How much does Google Ads cost for a fabrication shop?

"How much should we spend on Google Ads?" is usually the first question a shop owner asks, and the honest answer is: it depends less on Google than on your shop. A $90 quote request is expensive for a shop whose average job is $1,200, and a bargain for one whose average new customer orders $60,000 over three years.

This article gives you real ranges for metal fabrication in Canada, then the math to work out the number that matters for your shop: what you can afford to pay for a quote request.

The short answer

Those ranges come from campaigns for fabrication shops, not from Google's averages across all industries, which mix in lawyers, plumbers and online stores. Your numbers will depend on your processes, territory and competition.

What drives the cost per click

Google Ads is an auction. Each time someone searches, Google ranks the advertisers who want that search, based on how much they bid and how relevant their ad and page are. A few factors push fabrication clicks up or down:

• The process. Searches for common services in big cities ("laser cutting toronto") attract more advertisers than niche ones ("tube laser cutting", "deep drawing stamping").
• The territory. Greater Montreal or the Golden Horseshoe cost more than smaller regional markets, where you might be one of two advertisers.
• The language. In Quebec, French searches often have fewer advertisers than English ones for the same service.
• Relevance. An ad that matches the search and sends people to a page about exactly that process earns a better Quality Score, which lowers what you pay for the same position.
• Your competitors' budgets. When a competitor raises bids or runs out of budget mid-month, your costs move too.

The budget floor: enough clicks to learn

Too small a budget is the most common reason fabrication campaigns "don't work". With five clicks a day, one good or bad week is mostly luck, and neither you nor Google's bidding can tell good keywords from bad ones.

As a rule of thumb, aim for at least 8 to 10 clicks a day per campaign:

If that budget is out of reach, narrow the campaign rather than spreading it thin: one process, one region, one language. A focused campaign at $1,000 a month beats three starved ones at $350.

The number that matters: cost per quote request

Cost per click is the first number Google shows you, and the least useful on its own. A $9 click from an engineer searching "stainless laser cutting service" can be worth more than ten $0.90 clicks from people searching for a wedding sign.

What you actually buy is quote requests:

Notice that the landing page moves the result as much as the click price does. Improving the page from 5% to 8% has the same effect as cutting every click price by 37%.

What a quote request is worth to your shop

To know whether $100 a request is good or bad, work out what a request is worth. Use your own numbers from the last 12 months; here's a worked example for a hypothetical laser-cutting and forming shop.

1. Gross profit per job. Average first job from a new customer: $5,000. Gross margin after material, labour and machine time: 30%. Gross profit per job: $1,500.
2. Gross profit per customer. A typical new customer gives 2.5 jobs over three years. Gross profit per customer: $3,750.
3. Value of a qualified request. You win 25% of quotes from new customers. Value per qualified request: $3,750 × 25% = $938.
4. Value of any request. About 60% of ad requests are real, in-scope jobs. Value per request: $938 × 60% = $563.

That $563 is the break-even cost per request: pay that much and the gross profit from the customers you win exactly covers the ads, over three years.

Nobody should run at break-even. Reinvesting 25 to 35% of that value is a sensible target, here about $140 to $200 per request. And as a safety check, count only the first job: $1,500 × 25% × 60% = $225. If your target is under the first-job figure, the campaign pays for itself even if no customer ever orders again.

What management costs

Ad spend goes to Google. Someone also has to build and run the campaign. Your options:

• Do it yourself. The cost is your time: a few days to set up properly (keywords, negatives, ads, landing page, conversion tracking), then two to four hours a week.
• A general agency or freelancer. Common pricing is a percentage of ad spend (often 10 to 20%) or a flat monthly fee. Check what's included: many don't build the landing page or track calls.
• A specialized agency. Usually a higher flat fee that includes the landing page, tracking, reporting and ongoing optimization. For reference, Calibre's service starts at $3,000 a month plus ad spend, with a 3-month minimum, and includes a bilingual quote page, call and form tracking and a weekly one-page report.

Whatever the model, insist on owning your Google Ads account, getting conversion tracking on calls and forms, and a report in cost per request, not just clicks and impressions.

The costs nobody puts in the quote

• A landing page. If your site has no focused quote page, budget to build one. It's often the biggest lever on cost per request.
• Call tracking. Calls are a large share of fabrication leads. Google's forwarding numbers are free for calls from ads; tracking calls from the website may need a call-tracking tool.
• Estimating time. Every request takes estimator time, including the ones you don't win. Good negatives and pre-qualifying ads cut the junk.
• Response time. It costs nothing, but slow answers are where most ad spend is lost. A buyer who waits a day often calls the next shop.

How to lower your cost per request

1. Add negative keywords before launch. Job seekers, hobbyists and machine buyers can eat a large part of a fabrication budget. Start with our 100 negative keywords for manufacturers.
2. Send clicks to a page about that process, with capacities, real photos and a quote form with drawing upload.
3. Target people in your area, not people "interested in" it.
4. Bid on supplier searches first ("service", "shop", "quote", city names) and treat broad process terms carefully.
5. Pause what doesn't produce requests after enough clicks to judge, and move the budget to what does.

So, how much should you spend?

Start from the economics, not from what feels affordable:

1. Work out your target cost per request, as above.
2. Estimate your click cost (start with $4 to $6 if you don't know) and a realistic conversion rate for your page.
3. Set a budget that gives you at least 8 to 10 clicks a day, in as few campaigns as possible.
4. Run it for 60 days, then judge on cost per qualified request, not on the first two weeks.

The Fabricator's Google Ads Playbook includes interactive calculators for the value of a lead and the monthly budget, plus the rest of the setup step by step. For the bigger picture, read Google Ads for metal fabrication shops: the complete guide.