Know this first
- With Google Ads, you'll be charged automatically on the 1st of each month or any time that your balance reaches an amount known as your payment threshold.
- Your charge covers your advertising costs and any unpaid balance from the previous month, plus tax and fees that may apply in some countries.
- Your first day of the month charge may sometimes exceed your payment threshold.
Your charge
Current costs + Outstanding balance = Charged amount
Your charge covers your current advertising costs, plus tax and fees (if any), as well as any unpaid costs, which include tax and fees, from previous billing cycles, minus adjustments/promotional credits from the current or previous billing cycle.
- Current costs are from this billing period.
- Unpaid costs are from previous billing periods.
If your total advertising costs are greater than your payment threshold (the amount that usually triggers a charge), the extra costs will be added to your current balance for the next charge.
Your current balance is made up of any balance carried over from a previous month and your net cost (which includes advertising costs, taxes and fees, if any, minus adjustments and promotional credits) for the current month.
Example 1
Your monthly spend is less than your payment threshold (the balance amount that triggers a charge) when, for example:
- Your last payment date was on 1 August
- Your payment threshold is $50
- Your monthly spend for August is $49
- In the above example, you’ll be charged for $49 on 1 September
Example 2
Your monthly spend is greater than your payment threshold (the balance amount that triggers a charge) when, for example:
- Your last payment charge was 1 August
- Your payment threshold is $250
- Your monthly spend for August is $275
- In the above example, you’ll be charged $250 in August, on a date when your balance crosses the $250 payment threshold. Additionally, you’ll be charged for the remaining balance of $25 on 1 September
Frequently asked questions about charges
Open the links below to answer questions about charges.
Charged more than once in a month
Charges don't usually happen once a month or at the end of the month. They can happen multiple times throughout the month, and are based primarily on thresholds – or the set amount of costs that your account reaches. This amount triggers a charge, so it means you might be charged more than once in a month.
If you never cross your payment threshold amount within a month, then you will get automatically charged on the same date every month (there may be changes to your automatic payment date to allow for shorter months or leap years).
Example 1
If your threshold is $500, then you'll be charged every time that your costs reach $500 within the same month. If your costs total $1,500 in a month, you'll be charged $500 three times (3 x 500 = 1,500).
Example 2
If your last automatic payment was a threshold charge of $500 on 25 August and you don’t reach your threshold again before the end of August, your next automatic payment will be on 1 September.
Identical charges
This rarely happens but if you see two identical charges from Google Ads on your credit card or bank statement, there may be two reasons:
- Authorisation request: This is a request between our billing system and the bank that issued your credit card. It happens nearly every time a payment is made, and the request appears as a pending amount that's identical to an already processed charge. These requests normally disappear within several days, although this can vary by bank.
- Double charge: An error can cause a double charge, which means your account is billed twice for the same amount, and neither charge is marked as pending on your statement. Google can’t refund or cancel the payment, but any additional payment will serve as a credit applied to future advertising spend. Sometimes, an automatic payment may occur even after manual payment is initiated due to the time needed for the payment to be recognised by Google.
- Another reason for a double charge could be that your account spend is high and you may have reached your threshold amount more than once in a day, triggering an automatic charge. If your account spend is very high, you may be eligible to increase your threshold amount. Learn more about how to change how often you’re charged.
If your bank statement shows a double charge or if it shows an authorisation request that doesn't go away on its own, contact your bank for help.
Charged for more than your average daily budget on some days
Internet search traffic fluctuates from day to day. To make up for these fluctuations and to ensure that your campaigns reach their potential, Google may allow up to 2x more interactions in one day than your average daily budget specifies. We call this overdelivery.
However, our system makes sure that in a given billing period, you're never charged more than the number of days in that billing period multiplied by your average daily budget.
For example, if you budget $10 per day and you're charged for a monthly billing period, the maximum you would pay is $300.
If Google overdelivers your ads and you accrue more costs in a billing period than your budget allows, a credit will automatically be applied to your account. For instance, if you accrue $35 in clicks in one month, but you have an average daily budget of $1 per day (and therefore $30 per monthly billing period), you'll receive a $5 overdelivery credit.
Note: Pay for conversions campaigns are billed differently and can be billed for more than twice the average daily budget.
To see whether you've received any credits for overdelivery:
- In your Google Ads account, click the Billing icon
.
- Click Summary.
- Open the appropriate month card and select Adjustments.
- Select Campaign activity.
- Any credits for excess activity will be labelled 'Overdelivery'.
Charged after you already initiated a manual payment
If you use the automatic payments setting and then make a manual payment, you might be charged on your automatic billing cycle.
Here's why:
- An automatic payment was already in progress when you initiated your payment: The automatic payment cycle is punctual, so if you made your payment when this process was underway, you might still be charged. This is most likely to happen if you make a payment when you're close to your billing threshold, at the end of the calendar month.
- You reached the end of your billing cycle: After you make a manual payment, your account returns to its usual billing cycle. You'll receive an automatic charge after your account costs reach your payment threshold or on the first date of the next month, whichever happens first.
Charged after you entered a promotional code
Charged outside your billing cycle
You might be charged outside your billing cycle if you made a manual payment (by clicking on the 'Make a payment' or 'Add funds' button in your account). Although automatic payments are processed within a set billing cycle, you can make a manual payment at any time:
- You've made a manual payment (by selecting the Make a payment button in your account). Although automatic payments are processed within a set billing cycle, you can make a manual payment at any time.
- Your account might recently have been upgraded to a new billing interface. When this happens, you're charged for your account balance at the time of this upgrade – you're not being charged for the upgrade. This one-off charge is outside of your normal billing cycle. All your future charges should be within your usual billing cycle.
Charged after you stopped your ads or cancelled your account
When you stop your ads from running – by cancelling your account or pausing or removing your campaigns – the Google Ads system can take several hours to halt your ads completely. After that point, you won't accrue any more costs.
However, you'll be billed for any unpaid advertising costs that accrued before your ads stopped running. Our system operates on a monthly billing cycle, so you might not receive your final charges for several weeks.
To see whether you have any unpaid advertising costs, select the Billing icon 
Charges on bank statement don't match your Google Ads account
Sometimes, your bank statement charges look a bit different from those that you see in your Google Ads account. Here are some common reasons why:
Charges are off by a day or two
In most cases, this is expected because charges can post to Google Ads and bank statements on different days. Since both Google Ads and banks operate on different systems, payments don't always happen at the same time.Bank charges aren't appearing in Google Ads
If this happens, here's what you can do to review the two accounts:
- If you have more than one Google Ads account, check each account to see if the charges appear (in many cases, your 10-digit customer ID number is shown on your bank statement). See more about how charges appear below, or learn more about unauthorised charges
- If you still can't work out where the charge is coming from, you can contact our support team. Have a screenshot or scanned copy of the charges in question ready. This will help us research the charge more easily. And make sure that you block out all charges and other information that isn't associated with the charge in question – your privacy is important to us.
