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CPC calculator (cost per click)
Cost per click is what each click on your ads cost on average. Type in spend and clicks for the same dates and you'll get it. Then check whether those clicks turned into payments.
What you spent on ads in the date range. In Google Ads the column is Cost, in Ads Manager it's Amount spent.
Clicks for the same ads and the same dates. On Meta, use Link clicks, the column Meta's CPC is based on.
Use one currency for spend. The result is in that same currency, so it's shown without a symbol.
Enter ad spend and clicks to see your cost per click.
Illustrative math on the numbers you type. It doesn't tell you which ad caused which sale. The math runs in your browser and nothing you type is stored.
Cheap clicks can still cost you.
This calculator trusts the numbers you type in. To see which campaigns produced the payments behind them, start a 14-day free trial, no card needed.
How cost per click is calculated
Cost per click, or CPC, is ad spend divided by the clicks it bought. Spend 100 and get 80 clicks, and each click cost 1.25 on average.
CPC = ad spend ÷ clicks
Google describes average CPC as "calculated by dividing the total cost of your clicks by the total number of clicks" (Google Ads Help). Meta's CPC (cost per link click) "is calculated as amount spent divided by link clicks" (Meta Business Help Center).
Google Ads CPC: average, max and actual
Google Ads uses three CPC terms, and they get mixed up in reports. With CPC bidding, "you pay for each click on your ads", and you set a max. CPC, "the highest amount that you're willing to pay for a click" (Google Ads Help).
The price of a single click is the actual CPC. Google says your max. CPC "is the most you'll typically be charged for a click, but you'll often be charged less" (Google Ads Help). Average CPC is the actual CPCs averaged out, and it's what you'll see in the "Avg. CPC" column in Campaigns (Google Ads Help).
This calculator gives you the average. If a client asks why the average is under the bid they set, that's the reason: the bid is a ceiling.
Planning a new search campaign? Google points to Keyword Planner "to get estimated average CPC amounts" (Google Ads Help). Treat those as estimates until real clicks come in.
CPC on Meta is per link click
Meta's CPC column divides spend by link clicks only, not by every tap on the ad (Meta Business Help Center). And on Meta you usually aren't buying clicks at all. Meta says you're charged "based on the number of impressions your ad receives unless specified otherwise during ad creation" (Meta Business Help Center).
So on Google, CPC is often the price you bid for. On Meta it's mostly a result you work out after the fact. Both are fair to compare month to month inside one platform. Comparing one platform's CPC with the other's tells you less.
A worked example
Invented figures, here to show the idea, not a client result.
In September a client's Google search campaign spent €1,800 and got 1,200 clicks. €1,800 ÷ 1,200 = €1.50 CPC.
In October the same €1,800 bought 1,500 clicks after the ads were opened up to broader keywords. CPC fell to €1.20.
Then the money. Payments matched to visits from that campaign added up to €6,300 in September and €5,400 in October. Cheaper clicks, and less money.
Explaining CPC to clients?
Thexly for agencies puts payment revenue next to each platform's claim, one workspace per client.
Check it against revenue that hit the bank
A cost per click is built from two numbers the ad platform reports about itself. Before a lower CPC goes in a client report as good news, line up each platform's claim next to the payments for the same dates. The platform vs payment gap calculator does that from three numbers.
A lower CPC is only good news if payments held up.
Now check it against the revenue that hit the bank: start free.
Where CPC sits next to CPA and ROAS
CPC is what a visit cost. The CPA calculator gives what each conversion cost, and the ROAS calculator gives what came back per unit of spend. To see how CPC comes out of CPM and CTR, read CPM vs CPC.
When your CPC last dropped, what happened to the payments?
FAQ
Questions & answers
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Put the cost of each click next to what it earned
Cost per click is the price of a visit. It can fall while the money falls too, and the calculator can't tell you which happened.
Thexly works on the payment side for ecommerce brands on Stripe checkout: each payment matched to the campaign visit that led to it, counted once, in a live link the client can open.