Guides · Cost and pricing
PPC Management Pricing: Flat Fee vs Percent of Spend, With Our Exact Rates Published
By Josh Croom · Updated October 21, 2026
PPC management pricing comes in three shapes: a flat monthly fee, a percent of your ad spend, or a mix of the two. A 2025 PPC pricing guide from an agency software company puts flat retainers for small and mid-sized accounts at $500 to $2,000 a month. It puts percent-of-spend fees at 10% to 20% of monthly ad spend.
As of October 21, 2026, Open Spots Search costs a local shop $497 every 4 weeks, plus a $997 setup. The fee stays the same whatever your ad budget. Growth, for a business running ads on several platforms, starts at $1,750 every 4 weeks for an ad budget up to $5,000 a month. Its fee steps up with the budget on a table we publish. You can cancel anytime, and your ad money reaches Google at cost.
We publish every rate on our pricing page, so you can compare before you ever get on a call. Each pricing model hides a weakness, and the right one depends on how much you spend and on how many platforms.
We're Emprise Digital, a Conway, Arkansas agency founded in May 2016. As of October 16, 2026, we run 64 active Google Ads accounts and 2 Local Services accounts, 66 in all, for 50+ organizations. $18.1 million in Google Ads spend has run through accounts we manage or have managed since 2015 (measured through September 30, 2026); more than $14.4 million of that was Google Ad Grant credit and more than $3.7 million was our clients' own ad dollars. We've seen what every pricing model does to agency behavior, including our own.
The three PPC pricing models, compared
| Model | How it works | Typical range | Built-in incentive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat monthly fee | The same fee every month, whatever the budget | $500 to $2,000 a month for small and mid-sized accounts (a 2025 agency software guide) | The agency earns the same whether it works hard or coasts. If it coasts, you can cancel. |
| Percent of ad spend | The fee scales with your budget, usually with a minimum | 10% to 20% of monthly spend (same 2025 guide); minimum fees are common | The agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not results follow. |
| Hybrid, project or hourly | A flat base plus more above a spend threshold, or one-time project quotes | Setup fees of about $1,000 to $2,500; projects of $1,000 to $5,000, complex ones above $10,000 (an agency's 2025 pricing breakdown) | It depends on where the threshold sits and who set it. |
Flat monthly fee
You pay one number, agreed up front, and it's the same in a slow month and a busy one. It's how we price Open Spots: $497 every 4 weeks for Search, whatever weekly ad cap you set. It keeps our advice clean, because if we tell you to raise your cap, we don't earn a dollar more for saying it.
A flat fee has a weak spot too. A flat-fee agency on a long contract can under-serve you and still collect the fee, and your right to leave is what stops that. Cycle to cycle, you can cancel at the end of any bill, so we have to earn the fee every 4 weeks. The setup is $0 today if you sign up for 13 cycles instead, and you give up the 30-Day Stop in exchange.
Percent of ad spend
It's a common agency model. You spend $8,000 a month, the agency charges 15%, and you pay $1,200. The pitch says the fee scales with the workload, and at large budgets that's partly true. More spend usually means more campaigns, more creative testing, more search term review and more things that can break.
The model gets worse at small budgets, because the minimum fee takes over. If the agency's minimum is $1,000 and you spend $2,500 a month, the minimum turns a 15% proposal into a 40% management rate.
Hybrid, project and hourly pricing
Hybrids charge a flat base plus more above a spend threshold. Done in the open, it's a fair structure, and it's close to how Growth works. Its fee starts at $1,750 for an ad budget up to $5,000 a month and steps up from there. Project pricing covers one-time builds. Hourly billing exists but is rare for ongoing PPC management, because nobody wants to audit an agency's timesheet.
The percent-of-spend problem, in plain math
Say you spend $5,000 a month and your agency charges 15%. The fee is $750. Now the agency recommends doubling your budget, and the fee becomes $1,500 if you agree.
The recommendation might be right. Plenty of accounts should spend more. But the agency just doubled its own revenue by writing one email, and nothing in the agreement asked your results to double with it. Under this model, every budget talk with your agency is also a talk about its pay.
The model rewards a bigger budget, while you need someone rewarded for better results. We've met owners who followed advice into budgets their conversion data never supported. Nobody meant harm in most of those cases. The fee paid the agency more for a bigger budget, and the advice drifted toward the bigger budget.
Above a certain spend, though, a fee that grows with the budget is fair, because the work grows with it.
