Whether Facebook ads pay comes down to one comparison, and you can do most of it before you spend anything. You need three numbers of your own and one published range.
The sum that decides it#
- What is a new customer worth to you? Take what they pay over the time they stay, less what it costs you to serve them.
- How many enquiries out of ten become customers? Use your own record. If you have none, two in ten is the cautious figure this page uses.
- Multiply. A customer worth £150, with two in ten enquiries becoming customers, means a lead may cost up to £30.
- Compare that with what leads cost. If your ceiling is above the published range, ads have room to work. If it is below, they will lose money however well they are set up.
The cost per lead calculator does the arithmetic.
What does a lead cost in 2026?#
| Where | Published figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | £10 to £40 or more, average £17.60 | Startups.co.uk, February 2026 |
| United Kingdom | £8 to £25 | Whito, September 2026 |
| United States | Typical $27.39 across industries, from about $12 to about $62 by industry | WordStream, September 2026 |
Neither UK source states the data behind its average. WordStream's lead figures are medians from 452 US lead campaigns, and an industry can rest on as few as four. A lead here means an enquiry: a form, a message or a call. These are averages, and your trade may sit well away from them. Figures by trade are in What does a lead cost on Facebook, by industry?.
Is it worth it at your customer value?#
This table assumes two enquiries in ten become customers. Change that and every row changes.
| A new customer is worth | The most a lead may cost | Against a published £8 to £40, or $12 to $62 |
|---|---|---|
| £25 or $25 | £5 or $5 | Not worth it from leads alone. You need repeat orders |
| £75 or $75 | £15 or $15 | Tight. It breaks even only if your leads come in at the cheap end |
| £150 or $150 | £30 or $30 | Break-even at about the US typical figure. Profit only if your leads cost less |
| £500 or $500 | £100 or $100 | Worth testing. There is room for mistakes |
| £2,000 or $2,000 | £400 or $400 | Worth it even at several times the average lead cost |
The second column is arithmetic on the first, and it is the break-even point: at that price the customer's whole worth goes on the ad. Each row reads the same in pounds or in dollars, because it is a ratio. The verdicts are ours, read off the published ranges, and they are not a forecast of what your ads will cost.
For a shop, use an order in place of an enquiry. Shopify's 2026 guide reports that between 1.4% and 2.66% of visits to an online shop end in an order, depending on the benchmark, and WordStream puts a click at a typical $0.60. That is at least $23 to $43 of ads for each first order. The order rates are averages over all of a shop's visitors, and people who arrive from an ad for the first time are likely to buy less often. So a shop with a small basket needs customers who come back. The same sum by kind of shop runs from about $9 for pet supplies to about $50 for home goods. See Ads for a small online shop.
When are Facebook ads not worth it?#
- A customer is worth less than about £40 or $60 and buys once. Even at the cheapest published lead costs, the sum above does not break even.
- Nobody can answer an enquiry the same day. You pay for every lead, including the ones that have gone elsewhere by the time you call.
- The page or the offer does not sell. Ads send more people to the same page. If visitors from elsewhere do not buy, paid visitors will not either. Check with Facebook ads not working?.
- You cannot leave the money in for a month. Meta says an ad set usually settles after about 50 results in the week after its last significant change. A small budget buys far fewer than that, so it takes weeks to show a pattern.
- You need customers this week. Ads take time to learn. Ring past customers first.
- Your customers are not there. A business that sells to other businesses in a narrow trade may find its buyers faster elsewhere.
What does it cost to find out?#
About £300, or $300 to $600, and four weeks. At published UK lead costs, £300 buys roughly 7 to 37 enquiries. That is enough to see whether your ceiling is realistic and not enough to be sure.
Whito's 2026 UK guide calls £300 a month the minimum for meaningful data and suggests £140 for a two-week test at £10 a day. It does not state the data behind that. A US guide from 2026, by 99 Dollar Social, suggests $10 to $20 a day, which is $300 to $600 over a month. In the UK, add Meta's 2% location fee and VAT on top of the budget. The details are in How much do Facebook ads cost in the UK?.
Small monthly budgets are common. In a survey of more than 250 US marketing professionals that WebFX reports on its 2026 pricing page, 63% said their business spends between $1 and $500 a month on Facebook ads.
Set the test up so it can answer the question.
- One product or one service, the one with the best margin.
- One page to land on, checked on a phone.
- A way to count real enquiries or orders, not clicks.
- A fixed daily budget for four weeks, with no edits in the first week.
- A number written down in advance: the most a lead may cost.
At the end, divide what you spent by the customers you won. If that is below what a customer is worth, raise the budget slowly. If it is far above, stop and fix the offer before you try again.
How many small businesses use Facebook?#
Many are on Facebook, and that is not the same as paying for ads there. In Verizon's 2025 survey of 600 US small and midsize business owners and decision makers, 82% said they use Facebook to promote products and connect with customers. The survey does not say how many pay for ads or whether the ads paid. We found no recent survey that measures results from Facebook ads for small businesses with a method we could check, so this page does not quote one.
What Madder does about this#
Madder is an AI agent that runs Facebook and Instagram ads for a small business with no marketer and no agency. It takes the setup work out of a first campaign. You give it the link to your page, it drafts a campaign with a goal and a daily budget, builds the ads from photos you upload, and creates the campaign in your own Meta ad account once you approve.
It does not change the sum on this page. Madder does not predict or promise results. It aims a campaign at a whole country today, so it suits a business that sells or ships nationwide more than one that serves a single town. Its campaigns bring visits to your page and are not yet optimised for leads or purchases. You choose which actions count as a lead, and Madder shows what each one cost. The sequence is at How Madder works, and it is free during early access.
Questions people ask#
Do Facebook ads work for small businesses?
They work when a customer is worth more than the leads it takes to win one. With published lead costs of about £8 to £40 in the UK and $12 to $62 in the US, and two enquiries in ten becoming customers, a customer needs to be worth roughly £40 to £200, or $60 to $310, for the ads to break even.
How much do I need to spend to know if Facebook ads work?
About £300, or $300 to $600, over four weeks. A 2026 UK guide calls £300 a month the minimum for meaningful data. Less than that can run, but it gives too few results to judge.
Are Facebook ads worth it on a very small budget?
They can be, if a customer is worth a lot to you and you can wait. On £10 a day results are uneven for weeks, because Meta's system settles after about 50 results in a week and a small budget buys far fewer.
Are Facebook ads worth it for a local business?
They can be, when one job or one regular customer is worth hundreds of pounds. The ad must be shown only in the area you serve, which you set in Meta's Ads Manager. See Ads for local service businesses.
Is it better to boost a post?
A boost is a simpler ad with fewer goals. It is fine for getting a post seen. For enquiries or sales, a campaign built in Ads Manager is usually the better tool. See Boost post or Ads Manager?.