How Much Does Advertising on Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn Ads Cost? Real Ranges by Sector

There's no single price, but there are real ranges

There's no fixed rate for "social media advertising" — cost depends on the platform, the sector, competition for that audience, and ad quality. But there are ballpark ranges that help you know whether a budget is reasonable before committing to it, and spot when a number you've been quoted doesn't add up.

Rough cost per click (CPC) by platform

• Meta Ads (Instagram + Facebook): between €0.30 and €1.50 per click in most B2C sectors in Spain. Highly competitive categories (insurance, finance, education) can exceed €2.
• TikTok Ads: between €0.20 and €1 per click, generally somewhat lower than Meta for awareness, though it varies a lot depending on native content quality.
• LinkedIn Ads: between €2 and €8 per click — noticeably more expensive, justified by the precision of professional targeting (job title, industry, company).

Rough cost per lead (CPL) by sector

• Consumer e-commerce (fashion, beauty, home): €5-20 per qualified lead, depending on average order value and competition.
• Local services (clinics, beauty, in-person training): €10-35 per lead, with high variation by geographic area.
• B2B SaaS and software: €30-150 per lead, depending on average order value and targeting precision.
• High-ticket B2B professional services: can exceed €100-200 per qualified lead, offset by customer value.

These ranges are for reference, not a fixed rate. Your real cost depends on how much competition there is for your specific audience and the quality of your creative and destination landing page/listing.

Reasonable minimum budget to get started

Below a certain threshold, a campaign doesn't generate enough data to learn anything useful, and every euro gets spent almost blind. As a rough reference:

• Meta Ads or TikTok Ads: a minimum of €300-500/month per channel lets you accumulate enough data in 3-4 weeks to start optimizing with real criteria.
• LinkedIn Ads: given the higher cost per click, a reasonable minimum is around €800-1,200/month to generate sufficient data volume.

Below these thresholds, it's not that the platform doesn't work — it's that there isn't enough time to accumulate the click and conversion volume needed to know whether it works or not.

Why the number you're quoted should be checked against your margin, not a table

A €40 CPL can be excellent for a product with a €300 average order value and a bad deal for one with a €25 ticket. No generic range replaces the real calculation: cost per lead × close rate, compared against your gross margin per sale. That math — not a market price table — is what determines whether a budget makes sense for your business.

How this translates into a real spending cap

These ranges are useful for putting a first number on the table, but the final spending cap gets set after an account audit that reviews your specific sector, your direct competition, and your real margin — not a generic table from the internet.