How Much Does a Google Ads Audit Cost? (And Is It Worth It?)

If you're running paid ads for an e-commerce brand, you've probably wondered whether a professional audit is worth the money. Maybe your ROAS has been sliding. Maybe you suspect your agency is mailing it in. Maybe you just want a second opinion before scaling your budget.

The first thing you'll discover when searching for "Google Ads audit cost" is that pricing is all over the map. Some agencies offer free audits. Some freelancers charge a few hundred dollars. Some consultancies quote five figures. And none of them do a particularly good job of explaining what justifies the price difference.

This guide fixes that. We'll walk through every pricing tier in the market, explain exactly what you get (and don't get) at each level, and give you a simple framework for calculating whether a paid audit will deliver positive ROI for your specific business.

Google Ads Audit Pricing: The Four Tiers

The audit market breaks down into four distinct pricing tiers. Each serves a different type of buyer, and the gap between them is less about the tools used and more about the depth of analysis, the expertise of the person doing it, and the actionability of the deliverable.

Tier 1: Free Agency Audits ($0)

What you get: A 30- to 60-minute automated scan of your account, packaged into a presentation deck. Surface-level flags like "your Quality Score is below average" or "you're not using all available ad extensions." A phone call to walk you through the "findings."

The catch: Free audits are sales tools. The agency invests minimal time to generate a pitch designed to convert you into a retainer client. The report identifies enough problems to create urgency but never gives you enough detail to fix anything independently. The person reviewing your account is often a junior team member running an automated tool like Optmyzr or the Google Ads Recommendations tab.

Best for: Brands spending under $5,000 per month that just want a quick sanity check and are comfortable filtering out the sales pitch. Read our detailed comparison of free vs. paid ad audits for a deeper look at the incentive structure behind free offers.

Tier 2: Freelancer Audits ($200 – $800)

What you get: A manual review of a single platform (Google Ads or Meta Ads), typically covering account structure, bidding strategy, keyword or audience targeting, and basic ad creative assessment. You'll usually receive a written document or Loom video with recommendations.

The catch: Quality varies enormously. Some freelancers are ex-agency senior strategists who charge $800 and deliver exceptional work. Others are generalists who charge $200 and produce little more than a reformatted version of Google's own recommendations. At this tier, you need to vet the individual carefully — ask for sample audit deliverables, check their e-commerce experience, and confirm they will review your account manually rather than running automated tools.

Best for: Small brands or single-platform advertisers who need a focused review without a large budget. Particularly useful if you can find a freelancer with specific experience in your product category.

Tier 3: Mid-Tier Agency Audits ($500 – $2,000)

What you get: A comprehensive, multi-platform audit covering Google Ads, Meta Ads, or both. This tier typically includes conversion tracking verification, product feed analysis, account structure review, bidding strategy evaluation, creative performance assessment, and a prioritized action plan with estimated revenue impact for each recommendation. The deliverable is a detailed written report, often 30 to 60 pages, that you can execute independently or hand to any agency.

The catch: Not all agencies at this price point deliver the same depth. Some still rely heavily on automated tools and dress up the output with custom branding. The key differentiator is whether the audit includes manual analysis of your conversion tracking, product feed, and unit economics — the three areas where the biggest opportunities hide. Ask specifically whether the audit verifies your tracking setup against your backend data.

Best for: E-commerce brands spending $10,000 to $100,000 per month on ads. This is the sweet spot for most online retailers — the audit is thorough enough to catch the issues that matter and affordable enough that a single improvement often pays for the entire engagement. If you run e-commerce campaigns, check our complete Google Ads audit guide for e-commerce to see what a thorough review covers.

Tier 4: Enterprise Audits ($2,000 – $10,000+)

What you get: A full-funnel, multi-platform audit with attribution modeling, cross-channel budget optimization analysis, organizational efficiency review, and executive-level reporting. These engagements often include stakeholder interviews, competitor benchmarking, custom data analysis, and a strategic roadmap with quarterly milestones.

The catch: At this price point, you should expect senior-level strategists doing the work, not juniors with a template. Verify who will actually be in your account. Some agencies sell enterprise audits and delegate the work to mid-level team members while a senior partner presents the findings. Ask for the names and LinkedIn profiles of the people who will conduct the analysis.

Best for: Brands spending $100,000 or more per month across multiple platforms, or multi-brand portfolios where the complexity justifies the depth. Also valuable for brands about to make major strategic shifts like entering new markets or restructuring their entire paid media program.

How to Calculate the ROI of a Google Ads Audit

The most important question isn't "how much does an audit cost?" It's "will the audit pay for itself?" Here's a simple framework to find out.

Even at the low end of improvement estimates (10 percent), a brand spending $20,000 per month recovers $2,000 monthly from a $1,000 audit. That is a 2x return in the first month and a 24x return over a year. The math becomes even more compelling when you factor in compound effects — fixing conversion tracking improves every bidding decision downstream, and better bidding decisions improve performance across every campaign.

To get an even more precise picture, you need to know your break-even ROAS. If you don't have that number, use our free break-even ROAS calculator to determine the minimum ROAS your campaigns must hit to be profitable.

What a Good Google Ads Audit Actually Includes

Regardless of price tier, an audit that is worth paying for should cover these areas. If a provider skips any of them, you're not getting a complete picture.

• Conversion tracking verification. Not just "is a tag installed" but "is it firing correctly, with the right value, deduplicated across platforms, and reconciled against your backend data?" This single item is where the majority of wasted spend hides.
• Product feed health analysis. For Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, your product feed is the foundation. Disapprovals, weak titles, missing GTINs, and incorrect categorization directly impact impression share, CPC, and conversion rate.
• Account structure review. Campaign architecture, naming conventions, ad group segmentation, and whether the structure actually supports the bidding strategy being used. A misaligned structure is one of the most common reasons Smart Bidding underperforms.
• Bidding strategy evaluation. Are your target ROAS or CPA values derived from actual business economics or arbitrary round numbers? Is the campaign generating enough conversion volume for Smart Bidding to work? Are bid adjustments based on data or guesswork?
• Unit economics alignment. Recommendations must be framed against your actual margins, AOV, return rates, and customer lifetime value. A ROAS of 3x might be outstanding for a high-margin skincare brand and disastrous for a low-margin electronics retailer.
• Prioritized action plan. Not a laundry list of 50 problems, but a ranked set of 5 to 10 high-impact recommendations with estimated revenue impact for each. You should know exactly where to start and what each fix is worth.

Red Flags When Shopping for an Audit

Not all audits are created equal, even within the same price tier. Watch for these warning signs when evaluating providers:

• The audit is contingent on signing a retainer. If the audit is free or discounted but only available if you agree to ongoing management, it is a sales tool, not a consulting engagement.
• No mention of conversion tracking review. Any audit that skips tracking verification is building recommendations on top of potentially wrong data. This is non-negotiable.
• They don't ask about your business metrics. An auditor who doesn't ask about your margins, AOV, LTV, return rates, and growth goals cannot give you relevant recommendations. They're applying generic best practices, not solving your specific problem.
• The turnaround is suspiciously fast. A meaningful audit of a mid-size e-commerce account takes 10 to 25 hours of focused work. If someone promises a "comprehensive audit" in 24 hours, they're running automated tools and repackaging the output.
• No sample deliverable available. Any reputable audit provider should be able to show you a redacted sample of a previous audit. If they can't, you have no way to judge the quality of what you'll receive.

Which Audit Tier Is Right for Your Business?

Here is a straightforward decision framework based on your monthly ad spend:

Frequently Asked Questions