How Much Does a Google Ads Audit Cost?

Quick answer

You can get a Google Ads audit for free - just Google ‘free Google Ads audit’ and you’ll find many options - although free audits are often offered as a way to sell ongoing management services. My independent Google Ads audits start from NZD $750 + GST. The final price depends on account complexity and the agreed scope, including any debrief meetings. Advertising spend alone is a poor guide to how much work an audit requires.

Perhaps your Google Ads account isn’t performing how you’d like.

Or perhaps the results look pretty good, but you’d like someone independent to check whether you’re getting value for money.

Maybe you have a sense that you are pouring your money into a black hole.

Maybe you don’t trust your Google Ads agency, freelancer, or even in-house staff.

Whatever the reason(s), you’ve started looking into a Google Ads audit as a potential solution.

The obvious next question is: how much does a Google Ads audit cost?

Is it a relatively modest expense, or something that’s going to cost more than the problem(s) you’re trying to fix?

The answer depends on who is doing the audit, how complicated your account is, and what you want to get out of the process.

But the first thing to understand is that you don’t necessarily have to pay anything.

Can you get a Google Ads audit for free?

Yes. Plenty of agencies and freelancers offer free Google Ads audits. In my experience, it’s actually more common to see a free audit advertised than a paid one. Don’t believe me? I did a quick search for ‘Google Ads audit’ and outside of purely informational results (e.g. my DIY Google Ads Audit guide) most of the remaining results advertised a free audit of some description:

So if your only question is whether somebody will review your account without charging you, the answer is yes.

The more useful question is: why are they offering to do it for free? What exactly is the commercial incentive for offering a Google Ads audit for free (unless you operate some kind of unusual charity …)

Usually, the audit is a way to start a conversation about taking over the management of your Google Ads account.

It’s a sales tool, and the provider is hoping to recover the cost of their time through future management fees.

That’s understandable. Businesses need to win work, and a free audit can be a useful way to demonstrate expertise and get a foot in the door.

It’s a bit like mechanics/garages that offer things like “free brake checks”. You go in with a minor concern about your brakes, and lo and behold an issue is discovered that requires immediate attention. There is an ability for them to demonstrate their expertise, and also a subsequent opportunity to sell you something. This is hardly rocket science from a commercial perspective.

However, it also creates an obvious incentive to find fault with your current setup.

What’s the catch with a free Google Ads audit? If you can get one for free, why pay?

Basically, it boils down to the old adage of there being no such thing as a free lunch.

My concern with free audits is that they can become an exercise in making your account look as bad as possible.

I do not just say this because I sell Google Ads audits, but because I also sell Google Ads audits that have come as a consequence of an advertiser opting for a free one that hasn’t worked out (and so have a unique perspective here)

With a free audit, you’ll invariably find that:

• Your existing agency is doing everything wrong.
• Your DIY setup is a disaster.
• You’re wasting money left, right and centre.
• Minor issues can be blown out of all proportion

Conveniently, the business providing the free audit has the solution: move your account to them.

That isn’t how every free audit works. Some providers give sensible, balanced feedback, and you can certainly learn something useful from the process.

But in my experience, the sales pitch dressed up as an audit is common enough to warrant caution.

A useful Google Ads audit should be able to tell you what’s working as well as what isn’t. It should also distinguish between a serious problem and something that could be tidied up but is unlikely to make much difference to your results.

No audit worth its salt should pitch the provider as the only party capable of fixing the problems … because that isn’t how this works in real life.

If your account is reasonably well run, that should be a possible conclusion too (as an aside, of the past 3 audits I’ve completed in the last week, 2 of them resulted in a recommendation of keeping the current agency running the ads and overall positive feedback).

What affects the cost of a paid Google Ads audit?

For a paid audit, the two main pricing factors are account complexity and scope.

How much you spend on advertising provides some context, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Account complexity matters more than advertising spend

An account spending $100,000 per month could be less complicated to audit than one spending $500. No word of a lie.

For example, a service business might spend a substantial amount promoting a small number of services. The offer, pricing and messaging may stay fairly consistent, and there may be relatively few campaigns to work through.

I have a campaign in my own Google Ads account for one single, niche service that spends fairly significantly on a single, exact-match keyword. It is about as simple of a campaign as humanly possible to imagine.

Compare that with an ecommerce business selling products across numerous categories and subcategories. There could be frequent product changes, promotions, stock issues and different margins to consider, alongside Shopping campaigns and product feed questions.

Even with a smaller advertising budget, the ecommerce account could require considerably more investigation.

With my expert digital marketing consultant hat on, I’m interested in what you’re selling, how the account is structured and what needs checking. The monthly spend is only one part of that picture.

This is why I don’t think pricing a Google Ads audit purely as a percentage of advertising spend is appropriate. The fee should reflect the work required.

The scope of the audit also affects the price

“Google Ads audit” can mean quite different things depending on who is providing it.

Are you looking for a focused review of the account itself? Do you also need someone to investigate whether conversion tracking is recording the right actions, or consider what happens after somebody clicks through to your website? Perhaps you just have a single concern you wish to address (e.g. “is my agency actually doing any work for the management fee I pay them?”)

Then there’s how you want the findings delivered.

You might want a report that you can read internally and pass to your existing agency.

Alternatively, you might want a debrief meeting to work through the recommendations and ask questions.

Those are different requirements, and they take different amounts of time.

Before comparing quotes, check what each audit includes. A cheaper quote may cover a narrower review, while a more expensive one may include work or meetings you don’t actually need.

How much do my Google Ads audits cost?

My independent Google Ads audit services start from NZD $750 + GST for a full account audit. That being said, I have done services for smaller fees that focus on answering very specific, single questions (e.g. “can you tell us if our agency appears to be doing any work?”) But for a full audit, I price from $750 + GST

The price scales depending on the complexity of your account, meeting requirements and any other agreed adjustments to the scope.

The purpose is to give you an independent assessment of how your account is structured and performing, where there may be wasted spend, and what deserves attention.

That might mean identifying significant problems. It might mean finding a handful of improvements in an otherwise sensible account. It could also mean confirming that your current approach is broadly sound.

I believe there’s value in paying for that independent perspective. I’m obviously biased because I offer paid audits, but I think you should know that going in (and where I am not biased is because you are paying me up front, I don’t need to make out that your account is in a worse state than it really is in, just so you are more likely to hire me to fix the problem).

Conclusion/Recap

If you’re considering one of my audits, use NZD $750 + GST as the starting point, rather than assuming that every account will fit the same price.

A more complicated account or a broader scope may cost more. The best way to establish the budget is to explain what you’re advertising, what concerns you have, and whether you want a report, a debrief meeting or both.

As a general rule, my audits fall in a range of $750-1250+ GST for single accounts (not complex, multi account structures) but I have charged less - for very focused checks based around a single specific problem - and I have charged significantly more for complex audits.

You can also take up a free Google Ads audit elsewhere. Just keep the provider’s commercial incentive in mind when assessing the findings.

Ultimately, the value of an audit comes from having a clearer understanding of your account and knowing what to do next. A long list of supposed faults isn’t much help if you can’t tell which ones actually matter.

If you’d like an independent review of your Google Ads account, get in touch and we can establish the scope and cost. You can learn more about my Google Ads audit service here.