How much do Facebook ads cost in the UK? Check the pound sign

Short answer: Superads, the one all-industry UK benchmark we found with a stated method, puts the median at about 17.38 per 1,000 impressions, 1.18 a click and 37.80 a lead (13-month average to July 2026). Pound signs print on the click and lead figures, but the currency is unconfirmed. The only figures we found clearly in sterling are for estate agents: £4.65 per 1,000 impressions and £17.60 a lead. Meta’s 2% UK location fee, as reported by Reuters, and VAT at 20% where it applies, come on top.

This guide starts with a problem in the best UK figures we could find, then builds the budget on the parts that are certain. For the wider picture, our UK small business advertising guide covers the channels and the sums around them.

Three UK numbers, and the catch that comes with them

Meta publishes no rate card. The nearest thing to a UK benchmark is the Superads Facebook ads benchmark tool. Its dataset covers over $3 billion in Facebook ad spend from thousands of ad accounts that use Superads. The figures are medians, the midpoint, used because a few very expensive campaigns would drag an average up. The data is anonymised and aggregated.

Its UK pages cover all industries in Great Britain over 13 months, July 2025 to July 2026. These are the three pages: cost of 1,000 impressions, cost per click and cost per lead.

Metric (all industries, Great Britain)	As printed by Superads
Cost of 1,000 impressions (CPM), 13-month average	17.38
Cost per click, 13-month average	£1.18
Cost per lead, 13-month average	£37.80

Source: Superads, medians, July 2025 to July 2026. The currency is unconfirmed, so read the pound signs as printed, not proven.

The CPM prints with no sign. The click and lead figures carry pound signs we cannot rely on.

Is that pound sign real?

The UK cost per click page prints the global baseline as about £1.05. The Superads Australia cost per click page prints the same global baseline as “near $1.05”. Same number, different sign.

If the tool were converting currencies, the number would change between the two pages. It does not. So the sign appears to follow the country page, and a pound sign is not evidence of sterling.

Superads states no currency anywhere on these pages. We print the figures as shown and call the currency unconfirmed. We are not saying they are US dollars either. We do not know.

From here, we give Superads figures as bare numbers, with no sign. Treat them as ratios, not a price list. Ratios hold in any currency. Absolute figures do not.

December cost double October, and leads swung harder

Start with the year as a whole. The cost of 1,000 impressions went from 18.95 in July 2025 to 18.39 in July 2026, a fall of about 3%. The cost per click went from 1.25 to 1.14. The cost per lead went from 42.10 to 17.46. The months in between were far less steady.

The cost of 1,000 impressions hit its low of 13.20 in October 2025 and its high of 26.48 in December 2025. December was about double October. In March 2026 it sat at 14.42, close to the low again.

The global median over the same months averaged about 20.58. Great Britain ran roughly 15% to 16% below that on average, but in December 2025 roughly 31% above it. Great Britain also moved more month to month: about 3.45 on average against about 1.92 globally.

Clicks were calmer. The cost per click ran from 1.02 in October 2025 to 1.49 in December 2025, an average monthly move of about 0.15 against about 0.10 globally.

Leads swung hardest. The cost per lead was 58.52 in December 2025 and peaked at 59.71 in February 2026. In March 2026 it was 18.50, a one-month drop of about 69%. February was about 3.2 times March.

One year of data is not a pattern. We cannot tell you December is always the dearest month. What the data does show is that lead costs swing, so judge a campaign over weeks, not days.

Cheaper to be seen, dearer to be clicked

On this dataset, UK impressions cost less than the global median, about 15% to 16% below. UK clicks cost more, about 13% above the global baseline. Put those together and they point to fewer clicks from each 1,000 impressions in Great Britain than globally.

We will not put a number on click-through rate. The practical point is simpler. A cheap CPM does not mean cheap results. So judge your ads on cost per lead, or better, cost per booking. Impressions and clicks are steps along the way, not the result you are paying for.

Estate agents: the one UK trade with its own sterling figures

The only UK industry dataset we could trace with a stated method is from Rex Software UK: “Facebook Ad Benchmarks for Property Ads in the UK”, published 29 April 2025 and last updated 19 May 2025. It is based on 186 UK-based Rex Reach client accounts, representing £449,794 in aggregate Facebook spend over the previous 12 months. Rex states that all values are in GBP.

Metric	Estate agents, UK	Source basis
Click-through rate	7.4%	Property ads, Rex Reach client accounts
Cost per click	£0.06	Property ads, Rex Reach client accounts
CPM	£4.65	Property ads, Rex Reach client accounts
Cost per vendor lead (a seller lead)	£17.60	Median for ads with lead generation as the primary objective, using on-Facebook lead forms

Source: Rex Software UK, 29 April 2025, updated 19 May 2025. Values stated in GBP by Rex.

Three caveats. These are one software company’s own estate agent clients. The data is from 2025. And a 7.4% click-through rate with a 6p click is far from the all-industry picture, which suggests Rex counts every click, not only clicks to a website. Rex does not say which.

We kept these figures in their own table on purpose. Do not set them beside the Superads numbers and call the gap a saving.

Why the industry table stops at one row

Superads lets you filter by industry or by country, but choosing an industry drops the country, so its industry figures are global, not British. We checked this on the tool on 1 October 2026. The best-known by-industry report covers US campaigns only. Other UK by-industry tables we found online state no dataset, sample or method, so we have left them out.

We would rather publish one sourced row than ten unsourced ones.

