The right budget isn’t picked at random: you start from what you want to achieve and what one extra customer is worth to you, then factor in your area, your audience and how long the campaign runs. It’s best to begin with a test that has a clear cap, measure the cost of each result and only spend more when the numbers hold up. The ad budget is paid to the platform and is separate from the fee of whoever runs the campaign.
How the cost works, in plain words.
On Instagram and Facebook there is no price list: an auction sets the price. Every time someone could see an ad, Meta chooses which one to show by looking at three things: how much the advertiser is willing to pay for the result they want, how likely that person is to take that action, and the quality of the ad. That’s why a more relevant ad can win even against higher bids.
- You set the budget: daily, meaning an average per day, or lifetime, for the whole campaign, which is a hard cap.
- A daily budget is an average: on some days Meta may spend up to 75% more and less on others, but over a week it never spends more than seven times the daily amount.
- Posts, reels and stories don’t have different fixed prices: they are placements in the same auction, and the cost per result changes with the audience, area, season and quality of the content.
- TikTok works in a similar way: auction ads with a daily or lifetime budget.
So the honest answer to “how much does it cost to promote a post?” is: as much as you decide. What really matters is how much each result costs you, and that’s what the rest of this guide explains.
Sources: Meta Business Help Center, About ad auctions and About budgets; TikTok Ads Manager, About budgets. Checked on 27 October 2026.
The goal first, then the figure.
Asking “how much should I spend?” without knowing what you want is like going grocery shopping without knowing what you’ll cook. Start with two questions:
- What needs to happen? More bookings, more quote requests, more people at an event, more visits to your shop.
- What is one extra customer worth to you? Think about how much they spend on average, how much of that you keep and how often they come back.
The second answer gives you a ceiling: the most you’re willing to spend to win a new customer. That’s the number you’ll compare your results against.
Audience and area: how big the field is.
For a local business, the area decides how many people you can realistically reach. Your budget should be in proportion to that field:
- Small area, big budget: the same people see the same ad too many times and stop noticing it. The platforms’ tools show this as frequency, the average number of times each person has seen the ad.
- Huge audience, small budget: the money is spread thin and it takes a long time to learn what works.
Timing: ongoing or time-limited.
In Meta’s and TikTok’s ad tools you can set either a daily budget or a total budget for the whole campaign. The choice depends on what you’re promoting:
- An event or something new: a total budget focused on the days that matter, then stop.
- Customers all year round: a steady daily budget, reviewed every month.
- A seasonal business: more spend in the weeks when people make their decisions, less when you’re closed or fully booked.
The first test: small, with rules.
You don’t need to start big. You need to start with a plan:
- Set an amount and a time frame you can afford even if the test goes badly.
- Prepare several versions of the ad, to see which one works best.
- Decide in advance what counts as success, using the ceiling you worked out.
- Don’t judge after one day. The platforms need time to figure out who to show your ads to: Meta calls this the learning phase.
Which numbers to watch for each goal is covered in our guide on boosted posts versus campaigns.
When to scale up and when to stop.
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| Cost per result stays below your ceiling and real enquiries come in | Spend more, but in small steps |
| Lots of clicks, few contacts | Before spending more, check your website, profile and offer |
| Frequency goes up and results drop | Refresh the ads or widen the area |
| Cost stays above your ceiling even after changing ads and audience | Stop and rethink the goal or the offer |
| You can’t keep up with all the enquiries | Don’t scale: get organised first |
Scale gradually even when everything is going well: on Meta, for example, a major budget change can send a campaign back into the learning phase.
Budget and fee: two different things.
When you ask for a quote for ad campaigns, there are two separate costs, and it pays to keep them apart:
- The ad budget goes to the platform, such as Meta or TikTok, and pays for your ads to be shown. It should run through an account in your name, where you can see at any time how much you’re spending.
- The agency fee pays for the work: strategy, ads, management and reporting.
Be wary of offers with a single figure that blends the two: you’d never know how much actually goes into advertising.
Your budget with Aleryc.
With Aleryc’s social media advertising on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, you decide the budget and it stays yours. It’s always separate from our fee, which starts at €426 per 30-day campaign (all our prices) and covers the strategy, content designed to be promoted and campaign management: you add the budget directly to your own ad account, following our step-by-step instructions, and pay it to the platform. If you’re based in another European Union country (we only work with clients who have a VAT number), any taxes or mandatory costs for that country are shown in your written quote, before you sign. We never handle your money, you can see at any time how much you’re spending, and we adapt the strategy to the budget you have, not the other way around. Before launching we give you a clear estimate; in the report we walk you through the results with real numbers and plain words, and we decide together how to proceed. Write to us (in English, by email or WhatsApp) to talk it through.