In short
How much to spend on Facebook and Instagram ads: a first budget, daily or lifetime budgets, the learning phase, creative and fees.
Set a Facebook ads budget you can keep running, unchanged, for months rather than weeks. Every new campaign spends its first 7 to 14 days in Meta's learning phase, and you need a full month after that to see what each enquiry really costs. Then plan for the two costs that sit beside your ad spend: the photos and video your ads run on and, if you hand the account over, a management fee. Ours starts at £600 a month + VAT.
So the real question isn't only how much to give Meta. It's what the whole thing costs, and how to set a first budget that gives your ads a fair chance.
Where does your money go when you run Facebook ads?
Three places. The biggest is ad spend, the money you pay Meta to run your ads on Facebook and Instagram. You set that figure yourself, and it goes straight to Meta.
The second is creative: the images, videos and words people see. You can make these yourself, pay someone to make them, or have them included in a management plan.
The third is management, the fee for someone to plan, run and improve the campaigns. You can skip it and run the ads yourself, and that's a fair choice if you have the time to learn Ads Manager and check it every day.
How does Meta decide what you pay?
Your ads compete for attention where people in the UK spend a large share of their time online. Ofcom's December 2025 round-up of its Online Nation research found that "Two major tech firms now account for more than half of the time people in the UK spend online", and Meta is one of them, alongside Google's parent company Alphabet.
Every time there's a chance to show someone an ad, Meta runs an auction. Its developer documentation, checked in October 2026, explains that the auction weighs your bid strategy, your bid amount and the probability of getting the result you've chosen, such as an enquiry, to calculate an effective bid. You also choose the event you pay for, from impressions and clicks to particular actions.
What this means for you is simple. Your budget sets the ceiling on what you spend, and the quality of your ads and targeting decides how much you get for it. An ad with a better chance of getting the result you've asked for carries a stronger effective bid into every auction it enters.
Should you set a daily or a lifetime budget?
Meta gives you both. Meta's budget documentation, checked in October 2026, defines a daily budget as the average you're willing to spend each day, and says that on days when better opportunities are available, up to 25% more than your daily budget can be spent. A lifetime budget is the amount you're willing to spend over the whole run of an ad set or campaign, and you won't be charged more than that for the ad set's results unless you change its delivery settings.
Use a daily budget for campaigns that run all the time, like a steady flow of enquiries for a trade or a clinic. Use a lifetime budget when there's a fixed end date: a seasonal offer, an open day or a sale that runs for two weeks. That way Meta paces the spend across the whole period rather than burning through it in the first few days.
How do you work out a starting budget?
Start with a monthly figure you can hold for several months, then turn it into a daily budget. £300 a month is £10 a day over a 30-day month. £1,500 a month is £50 a day.
Next, decide how many ad sets that money has to cover. Every ad set needs enough budget to reach enough people for Meta to learn who responds. A small budget split across five ad sets gives each one too little to work with, while the same money in one or two ad sets gives Meta something to learn from. Start narrow, then add more once the first ones are bringing in enquiries.
Finally, leave the budget alone while the campaign settles. Changing it every few days makes it impossible to tell what's working.
Why do results wobble in the first two weeks?
Because of the learning phase. For its first 7 to 14 days, Meta is still finding out who to show your ads to, so early results aren't a fair guide to how the campaign will perform.
That's the reason a one-week test tells you so little. Judge a new campaign once the learning phase is over, and look at your cost per enquiry across a full month before deciding whether to spend more or less.
What do the ads themselves cost to make?
Creative is a cost in its own right, and it decides how far your ad spend goes. Photos of your own work and a short video of you explaining what you do show people the real business they'd be dealing with, which a stock image can't.
You can film on your phone. If you'd rather hand it over, our content studio, The Edit, shoots photo and video for ads. Ad copywriting is included in every one of our Meta Ads plans, and our Scale plan adds video ad production guidance.
What does Facebook ads management add to the cost?
A management fee pays for the daily work on the account: building audiences, writing and testing ads, tracking each enquiry, moving budget towards what's working and reporting on what each enquiry cost. With us, the fee comes to us and the ad spend goes straight to Meta, so the two never get mixed up.
Which plan you need follows your ad budget. Starter is £600 a month + VAT for up to £2,000 a month of ad spend, Growth is £1,000 a month + VAT for up to £5,000, and Scale is £1,800 a month + VAT with no cap. All three run on a 6-month minimum term and start with a free audit. We're a Meta Business Partner, and our Meta Ads page sets out what's in each plan, while our page on Meta Ads in Birmingham shows how we run campaigns for businesses there.
And if you'd rather have Facebook ads, Google Ads, SEO and a new website run as one service, that's the DLR Growth Engine, at £1,499 a month + VAT on a 12-month term.
Frequently asked questions
Can I start Facebook ads with a small budget?
Yes. You set your own budget, so pick an amount you can hold steady and keep it in one or two ad sets so each one has enough to learn from.
How long before I know if my Facebook ads are working?
Allow 7 to 14 days for the learning phase, then judge the campaign on its cost per enquiry over a full month.
Do I need the Meta Pixel set up before I start?
No. Pixel setup and conversion tracking are part of our Starter plan and every plan above it, and we can set up your business page and ad account from scratch too.
What happens if my ad spend grows beyond my plan?
You move up a plan. Growth covers up to £5,000 a month in ad spend, and Scale has no limit.
Book a free Meta Ads audit
Want a starting budget based on your business rather than a guess? Our free audit looks at your account, your competitors and your goals. Call us on +44 1382 699595 or request your audit.
