About spending limits

For most campaigns, given your average daily budget, you'll never pay more than:

• Your daily spending limit (2 times your average daily budget for most campaigns) on any particular day.
• Your monthly spending limit (30.4 times your average daily budget for most campaigns) in any particular month.

Visit the budget report to learn more about your served cost and spending limits.

Daily spending limit

The daily spending limit is the maximum amount you can be billed for a campaign on a given day.

Diagram legend:= $

For most campaigns, including Hotel Commission Campaigns, the daily spending limit is your average daily budget multiplied by 2. On a given day, your campaign might spend up to twice your average daily budget to take advantage of fluctuations of traffic. At the end of month, the amount you will have spent on average every day will match your average daily budget.

For instance, if your average daily budget is set to $10 USD, your daily spending limit is going to be $10 USD * 2 = $20 USD. If you've set up a "Pay for Conversions" campaign type, there is no daily spending limit but the campaign will always stay within the monthly spending limits (your average daily budget multiplied by 30.4). Review the section below to learn more about monthly spending limits.

Monthly spending limit

The monthly spending limit is the maximum amount you can pay for a campaign over a month.

You can calculate it by multiplying the average daily budget you set by the average number of days in a month, which is 30.4 (365 days in a year divided by 12 months). If your campaign starts during a calendar month, we'll only take into account the days the campaign was running.

For instance, if your average daily budget is set to $10 USD, your monthly spending limit is going to be $10 USD * 30.4 = $304 USD.

What happens when served costs exceed daily or monthly spending limits

In rare circumstances, your “served costs” may exceed your spending limits, but you’ll never actually pay more than your spending limits. To understand how this works, you’ll need to understand the difference between served costs and billed costs.

• Served cost is the cost of all the clicks or impressions that the campaign received.
• Billed cost is the actual amount you're responsible for paying after adjustments have been made to your account for items like invalid activity.

While served costs might exceed daily or monthly spending limits, you'll never pay more than these two limits. When such a situation occurs, Google will cover the difference. Learn more about how to view daily costs at the campaign and account level

Check your billed cost and served cost

In rare cases, campaigns may deliver more clicks and impressions than expected. However, it’s important to note that you'll never pay more than your spending limits.

If you'd like to determine whether your campaign served cost exceeded your billed cost, follow these steps:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Insights and reports drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Report editor.
4. Under the "Predefined reports (Dimensions)" drop down menu, select Other, then select Billed cost.
5. You’ll find a report that lists served and billed costs for each campaign.
   • To calculate the difference, subtract “Billed cost” from “Served cost”.
   • To perform these calculations in bulk, select the download icon in the top right corner of the report and save as a CSV file.

By default, the data is displayed daily and sorted by served cost. If you wish to assess a certain date range, remove the “Day” filter and set a date range in the upper right section above the table.

Related links

• Budgets overview
• About average daily budget
• About your budget report
• Why daily costs might exceed your average daily budget