Our exact rates, published
Every price here is on our pricing page as of October 21, 2026. Fees bill every 4 weeks, 13 bills a year, and you pay the build or setup once.
- Open Spots Search: $497 every 4 weeks, plus a $997 setup, for one Google Search campaign, a landing page and call tracking.
- Open Spots Local: $997 every 4 weeks, plus a $1,997 build, for Local Services Ads.
- Growth: from $1,750 every 4 weeks, set by your budget, plus a $3,997 build. It runs Google, Local Services, Microsoft, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok on one budget.
- Grant: You pay half of the Grant money we put to work for you each bill, and never more than $750. The setup is $1,500.
- Open Spots Store: $997 every 4 weeks, plus a $1,997 build, for a store spending under about $3,000 a month on ads.
On Open Spots, we pay Google and take last week's exact charges from your business bank each Monday, up to the weekly cap you set. We add nothing on top. On Growth, your own cards pay the platforms. Sign up for 13 cycles on any of these but the Grant, and the build or setup is $0 today with no 30-Day Stop. Cycle to cycle, you pay it and keep the 30-Day Stop.
Why Growth's fee steps up with your budget
Above a small budget, the work really does grow. A $25,000-a-month account carries more campaigns, more platforms, more ad tests, more search terms and more ways to waste money fast than a $4,000 account. One flat price would either overcharge the small client or under-serve the big one.
So the fee follows the budget, and we publish the whole table. Your budget is $10,000, so your fee is $2,500. Your budget is $25,000, so your fee is $4,750. If you plan a bigger budget, you can see the new fee before you say yes to it.
Six questions to ask any PPC agency about pricing
- Is your pricing published anywhere I can read it? If the answer is "it depends," ask exactly what it depends on.
- Does your fee change when my budget changes? If yes, ask for the full table, who starts budget recommendations, and what data triggers them.
- Who pays the platform, and can I see the charges? The clean answer is Google's own charges, at cost, where you can see them. Media billed through the agency with no view of the real charges can hide a markup.
- What's the contract term, and what happens if I stop early? Month to month means the agency has to keep earning the fee. A longer term should give you something in return, and you should know the cost of leaving before you sign.
- What deliverables does your fee include every month? Get the list in writing and compare it against the change history in your account later.
- Who owns the account, the data and the conversion tracking if we part ways? You should own all three, and if the agency says otherwise, walk away.
Our guide to Google Ads management cost covers the rest of what you pay for: the three parts of your real bill, and the monthly work any fee should be buying.
Questions people ask
What is a typical PPC management fee?
A 2025 PPC pricing guide from an agency software company puts percent-of-spend fees at 10% to 20% of monthly ad spend, often with a monthly minimum. It puts flat retainers for small and mid-sized accounts at $500 to $2,000 a month. As of October 21, 2026, our flat fee for Open Spots Search is $497 every 4 weeks, plus a $997 setup paid once.
Is a flat fee or a percent of ad spend better for PPC management?
A flat fee is usually the cleaner deal on a small budget, because percent minimums cost more there. The percent model also ties the agency's pay to how much you spend, when you want it tied to your results. A fee that rises with the budget is fair on a larger budget across more platforms, as long as the agency publishes the whole table before you sign. That's how we price: Open Spots is flat, and Growth's fee follows a published budget table.
Do PPC agencies charge setup fees?
Many do. An agency's 2025 pricing breakdown puts setup fees at about $1,000 to $2,500. You pay ours once: $997 for Open Spots Search, $1,997 for Open Spots Local, $1,997 for Open Spots Store, $3,997 for Growth and $1,500 for a Grant. Sign up for 13 cycles and the setup or build is $0 today. A Grant setup is never waived.
Does the PPC management fee include the ad spend?
No, and it shouldn't. The fee pays the agency, and the ad spend pays Google. On Open Spots, we pay Google and take last week's exact charges from your business bank each Monday, up to the weekly cap you set. We add nothing on top. On Growth, your own cards pay the platforms. Be careful with bundled quotes where one payment covers both, because you can't see the split.
How does your fee change if I raise my ad budget?
On Open Spots, it doesn't. Open Spots Search stays $497 every 4 weeks whatever weekly cap you set. On Growth, the fee follows a published table. Your budget is $5,000 or less, so your fee is $1,750. A $15,000 budget carries a $3,250 fee. The table is on our pricing page, so you can see the new fee before you agree to a bigger budget.