Google Ads management in Perth runs about A$1,000 to A$5,000 a month depending on the account. What the fee should buy, A$ CPC ranges and a worked example.
A Perth business spending A$3,000 to A$10,000 a month on Google Ads will usually be quoted somewhere between A$1,000 and A$2,500 a month to have the account managed. Larger accounts run to A$5,000 and beyond. The range is wide because the fee is buying different amounts of work, so the useful question is what the work should be, not only what the number is.
This piece sets out the three fee models you'll see in Perth with A$ ranges, what media spend is sensible for different kinds of business, what the management fee should buy each month, and a worked example of a A$6,000 a month account so you can check the maths against your own.
How much does Google Ads management cost in Perth?
Three models cover nearly every proposal we've seen here. Many people still search for it as AdWords management; the answer is the same.
A flat monthly fee. For a small account, one or two campaigns and media spend under about A$3,000 a month, expect A$1,000 to A$1,500. For a mid-size account, several campaigns, A$5,000 to A$20,000 in spend, landing page work and a CRM connection, expect A$2,000 to A$5,000. You'll also see packages advertised at A$400 to A$800 a month. Some are fine, but at that price the fee funds monitoring rather than change, and the account tends to look the same in month nine as it did in month one.
A percentage of spend. Typically 10% to 20%, often tiered so the percentage falls as spend rises. At A$5,000 a month, 15% is A$750, which is why most providers attach a minimum fee of A$800 to A$1,500. Below about A$3,000 in spend the percentage can't fund the hours. It also stops making sense at the top: at A$25,000 a month, 15% is A$3,750, and the account may not need that much attention. At that scale, ask for a flat fee or a tiered rate that drops to 8% or so above a threshold.
A hybrid. A base of A$500 to A$1,000 plus 8% to 12% of spend. Build fees of A$1,000 to A$3,500 are common with all three and sometimes waived on a 12-month term.
Our preference is a flat fee tied to a written scope, reviewed every quarter. A percentage model puts a quiet incentive in the room to recommend more spend. People in this industry are mostly decent about that, in my experience, but the structure is still there.
A steer on budget, meant as help: below about A$1,000 a month for management, it's hard for any agency to put senior time on the account and still make the arithmetic work. At that level we'd usually suggest a one-off build with a quarterly review instead, or running it in-house with an audit to start from. Our guide to in-house, freelancer or agency PPC management goes through when each route suits.
Which media budget makes sense for a Perth business?
Start with the click price, because it decides everything downstream. Across the Australian benchmarks published for 2026, services terms in Perth commonly cost A$3.50 to A$6 a click, against A$4.80 to A$7.50 for the same terms in Sydney and Melbourne. Legal and finance terms run A$8 to A$15 and some, like family law or mortgage broking, go above A$20. Mining services, engineering and industrial terms sit anywhere from A$6 to A$25 depending on how many national suppliers bid on them. Shopping ads for ecommerce are the cheap end, A$0.50 to A$3.
From there, the budget should be big enough to produce at least 30 conversions a month, the level at which Google's bidding has something to learn from. At A$6 a click and a 5% conversion rate, 30 conversions is 600 clicks, or A$3,600 a month. So as rough starting points:
Below A$1,500 a month in media, I'd think hard about whether the channel is right yet. Not because it can't work, but because the account will take six months to gather the data a A$3,000 account gathers in six weeks.
What should the management fee buy each month?
This is the part to get in writing before signing. A fair fee for a mid-size Perth account should cover, every month:
The conversion tracking check is on that list because of a client we worked with whose website enquiries were silently failing between the web form and their IT setup. Real fees were lost before anyone spotted it, and the client eventually removed the form altogether. Nothing in the ad account looked wrong, and we found out from them rather than from the data. That's a lesson you only need once. Now we test the form ourselves every month and treat a sudden change in conversion rate as a tracking question first.
You can verify all of this yourself in the change history, which Google Ads keeps for every account. Forty changes a month is an account being worked. Four is one being watched. Our Google Ads audit checklist is a good way to check an account you've inherited or one you're paying for now.
Why is Perth different from Sydney or Melbourne?
Fewer advertisers. On a lot of Perth service terms there are three or four serious bidders where the same term in Sydney has ten. That shows up as the lower CPCs above, and it means structure beats spend here more than it does on the east coast. A well built A$4,000 account with tight match types, the right suburbs and working conversion tracking will often outperform a loosely built A$10,000 one.
