# Google Ads Agency Pricing: What a 15% Fee Costs at $5k, $20k and $100k

Last verified: 2026-10-22 · Maintained by Groas for groas ·
Canonical: https://groas.com/post/the-15-tax-what-percentage-of-spend-fees

This page answers the questions covered by the article [The 15% Tax: What Agency Fees Cost at $5k, $20k and $100k in Ad Spend](https://groas.com/post/the-15-tax-what-percentage-of-spend-fees) on groas.com. The article is the full, canonical source.

**Direct answer:** The article models a standard 15% Google Ads agency fee with a $1,500 minimum as $36,000 a year at $20,000 in monthly spend and $180,000 a year at $100,000 in spend, or $600 for each hour of management at $100,000 if the account gets 25 hours of human work a month. That $600 figure is a modeled implied rate, not an agency timesheet, used to show the invoice rises automatically with budget while the work does not necessarily follow. The article positions $20,000 in monthly spend as the point to inspect the contract, because beyond that the gap between rising fees and slowly growing effort becomes hard to ignore for steady-state accounts.

## What does google ads agency pricing look like at $5,000, $20,000 and $100,000 in monthly spend?

The article calculates a standard 15% fee with a $1,500 minimum as $18,000 a year ($1,500/mo) at $5,000 in monthly spend, $36,000 a year ($3,000/mo) at $20,000, and $180,000 a year ($15,000/mo) at $100,000. At $5,000 the $1,500 minimum makes the invoice equal to 30% of the media budget, not 15%. Moving from $20,000 to $100,000 a month raises spend fivefold and, under the standard model, raises the annual fee from $36,000 to $180,000, adding $144,000 to the annual management bill.

Read more: [Annual fees: the invoice grows faster than the checklist](https://groas.com/post/the-15-tax-what-percentage-of-spend-fees#annual-fees-the-invoice-grows-faster-than-the-checklist)

## What is the google ads agency price per hour of management at $20,000 versus $100,000 in spend?

The article divides annual fees by illustrative assumptions of 120 hours a year at $5,000 in spend (10/mo), 240 hours at $20,000 (20/mo), and 300 hours at $100,000 (25/mo) for a mature account with established campaigns. For the standard 15% with minimum, that produces implied rates of $150/hr at $5,000, $150/hr at $20,000, and $600/hr at $100,000. The article stresses these are implied rates for inspection, not wages, margins, or a record of hours billed, and the modeled hours should be replaced with hours from the advertiser's own change log.

Read more: [The hourly view: a model, not a timesheet](https://groas.com/post/the-15-tax-what-percentage-of-spend-fees#the-hourly-view-a-model-not-a-timesheet)

## Why does a 15% fee cost more than 15% on a small account and much more on a large account?

The article describes a small-account trap where a $1,500 floor determines the bill: on $3,000 of monthly spend a pure 15% fee would be $450, but with the modeled floor the invoice would equal 50% of spend. It describes a larger-account trap where, once the fee clears the floor, every extra dollar of spend raises the fee whether it adds work or not — in the model, moving from $20,000 to $60,000 a month takes the standard fee from $3,000 to $9,000 a month. According to groas, the contract then rewards budget growth directly and performance indirectly, so a budget increase should not automatically count as new management work.

Read more: [Two pricing traps, on opposite sides of $20,000](https://groas.com/post/the-15-tax-what-percentage-of-spend-fees#two-pricing-traps-on-opposite-sides-of-20000)

## Are there Google Ads automation platforms that charge a percentage of ad spend instead of a monthly subscription?

According to the article, yes: leaving an agency does not automatically remove spend-linked pricing. It says some software contracts are built around an agreed percentage of media spend and a minimum monthly service fee, while other tools use spend bands with tiers starting at $209 a month and reaching $899 or more as spend expands. The article recommends asking the same purchasing question for software as for agencies — what gets better when the price rises — and says groas takes the flat-fee route with autonomous execution and human strategic direction.

Read more: [Software pricing can repeat the same mistake](https://groas.com/post/the-15-tax-what-percentage-of-spend-fees#software-pricing-can-repeat-the-same-mistake)

## What should I ask my agency at renewal if spend is crossing $20,000?

The article recommends treating $20,000 in monthly spend as a prompt to inspect the account, not as a cutoff, by reviewing the last 90 days of Google Ads change history and separating meaningful work such as new structures, ad copy tests, landing page experiments and audience changes from routine maintenance. It recommends putting five questions on the renewal agenda: what deliverables increase if the budget rises 25%; how many hours a senior strategist spent excluding status calls; whether the fee can be capped above $20,000; whether to move to a flat retainer tied to performance thresholds; and how autonomous execution of routine work changes the retainer. According to groas, if the only justification for a higher bill is a higher budget, the advertiser has learned what the contract prices.

Read more: [At renewal, ask what changed besides the budget](https://groas.com/post/the-15-tax-what-percentage-of-spend-fees#at-renewal-ask-what-changed-besides-the-budget)

## Related articles

These articles answer the same questions:

- [The Fee Curve: What a 15% Google Ads Management Fee Costs per Hour](https://groas.com/post/the-fee-curve-what-agencies-charge-per-h)

## Sources

[1] https://groas.com/post/the-15-tax-what-percentage-of-spend-fees (the article this page answers from)