Facebook ads cost in Australia: $10 to $22 per 1,000 impressions

Short answer: The one Australian figure we could trace to a stated method is a median of about $14.38 per 1,000 impressions for all industries, averaged over 13 months. Month by month it ran from $9.63 in May 2026 to $21.73 in November 2025, per Superads. The source prints a dollar sign without naming the currency. The swing matters more than the average, and your ABN on the ad account decides whether GST is added.

There is no single number, and a yearly average hides the part that changes your results. For where Meta fits in your marketing, see our guide to digital advertising for Australian small business. This guide stays on price. For how to set campaigns up and whether Meta suits you, read our Facebook and Instagram ads guide.

Meta has no rate card, so start with 1,000 impressions

Meta does not publish a price list. The price of each impression is decided in an auction.

What you can measure is the price of 1,000 impressions, called CPM (cost per mille). It is the cleanest unit because it does not depend on whether anyone clicks or enquires. An impression is one showing of your ad, not one person, so 1,000 impressions usually reach fewer than 1,000 people.

The one Australian figure we could trace: about $14.38

The only Australian figure we could trace to a dataset with a stated method comes from the Superads Facebook ads benchmark tool. Its pages say the dataset includes over $3B in Facebook ad spend from thousands of ad accounts that use Superads. Every data point is anonymised and aggregated.

The figures are medians, because a small share of campaigns with extreme values would inflate an average. They are for all industries in Australia, not for your industry, your city or your offer.

Over the 13 months from July 2025 to July 2026, the Australian CPM median averaged about $14.38. It began at about $15.52 in July 2025 and finished at $12.92 in July 2026.

Metric (Australia, all industries)	Average of monthly medians	Low	High	Global average
CPM (per 1,000 impressions)	about $14.38	$9.63 (May 2026)	$21.73 (Nov 2025)	about $20.59
CPC (per click)	about $0.95	$0.49 (Jul 2026)	$1.53 (Nov 2025)	about $1.05
Cost per lead	about 50.8	25.27 (Mar 2026)	101.96 (Jun 2026)	about 46.0

Source: Superads Facebook ads benchmark tool, plus the CPC page and the cost per lead page, read 1 October 2026. Medians, all industries, Australia. CPM and CPC cover July 2025 to July 2026; cost per lead covers July 2025 to June 2026. Currency not stated by the source; cost per lead printed without a currency sign.

The tool updates as new data arrives, so these figures will move.

Which dollar is that? We do not know, and neither does the page

The Superads pages print a dollar sign. They do not say which dollar.

We publish every Superads figure exactly as shown, with a plain ”$”. We have not converted anything and we will not guess, because a wrong label would put a wrong number in your budget.

The cost per lead page prints its numbers with no dollar sign at all. That is why the table shows about 50.8 and not “$50.8”.

The practical fix is simple. Your own Ads Manager reports in your account currency, so your own CPM column is the Australian-dollar number that matters. Use the published figures for the shape of the year, and your account for the price. This guide leans on ratios for the same reason: “twice as many impressions” holds whichever dollar the source uses.

November cost more than double May

Australia ran about 30% below the global average over the window, which was about $20.59 (range $16.47 in July 2026 to $24.26 in November 2025). The gap was narrowest in November 2025, about 10% below, and widest in May 2026, about 58% below.

For a budget, the swing matters more. Australian CPM moved about $4.04 on average from one month to the next. Globally the figure was about $1.92, so the Australian swing was more than double the global one.

The high was $21.73 in November 2025, after a rise of $8.19 on October. December 2025 then fell $10.87 to $10.86. April 2026 rose $8.25 on March, and May then fell $10.91 to the low of $9.63.

Translate that into what a budget buys. The same budget bought about 2.26 times as many impressions in May 2026 as in November 2025, and about twice as many in December 2025 as in November 2025. Against the 13-month average, a November 2025 budget bought about a third fewer impressions.

That is why a yearly average is the wrong number to plan on. We do not know why the spikes happened, and one year of data is not a calendar, so check your own account rather than assuming the pattern repeats.

Clicks and leads on the same dataset

The same dataset has click and lead figures, and they are worth reading as a warning more than as a price.

For clicks, the Australian median averaged about $0.95 against a global median near $1.05. Australia was above the global figure in only two months: November 2025, about 19% above, and December 2025, about 8% above. Average monthly movement was about $0.24 in Australia against about $0.10 globally.

Cost per lead should make you cautious. Over the 12 months from July 2025 to June 2026, the Australian median averaged about 50.8, against a global median of about 46.0, with no currency sign printed. It started at 51.8 in July 2025, fell to a low of 25.27 in March 2026, rose to about 65.65 in May, and hit a high of 101.96 in June 2026. Month-to-month change averaged about 36% in Australia against about 7.8% globally.

June is the month the Australian financial year ends. The data does not say why June was highest, and one year is not a pattern.

The lesson is blunt. If lead costs can run from 25.27 to 101.96 inside one year, a single week of results tells you almost nothing.

Why you will not find a by-industry table here

Several Australian agency pages publish Meta cost tables by industry in Australian dollars. We could not trace any of them to a dataset with a stated method. The all-industry figures they quote do not agree with each other, so we have not reproduced any of them.

Superads itself has no Australian industry breakdown. Its industry pages are global. A short honest answer beats a full invented table.

What replaces it is your own data. Run one campaign for two or three weeks, then read the CPM and cost per result columns in Ads Manager.