Geography matters too. The metro area runs about 150 kilometres north to south, from Two Rocks to Mandurah, and a plumber in Joondalup doesn't want clicks from Rockingham. Radius targeting around each service area, with location set to "presence" rather than "presence or interest", is one of the first things we check.
What do we find in inherited Perth accounts?
The previous work is usually mostly sound. The account is running, the ads are relevant and someone has clearly cared about it. The same three things tend to want fixing, and none is a big job.
The first is how conversions are counted. Phone clicks, page views and form submissions all set up as conversions and weighted equally, so the "leads" in the report are two or three times the number of real enquiries. That's the default setup when tracking was done in a hurry. Sorting the primary conversion actions from the secondary ones takes an afternoon and changes every number in the report.
The second is location targeting set to "Western Australia" or "Australia" with the default "presence or interest" setting, which puts 20% to 30% of spend in front of people nowhere near Perth. Ten minutes to fix.
The third is broad match paired with Smart Bidding on an account that gets 15 conversions a month, which isn't enough for the automation to learn from, so it wanders. The fix is to tighten match types until the conversion count is up, then loosen them again. Everything on this list is fixable, and mostly inside a fortnight.
A worked example: a A$6,000 a month Perth account
Take a family law practice or a commercial fit-out company spending A$6,000 a month on media with a A$1,500 flat management fee. Total outlay A$7,500.
At an average CPC of A$6, that's 1,000 clicks. A 6% conversion rate on a decent landing page gives 60 enquiries, a cost per enquiry of A$100 on media, or A$125 all-in once the fee is included. If half of those are qualified, that's 30 real conversations at A$250 each. Close one in four and you have seven or eight new clients a month for A$7,500. For a firm whose average first engagement is worth A$4,000, that's A$30,000 in new revenue against A$7,500 in cost, before any repeat work.
The number to watch in that chain is the 50% qualified rate. In inherited accounts it's often nearer 25%, because the search terms include people looking for jobs, free advice or a different service. Getting it to 50% halves the cost of a real lead without an extra dollar of spend, which is where the fee earns itself. We wrote about the same logic for organic in what SEO costs in Perth.
What should you ask before you sign?
Six questions, and what a good answer contains.
Questions we get asked
How much does Google Ads cost?
Two parts: the media, which goes to Google, and the management, which goes to whoever runs it. In Perth, small and mid-size businesses typically spend A$2,000 to A$10,000 a month on media and A$1,000 to A$3,000 on management. Google sets no minimum, but under about A$1,500 a month the account gathers data too slowly to improve.
How much does it cost to advertise on Google Ads in Perth?
Per click, A$3.50 to A$6 for most local services, A$8 to A$20 for legal and finance, and A$0.50 to A$3 for Shopping. Multiply your likely CPC by the clicks needed for 30 conversions a month and you have a starting budget.
Do Google Ads work for small business?
Yes, where the service is something people search for at the moment they need it, like a plumber, a conveyancer or a physio. They work less well where the buyer doesn't know the category exists yet. Tight suburb targeting and a fast landing page will do more than a big budget spread across the whole of WA.
Is Google Ads worth it?
Worth it is a maths question: cost per qualified lead against what a customer is worth to you. If a new client is worth A$4,000 and a qualified lead costs A$250, it's worth it several times over. If a sale is worth A$80 and a lead costs A$60, it isn't yet, and the landing page or the offer needs to change before the ads do.
How long does it take for Google Ads to appear?
Ads usually clear review within one business day and can show the same day. Showing and performing are different, though. Expect the first two or three weeks to be noisy while the data builds, and judge the account on months two and three.
What is a fair Google Ads management fee?
For a Perth account spending A$3,000 to A$10,000 a month, a fee of A$1,000 to A$2,500 a month is fair if it buys the monthly list above. Above A$15,000 in spend, a flat fee or a falling percentage is fairer than a straight 15%. Judge it on whether the change history shows the work.
Where we fit
We're a small search and CRM consultancy, registered in Scotland with clients in the UK and Australia, and I run the Perth paid accounts myself from the city. We suit businesses that want the account tied to a commercial target and reported on in leads and pipeline rather than clicks. For AM Phillip Trucktech, an industrial B2B client, that approach produced a 32% lower cost per lead, 41% more qualified enquiries and a £120,000 a year saving, about A$230,000, on what they'd been spending.
If you'd like a second opinion on a fee you've been quoted, or on what your current account is producing, our Perth page explains how we work and how to get in touch.
