Google Ads or Facebook ads: which should a small business start with?

WordStream, part of the ad company LocaliQ, published a 2026 report on each platform from US campaigns, so the click and lead prices on both come from one publisher. The table puts those prices next to how each platform shows an ad and charges for it.

Google Ads vs Facebook ads, side by side#

What the 2026 prices compare#

Both reports call their figures averages and then say they are medians, the figure of the middle campaign, with half of the others paying more. LocaliQ says the search figures come from its own customers’ campaigns on Google Ads and on Microsoft Ads, which shows ads on Bing.

The two samples differ in size. The search figures pool 13,474 US campaigns that ran from April 2025 to March 2026, with at least 52 in each industry. The Facebook lead figures rest on 452 US campaigns from April 2025 to June 2026, with as few as four in an industry, so the Facebook price for any one industry can be the middle of a handful of campaigns.

A lead is not the same thing on each platform. A Facebook campaign aimed at leads can collect them in a form that opens inside the app, so people send their details without visiting a website. The search report counts as a lead any call, chat, form or email that came after a click on the ad. Neither report says how many of those leads became paying customers.

The click prices are not alike either. Google charges for a Search ad only when someone clicks it, so $5.42 is what one visitor cost. Meta usually charges for the times an ad is shown, so its $0.60 is the money spent on showing the ad, divided by the clicks it brought. A Facebook click costs about a ninth of a search click, and the person behind it was scrolling a feed, not searching.

Lead prices by industry#

Both reports give a 2026 lead price for each of these industries, from Google search and from Facebook campaigns aimed at leads:

A Facebook lead was cheaper in 13 of these 14 industries, and across all industries it cost $27.39 against $66.69 from search. Beauty and personal care was the exception, at $39.25 from search against $50.91 from Facebook. The gap was widest in real estate, where a search lead cost more than seven times a Facebook one. The Facebook report gives no 2026 lead price for lawyers, restaurants, or shops selling clothing, jewelry or gifts, while on Google a lawyer’s lead was the most expensive of all, at $131.63. The full Facebook table, and UK prices, are in What Facebook ads cost, and WordStream’s Google search prices in 23 industries, with what $100 buys, in What does Google Ads cost a small business?

A shop can compare the price of a click instead. In clothing and jewelry a search click cost $4.44 in 2026, and a click from a Facebook campaign aimed at visits cost $0.71.

Which to start with#

Start on Google when people already search for what you sell. A burst pipe, a toothache, a lawyer for a will, a part with a model number: people type these into Google when the need arrives, and Google describes Search campaigns as a way to reach “people actively searching online for your products and services”. A search ad also needs a page on your website to send people to, because Google asks for that page with every ad.

Start on Facebook and Instagram when people buy what they see. People do not search for a candle scent or a clothing brand they have never heard of, so there is no search to answer, and a photo in the feed has to reach them first. The same holds for a new kind of product, and for a business people choose by how its work looks, from cakes to haircuts. A Meta ad is built around a picture, so you need photos or video of your own work or products.

Your area rules out neither platform. Both can aim an ad at a city, a ZIP code or a radius around a place; what differs is how many people each can reach there. A search ad shows only when someone in your area searches, and a bigger budget cannot create more searches. A Meta ad can reach anyone in the area who uses Meta’s apps. So a small town with few searches for what you sell points to Meta, and a service people look up when something breaks points to Google wherever you are.

Check before you spend#

Each of these is free:

1. Search as a customer would On your phone, type the words a customer would use, with your town if you serve one place. If ads appear above the ordinary results, businesses already pay to reach people making this search.
2. Look up your nearest competitors Find the ads each one runs now in Meta’s Ad Library and Google’s Ads Transparency Center, and note which platform each competitor uses and how long its ads have run.
3. Set your ceiling for a lead The cost per lead calculator works out the most you can afford to pay for a lead from what you would spend to win a new customer and how many leads become customers. Compare it with your industry’s two prices above. If only one is under your ceiling, start there; if both are, let what you sell decide, as described above; if neither is, a typical lead on either costs more than you can pay. An industry with no Facebook price has only its Google price to compare.

Then start on one platform, and once leads come in, judge it by your own cost per lead rather than by the figures on this page.

Running both#

WordStream’s 2026 Facebook report says neither platform is better than the other and that the two work well together. On a small budget, though, splitting the money slows both down. For example, if you split $20 a day in half, at the 2026 medians the Google half buys fewer than two clicks a day and the Facebook half about 17, so each platform takes twice as long to show you a cost per lead of your own.

Add the second platform once the first brings leads below your ceiling and you want more than it can give, for example when a search campaign cannot spend its budget because nobody else in your area is searching. Each platform bills its own account, so two platforms mean two budgets and two bills.

Both platforms in Madder#

Madder drafts and runs campaigns on both platforms, in your own ad accounts. When you set it up, it suggests competitors for you to confirm, reads their ads in Meta’s Ad Library and Google’s Ads Transparency Center, and suggests starting where they run the most ads. On Meta it can aim a campaign at a town, the 10 to 50 miles around a town, or an exact spot; its Google Search campaigns cover your whole country, so in Madder only Meta can target a town. On both, campaigns are set to bring visits to your website, not yet leads or sales, so the Facebook lead prices above come from a kind of campaign Madder does not run yet. It does not target by ZIP code or by people’s interests, and makes no lead forms, call or message ads, or ads from a store’s product catalog. It creates nothing until you approve the plan it shows you; How Madder works has the steps.

Questions owners ask#