How Ad Billing Works Across Platforms
Every ad platform charges differently — some by click, some by impression, some by action. Here's how 5 major platforms bill, what auction each uses, and their minimum budgets, sourced from their official help centers.
Google Ads
- Auction / pricing
- Generalized second-price-like via Ad Rank (bid × Quality Score + ad extensions/formats)
- Minimum budget
- No hard account minimum; set a daily budget of any size
Search ads bill mainly per click (CPC); Display/YouTube can bill on CPM/CPV; Smart Bidding optimizes to conversions (CPA/tCPA) or value (tROAS). Ad Rank auction sets position and what you actually pay.
Source: Google Ads official help center
Meta Ads (Facebook / Instagram)
- Auction / pricing
- Auction: total value = bid × estimated action rate + ad quality (lowest-cost / cost-cap / bid-cap strategies)
- Minimum budget
- About $1/day minimum (varies slightly by billing event)
Billing event can be impressions (CPM) or, for some objectives, link clicks; the optimization goal drives delivery. Meta ranks by 'total value', not just the highest bid.
Source: Meta Ads (Facebook / Instagram) official help center
TikTok Ads
- Auction / pricing
- Auction: bid + ad relevance/quality; oCPM optimizes toward chosen conversion event
- Minimum budget
- About $50/day minimum at campaign level; ~$20/day at ad-group level
Most objectives settle on oCPM (per 1,000 impressions, optimized toward conversions); CPC/CPV also supported. Auction combines bid and ad quality.
Source: TikTok Ads official help center
LinkedIn Ads
- Auction / pricing
- Second-price auction: relevance score (bid + predicted CTR + relevance)
- Minimum budget
- About $10/day per campaign minimum; higher recommended
B2B targeting premium means CPC/CPM run higher than most platforms; Message/Conversation Ads bill per send (CPS). Second-price auction.
Amazon Ads
- Auction / pricing
- Second-price auction for Sponsored ads; DSP programmatic (CPM)
- Minimum budget
- No hard minimum for Sponsored ads (daily budget); DSP typically has a higher entry threshold (often $10k+ managed)
Sponsored Products/Brands bill per click (CPC) via second-price auction; Sponsored Display can bill vCPM or CPC; DSP is programmatic CPM.
Source: Amazon Ads official help center