What the invoice adds: a 2% location fee, then VAT

The location fee. Reuters reported on 10 March 2026 that Meta would charge advertisers a fee from 1 July 2026 to offset digital services taxes: 2% for the UK, 3% for France, Italy and Spain, and 5% for Austria and Turkey. It covers image or video ads delivered on Meta’s platforms, including WhatsApp click-to-message campaigns. Meta said it had covered these costs itself until then.

UK trade press reported that the fee depends on where the ad is shown, not where you are based. It is added as a separate line after delivery and is not taken out of the campaign budget. So the cost per result shown in Ads Manager does not include it. As an illustration, £900 of delivery to a UK audience carries an £18 fee.

We could not find the rate on a Meta help page ourselves, so check the fee line on your own invoice. Google adds its own 2% UK line too, which we cover in our Google Ads cost guide.

VAT. The UK standard rate is 20%. Meta’s help page, Taxes on Meta ads placement, says that when the seller on your receipt is Meta Platforms Ireland and you buy ads for business purposes with a UK address, Meta does not add VAT and you are required to self-assess it at the local rate. When the purchase is not for a business purpose, Meta applies VAT at the local rate. Meta says it cannot give tax advice. The registration threshold is taxable turnover of more than £90,000, per GOV.UK.

Who ends up carrying the 20%, and what to check in your billing settings, is covered in our guide to whether Facebook ads are worth it for a UK small business. This is general information, not tax advice.

Fifty results a week: the sum that sizes your budget

Meta’s help page on the learning phase says that after you create an ad set or make a significant edit, delivery is still learning. An ad set usually leaves that phase after about 50 results in the week following the last significant edit. While it learns, performance is less stable and cost per result is usually higher.

An ad set that cannot get enough results shows “Learning limited”. Meta advises avoiding unnecessary edits and too many ad sets, and using a budget large enough to get the results.

So your own cost per lead, multiplied by 50, is the weekly spend one ad set needs.

• With the Rex estate agent median of £17.60, 50 leads is £880 a week, about £3,813 a month (880 x 52 / 12).
• With the all-industry Superads figure of 37.80, 50 leads is 1,890 a week, in whatever currency that figure is in.

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

A Chester estate agency on £900 a month (hypothetical)

This is a hypothetical, with assumed numbers. It is not a client and not a measured result.

An estate agency in Chester spends £900 a month on a Meta lead campaign for vendor leads. At Rex’s median of £17.60 a lead, that is about 51 leads a month (900 / 17.60 = 51.1), roughly 12 a week.

Fifty a week would take £880 a week, about £3,813 a month. So this ad set will sit in “Learning limited”. That is not failure. Expect lead cost to swing week to week, and judge it over a month, by valuations booked and instructions won, not clicks.

The location fee adds £18 to the bill, which is 2% of £900, and it sits outside the budget.

If the agency split the £900 across three ad sets, each would get about 17 leads a month, around 4 a week, and the system would learn very little about any of them. One ad set, one offer, left alone.

So what should you do with all this?

1. Treat every benchmark as a starting range. Replace it with your own cost per lead after a few weeks.
2. Add the 2% fee and your VAT position before judging profit.
3. Multiply your own cost per lead by 50. That is what one ad set needs each week. If you cannot fund it, concentrate into one ad set or wait.
4. Expect the run-up to Christmas to cost more. Plan for it, without assuming next year repeats this one.
5. Do the break-even sum. If one lead is worth less to you than it costs, tuning rarely closes the gap.

See what digital marketing costs in the UK for management fees on top of spend, and Facebook and Instagram ROAS for break-even. Our digital advertising service can run the account for you.

Frequently asked questions

How much do Facebook ads cost per 1,000 impressions in the UK?

On the Superads benchmark, the all-industry UK median averaged about 17.38 per 1,000 impressions over the 13 months to July 2026. It ranged from 13.20 in October 2025 to 26.48 in December 2025. The page prints no currency sign on these figures. For estate agents, Rex Software reports £4.65, stated in sterling, from 2025 data.

Are the Superads UK Facebook ad costs in pounds or dollars?

Unconfirmed. The Superads UK cost per click page prints a global baseline of about £1.05. Its Australia page prints the same baseline as near $1.05. The number does not change, only the sign, so the sign appears to follow the country page. Superads states no currency on these pages, so we print the figures as shown and do not treat them as sterling.

What is Meta’s 2% UK location fee?

Reuters reported in March 2026 that Meta would add a fee from 1 July 2026 to offset digital services taxes, at 2% for ads delivered in the UK. UK trade press says it depends on where the ad is shown, and appears as a separate line after delivery, outside your campaign budget. The cost per result in Ads Manager does not include it, so check the fee line on your invoice.

When are Facebook ads most expensive in the UK?

On the Superads data, December 2025 was the dearest month for impressions, at 26.48 per 1,000 against 13.20 in October 2025, about double. Lead costs peaked in February 2026 at 59.71. That is one year of data, not a pattern, so plan for a dearer run-up to Christmas without assuming it repeats.

How much does a Facebook lead cost for a UK estate agent?

Rex Software’s 2025 benchmark for UK property ads puts the median cost per vendor lead, meaning a seller lead, at £17.60. That is for ads using on-Facebook lead forms, from 186 Rex client accounts, and Rex states the values are in GBP. It is one software company’s own clients, so treat it as a starting range and replace it with your own figure.

How much budget does a Meta ad set need to leave the learning phase?

Meta says an ad set usually leaves the learning phase after about 50 results in the week following its last significant edit. Multiply your own cost per lead by 50 to size the weekly budget. At the Rex estate agent median of £17.60, that is £880 a week, about £3,813 a month.

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