How much do Facebook and Instagram ads cost in Australia?
Here’s what Meta ads cost across the Australian eCommerce accounts we manage. These are real results, not a survey: 24 brands and about $1.1 million of Australian spend on sales campaigns between August and early November 2026.
| Measure | Typical brand | Middle half of brands |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) | $14 | $12.50 to $17.70 |
| Cost per link click (CPC) | $1.15 | $0.70 to $1.85 |
| Link click-through rate | 1.3% | 1.0% to 2.2% |
| Cost per purchase | $26 | $17 to $38 |
| Return on ad spend (ROAS) | 3.9 | 3.2 to 6.5 |
| Average order value | $94 | $66 to $125 |
| Daily Meta spend | $210 | $130 to $470 |
“Typical” is the brand in the middle. “Middle half” leaves out the cheapest and dearest quarter of accounts, so it’s a fair range for a normal store. Purchases and ROAS are as Meta reports them, which includes some people who saw an ad and bought later without clicking.
Your own numbers will sit somewhere in that range depending on your product, price and creative. The rest of this guide covers why, and what to do with it.
How Meta charges for ads
Meta runs an auction every time someone opens Facebook or Instagram. You set a budget and a goal, like purchases, and Meta decides who sees your ad and what each impression costs. Sales campaigns charge per 1,000 impressions, so you pay for your ad being shown, not for clicks.
Every other cost follows from that one price:
- CPM
- What 1,000 impressions cost. Set by the auction: the season, your audience and how much other advertisers want the same people.
- CPC
- CPM divided by how many people click. A better ad gets more clicks from the same impressions, so the same CPM buys cheaper clicks.
- Cost per purchase
- CPC divided by how many clickers buy. Your website, price and offer decide this part.
So you can’t control the CPM much, but you control almost everything after it. That’s why two stores paying the same CPM can end up with a $15 and a $60 cost per purchase.
On GST
Meta adds 10% GST to Australian ad spend unless your ABN and GST registration are saved in the ad account’s settings. If you have several ad accounts, check each one.
Why Meta ads cost more in November
From early November, every brand on Meta wants the same shoppers at once, so the auction gets more expensive. Here’s what happened across our accounts last year:
| 2025 | CPM | Cost per purchase |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 19 Nov | $11.20 | $18.20 |
| 20 to 27 Nov, the lead-up | $13.70 (+22%) | $13.10 (−28%) |
| 28 Nov to 1 Dec, Black Friday to Cyber Monday | $14.30 (+28%) | $6.90 (−62%) |
| 3 to 10 Dec | $10.60 | $11.10 |
Impressions got dearer, but sales got much cheaper. Over the Black Friday weekend, about three times as many clicks turned into a purchase as in early November. People are ready to buy, and a good offer does the rest.
What that means for this Black Friday
- Don’t pull back because CPMs rise. Judge the period on cost per purchase and profit, not CPM.
- Build demand before the sale. The people who saw your ads in October and early November are the ones who buy on the weekend.
- Have the offer and the creative ready early. New ads launched on the day start learning just as the auction peaks.
- Raise budgets in steps from the lead-up week, rather than doubling them on Friday morning.
Black Friday 2026 is Friday 27 November and Cyber Monday is 30 November.
How Meta ad costs change through the year
We compared each account’s CPM every month with its own average over the year, so a big account doesn’t drown out a small one. This is the middle account each month:
| Month | CPM against the year’s average |
|---|---|
| Oct 2025 | +5% |
| Nov 2025 | +32%, the dearest month |
| Dec 2025 | +10% |
| Jan 2026 | −15%, the cheapest month |
| Feb 2026 | −9% |
| Mar 2026 | −8% |
| Apr 2026 | −8% |
| May 2026 | −2% |
| Jun 2026 | +1% |
| Jul 2026 | −5% |
| Aug 2026 | +7% |
| Sep 2026 | +5% |
| Oct 2026 | +10% |
January to April is the cheap stretch, which makes it a good time to test new products and creative. Costs climb from August into the Christmas peak. If your sales are seasonal too, plan the year’s budget around both.
What makes your Meta ads cost more or less
- Your creative. The biggest lever. An ad people stop for and click gets more out of every impression, and Meta tends to show it more cheaply. Our guide to Meta ad hooks and best ad creatives cover what works.
- How narrow your targeting is. Small interest or lookalike audiences push up CPMs. We run broad targeting and let the creative find the buyers.
- How many campaigns you split it into. Ten small ad sets each learn slowly. Fewer, bigger ones learn faster and usually buy sales more cheaply.
- Your price and offer. A higher order value supports a higher cost per purchase, and a strong offer lifts the conversion rate.
- Your website. A slow product page or a surprise at checkout wastes clicks you’ve already paid for.
- Placements. Facebook, Instagram, Reels and Stories are priced differently. Letting Meta use all of them usually gives the lowest overall cost.
- The season. See the two tables above.
How much should you spend on Meta ads?
How we set Meta budgets
We set a Meta budget from the sales it needs to buy, not a round number: enough for the main campaign to get about 50 purchases a week at your target cost per purchase, then we raise it 20–30% at a time while that cost holds.
Fifty a week is roughly what Meta needs to learn properly. In Meta’s own peak season advice this year, ad sets with fewer than about 50 conversions a week paid around 28% more per purchase.
- Set your target cost per purchase from your margin (chapter 07).
- Multiply by 50 for a weekly budget. At a $26 target, that’s $1,300 a week, or about $185 a day.
- Put it in one campaign. Splitting it across several means none of them gets there.
- Budget for creative as well. Meta needs new ads every few weeks. Our Meta ad creative calculator works out how many your budget needs.
- Scale in steps. Raise the budget 20–30% every few days while the cost per purchase holds.
What if you can’t spend that much yet?
Meta will run on $30 to $50 a day. It just learns more slowly, so expect a higher cost per purchase while it does. Keep everything in one campaign, still optimise for purchases, and give it longer before you judge it. The ad budget calculator works backwards from a revenue goal if you’d rather start there.
Is your Meta cost per purchase profitable?
A $26 purchase is cheap for some stores and a loss for others. What matters is what each sale leaves after the product, shipping and fees.
| Step | Example |
|---|---|
| Average order | $94 |
| Margin after product, shipping and fees | 50%, so $47 a sale |
| Break-even cost per purchase | $47 |
| Break-even ROAS | $94 ÷ $47 = 2.0 |
| At a $26 cost per purchase | $21 profit a sale, before overheads |
The example uses the typical numbers from chapter 01; your margin will differ. If a customer usually buys again, you can afford to pay more for the first order. The CPA calculator and break-even ROAS calculator do this from your own figures, and our Meta ads metrics guide covers the rest of the numbers worth watching.
How Meta compares with Google
Meta finds people who weren’t looking yet; Google catches people already searching. Our Google Ads cost guide has the same numbers for Google, and the Meta ads guide covers how to run the campaigns themselves.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that helps. If you’d rather hand it over, this is how we run Meta ads for eCommerce brands. And if you just want a second pair of eyes on what you’re paying, that’s what the call is for.
Sam Despo
Founder & Director, Pulp Digital
