spend on keywords scored 1 to 3, 4 to 6, 7 to 10, or with no score reported.
- Morning share. Share of the quarter’s spend in hour blocks 7 through 11, account time.
How the typical figures were taken
Every typical figure is a median of per-account values, unweighted, so a large account counts the same as a small one. Quartiles use the inclusive method and appear only where N is 4 or more. Where N is under 4, no group figure is stated. Single-account figures are labelled N = 1 where they appear.
Spend, revenue, conversion values and budgets aren’t published, and no business is named. For ecommerce, no per-account return on ad spend, order value, order count or product mix is published. Descriptors are kept general on purpose, because a precise one can identify an account against the case studies elsewhere on this site. Published under the benchmark rules.
Words used here
- Cost per click (CPC)
- What a business pays Google each time someone clicks its ad.
- Cost per lead (CPL)
- What the account spent divided by the leads it got.
- Lead, or conversion
- The action an account tells Google to count and bid toward: a call, a form, a Local Services lead or, for a store, a purchase. Not a booked job.
- Lead-gen account
- An account after calls and forms, not online sales.
- Search terms report
- Google’s list of what people typed before they clicked an ad. Low-volume searches are left out.
- Impression share
- Out of all the searches an ad could have shown on, the share where it did show.
- Ad Rank
- Google’s score for where an ad can show, set from the bid and the ad’s quality.
- Quality Score
- Google’s 1 to 10 grade for a keyword’s ad and landing page. Many keywords get no score.
- Local Services Ads (LSA)
- Google’s pay-per-lead ads for local service businesses, usually shown at the top of results.
- Performance Max
- A Google campaign type that runs across search, YouTube, Gmail and more, and reports little about searches or keywords.
- Typical
- The middle account when you line them all up from lowest to highest. With an even number, it’s the average of the two in the middle. Statisticians call it the median.
- Middle half
- Line the accounts up and drop the bottom quarter and the top quarter. The middle half is the range of what’s left.
- N
- How many accounts a number is based on.
Figures you can quote.
Each line carries its scope, so it stays accurate when it’s copied on its own. Link this page when you use one.
- Across 33 Google Ads accounts managed by Conner Crowe, the median cost per click was $8.53 in Q3 2026, 1 July to 30 September. Managed accounts, not a market measure (N = 33).
- Across 23 lead-gen Google Ads accounts managed by Conner Crowe with clean tracking, the median cost per lead was $119 in Q3 2026, 1 July to 30 September (N = 23).
- In the 11 Google Ads accounts managed by Conner Crowe with a complete Q3 2026 pull, the search terms report covered a median 52% of account spend (N = 11).
- In 25 Google Ads accounts managed by Conner Crowe, a median 30.7% of the search-term spend Google showed went to terms with 2 or more clicks and zero conversions in Q3 2026 (N = 25).
- In 23 of 31 Google Search accounts managed by Conner Crowe, impression share lost to budget was larger than impression share lost to Ad Rank in Q3 2026 (N = 31).
- Across 31 Google Search accounts managed by Conner Crowe, a median 38% of keyword spend ran on keywords with no Quality Score reported in Q3 2026 (N = 31).
- Mobile converted at a higher rate than desktop in 21 of 23 lead-gen Google Ads accounts managed by Conner Crowe with clean tracking in Q3 2026 (N = 23).
- 6 of 29 lead-gen Google Ads accounts managed by Conner Crowe counted a non-lead action or a click proxy as a primary conversion in Q3 2026 (N = 29).
How to cite
Crowe, C. (2026). Google Ads Benchmarks 2026: What 33 Live Accounts Show (Q3 2026). Edition: Q3 2026, published 3 October 2026, updated 30 October 2026. https://connercrowe.com/benchmarks/google-ads-account-benchmarks/
Please link this page rather than a screenshot of it, so readers land on the N and the method. The per-account data is in the Q3 2026 CSV: anonymized rows only, one per account for 23 of the 33, with code, descriptor, N and window. Data licensed CC BY 4.0, attribution to Conner Crowe with a link. License terms.
Common questions.
What is the average cost per click for Google Ads in 2026?
What is a good cost per lead on Google Ads in 2026?
How much Google Ads spend is wasted?
How much of my Google Ads spend shows up in the search terms report?
Is my Google Ads campaign limited by budget or by Ad Rank?
Do mobile clicks convert better than desktop clicks on Google Ads?
More first-party benchmarks
- Healthcare Google Ads benchmarks The healthcare accounts in this sample, broken down further.
- Meta Ads CPM by placement The same quarter on the Meta side.
- Home services cost per lead by trade Trade-by-trade cost per lead and the tracking failures behind it.
- AI answers field report How often AI assistants name a business, and get its facts right.
- All benchmarks Every report, and the five rules each one is held to.
I will tell you which
of your numbers are real.
Add me as a read-only user and I'll write the audit myself: your account read against these numbers: how much spend the search terms report shows, what your primary conversions count, and whether budget or rank is your ceiling, 5 to 7 pages, back within 24 hours of access. No call needed. If you'd rather talk first, a call is open too.