Meta wants about 50 results a week from each ad set

Meta’s Business Help Centre page, About the learning phase, explains a second driver of price.

The learning phase is the period when the delivery system is still learning how an ad set will deliver, after a new ad or ad set is created or a significant edit is made. An ad set exits learning once delivery is stable, which Meta says usually happens after about 50 results in the week after the last significant edit. During learning, ad sets are less stable and usually have a higher cost per result. If an ad set cannot get enough results to exit, the Delivery column shows “Learning limited”.

Meta’s advice is to avoid unnecessary edits, avoid running many ads and ad sets because each one learns less, and use a budget large enough to get enough results. For a lead campaign, a result is a lead. So your own cost per result times 50 is the weekly spend one ad set needs.

GST on the bill: your ABN decides

Meta’s page on taxes on Meta ads placement says tax depends on the country of the “Sold to” address on the ad account. For an Australian “Sold to” address, from 1 August 2018:

• If the “Sold by” entity on the receipt is outside Australia and you are not buying for a business purpose, or your business is not GST registered, Meta adds GST.
• If you are GST registered and buying for a business purpose, Meta asks for your ABN so that GST is not added.
• If the “Sold by” entity on the receipt is Facebook Australia, Meta adds GST regardless of purpose.

Australian GST is 10%. The ATO requires GST registration once your GST turnover reaches A$75,000. Registration below that is voluntary.

In practice, check the “Sold by” line and the GST line on a receipt. A registered business with no ABN on the ad account may be charged GST it did not need to pay. A business under the threshold that is not registered pays the GST as a real cost and cannot claim it back. A registered business charged GST by Facebook Australia can generally claim it as a GST credit on its BAS, when the ads relate to its taxable sales.

Meta says it cannot give tax advice, and neither can we. This is not tax advice; check with your accountant.

To run this sum on your own numbers, use our free Meta ads budget calculator. Enter your cost per lead and it shows the leads your budget buys and whether it reaches 50 a week for each ad set.

A Newcastle physio on A$1,200 a month (hypothetical)

The numbers here are assumed. They are not a benchmark and not a client.

A physiotherapy clinic in Newcastle, New South Wales spends A$1,200 a month on one Meta lead campaign. Assume its own Ads Manager shows a cost per booking enquiry of A$40. That is 30 enquiries a month (1,200 divided by 40), about 7 a week. Reaching 50 a week at A$40 would take A$2,000 a week (50 times 40), about A$8,667 a month (2,000 times 52 divided by 12). So this ad set will show Learning limited.

Now split the same A$1,200 across three ad sets. Each gets about 10 enquiries a month, between 2 and 3 a week, and the system learns almost nothing about any of them.

The sensible move is one campaign, one ad set, one offer, left alone. Learning limited is not failure. Judge the campaign over a month by bookings, not by the week.

As a ratio only: if impressions cost what the dataset showed, the same A$1,200 would have bought roughly twice as many impressions in December 2025 as in November 2025.

What to do with these numbers this month

You can act on this without spending more.

1. Open Ads Manager and add the CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) and cost per result columns. Read them by month.
2. If your offer is not seasonal, ease spend in a spike month and push in a cheap one.
3. Do not judge a campaign on one week.
4. If one lead is worth less to you than what a lead costs in your own account, wait. Tuning rarely closes that gap. Work out break-even with our guide to return on ad spend for Facebook and Instagram ads.

Management fees and creative sit on top of ad spend, and what digital marketing costs in Australia covers them. For the search side, see what Google Ads cost in Australia. If you would rather have a team run it, see our digital advertising service.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to reach 1,000 people in Australia on Facebook or Instagram? The only Australian figure we could trace to a stated method is a median of about $14.38 per 1,000 impressions across all industries, averaged over July 2025 to July 2026 in the Superads dataset. Impressions are not the same as people, because one person can see an ad more than once. The monthly figure ranged from $9.63 to $21.73, so check your own Ads Manager.

Are these Meta ad costs in Australian dollars or US dollars? We do not know. The Superads pages print a dollar sign and do not say which dollar, so we publish each figure exactly as shown and have not converted anything. The cost per lead page prints no currency sign at all. Your own Ads Manager reports in your account currency, so the CPM column there is the Australian-dollar number that matters for your budget.

Which month was cheapest for Meta ads in Australia? In the Superads data, May 2026 had the lowest Australian median, $9.63 per 1,000 impressions, and November 2025 the highest at $21.73. The same budget bought about 2.26 times as many impressions in May as in November. One year of data is not a calendar you can rely on, so compare against your own account by month.

Do I pay GST on Facebook ads if I have an ABN? It depends on your registration and the receipt. If you are GST registered and buying for a business purpose, Meta asks for your ABN so GST is not added. If the Sold by entity on the receipt is Facebook Australia, Meta adds GST regardless, and a registered business can generally claim it back on its BAS. This is not tax advice; check with your accountant.

Why does this guide not list Meta ad costs by industry? Several Australian agency pages publish Meta cost tables by industry, but we could not trace any of them to a dataset with a stated method, and the all-industry figures they quote do not agree with each other. Superads has no Australian industry breakdown either. A short honest answer beats a full invented table, so use two or three weeks of your own account data.

How many results a week does a Meta ad set need? Meta says an ad set usually exits the learning phase after about 50 results in the week after the last significant edit. For a lead campaign a result is a lead. Multiply your own cost per result by 50 to get the weekly spend one ad set needs. If it cannot get there, the Delivery column shows Learning limited, which is not failure.

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