Free Tool
CPC Estimator
Estimate your cost per click based on industry benchmarks. See the expected range and plan your budget with real data.
Estimated CPC
$1.80
Industry median for E-commerce on Google
Cost Per Conversion
$72.00
CPC Range (p25–p75)
$1.08–$2.52
CPC spectrum for this industry
$0.90
Median
$3.60
| Scenario | CPC | Clicks | Conversions |
|---|
What drives cost per click
Cost per click is set at auction, not by a rate card. Four things move it, in roughly this order of impact:
- Commercial intent. The closer a query sits to a purchase, the more advertisers bid on it. This is why "auto insurance quote" costs orders of magnitude more than "car review".
- Customer value. Industries where one customer is worth thousands can afford clicks that would bankrupt a low-margin retailer. Insurance and legal services top our database for exactly this reason.
- Competitive density. More advertisers targeting the same term pushes the clearing price up.
- Quality Score and ad relevance. The only lever you fully control. Better relevance lowers your cost for the same position.
Current benchmarks
Median Google Search cost per click across the 98 keywords in our dataset, July 2026:
Why the median hides more than it shows
The median answers "what does a click cost here" and stops there. The interquartile range answers the question that actually decides a budget: how far apart are the cheap keywords and the expensive ones inside the same industry.
Across the 10 industries with enough keywords to measure it, that spread is not uniform. Real Estate is the widest: the 75th percentile sits at $6.22 against $1.22 at the 25th, a 5.1× difference within one vertical. Travel & Tourism is the tightest at 1.4×, from $1.77 to $2.55.
The practical consequence: in a wide-spread industry your keyword selection moves cost more than any bidding tactic will, and an industry average is close to meaningless. In a tight-spread industry the median is a reliable planning number and the leverage sits elsewhere, in conversion rate rather than in cost per click.
How to use an estimate
Treat the median as a planning midpoint and the interquartile range as your realistic band. Build the media plan on the median, stress-test it at the 75th percentile, and only commit budget if the plan survives the stress test. Each industry report publishes both figures for free.
These are national United States figures. Metro-level costs can differ substantially, and no benchmark can account for your account history or Quality Score. See our methodology for what the dataset does and does not contain.
Related calculators