It's one of the first questions every local business owner asks when they're thinking about running Facebook & Instagram ads: how much is this actually going to cost me?
The honest answer is that it depends — but there are some clear tiers that work for most local service businesses, and some common traps that get people spending money without seeing results.
The three spending tiers
€5/day — testing, not growing
You can technically run a Facebook & Instagram ad for €5 a day, but I'd call this a testing budget, not a real growth budget. At this level, your ad might reach 200–500 people per day depending on your location and industry. That's enough to see whether your creative resonates and whether you're getting any clicks, but it's rarely enough to generate a steady flow of leads.
If you're brand new to ads and want to get familiar with the platform before committing more, start here. Just don't expect it to move the needle on your revenue — the main value at this level is learning, not growth.
€10–15/day — the real starting point
This is where most local service businesses should begin. At €10–15/day, you're giving the Facebook algorithm enough data to learn who responds to your ad and start optimizing. Most businesses at this level see their first leads within the first week.
Over a 30-day month, you're looking at €300–450 in ad spend. For most trades — plumbing, electrical, cleaning, gardening — a single closed job covers that entire month's budget, often several times over. That's a reasonable starting proposition.
The key is to give a campaign at least two full weeks before judging it. Facebook's algorithm needs time to figure out who to show your ads to. Killing a campaign after four days because you haven't had leads yet is one of the most common mistakes I see.
€25+/day — scaling what works
Once you have a campaign generating leads at a cost per lead you're happy with, this is when it makes sense to scale. At €25/day and above, you'll typically see lead volume increase roughly proportionally — though not always linearly. Sometimes doubling the budget doesn't double the leads, especially in smaller markets where the audience is more limited.
At this tier, the most important number to watch is ROAS — return on ad spend. If you're spending €750/month on ads and it's bringing in €4,000 of new business, that's a 5.3x return and an easy decision to keep going. If it's bringing in €600 of business, you have something to fix before spending more.
What actually affects your cost
Two businesses in the same city, running similar campaigns, can have very different ad costs. Here's what drives that:
- Industry competition: Legal services and financial advice are expensive because many advertisers are bidding for the same audience. Gardening or house cleaning are typically cheaper to advertise in.
- Location: Ads in Amsterdam or London cost more than ads in smaller cities, because more advertisers are competing for the same eyeballs.
- Audience size: Very narrow targeting — say, homeowners aged 45–65 within 8km — tends to cost more per impression than a broader audience, because you're bidding for a limited slot.
- Ad quality: Facebook rewards ads that get genuine engagement with lower costs. A generic stock photo ad will cost more per click than a real photo of your work that people actually respond to.
What ROI should you realistically expect?
This varies a lot by industry. A house cleaner might pay €8 per lead and close 40% of them, making each new customer cost around €20. A kitchen renovation company might pay €25 per lead but close 20% of them at an average job value of €12,000 — making each new customer cost €125 with a return of nearly 100x.
The number that matters isn't cost per lead in isolation — it's cost per acquired customer relative to your average job value. If your average job is worth €500 and it costs €50 in ad spend to get one customer, you're doing well. If it's costing you €400 to get that same customer, something needs to change.
When to increase your budget
The right time to increase is when you have evidence that your campaign is working — not before. Working means a cost per lead that's clearly below what a customer is worth to you, over a period of at least three or four weeks.
Increase gradually. Adding €5/day every couple of weeks gives the algorithm time to adjust. Sudden large increases often reset the learning phase and temporarily push costs up.
And don't increase budget as a way of fixing a broken campaign. If your ads aren't generating leads at a small budget, spending more won't fix that — it'll just burn through money faster. Fix the creative, the targeting, or the offer first.
If you want help tracking all of this — ad spend, leads, revenue, and ROAS in one place — Leadsit was built specifically for local businesses managing their own Facebook & Instagram campaigns.