The short answer
LinkedIn Ads typically cost $6-$15 per click and $30-$100+ per thousand impressions in the US and UK, with senior and niche audiences at the top end. B2B leads commonly cost $75-$350. The minimum is just $10 a day per campaign, but most B2B companies need $3,000-$5,000 a month or more to get meaningful results.
LinkedIn Ads costs by metric
| Metric | Typical range | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per click (CPC) | $6-$15+ | Seniority, audience size, ad relevance |
| Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) | $30-$100+ | Audience competition, placement, time of year |
| Cost per lead (Lead Gen Forms) | $75-$250 | Offer strength, form length, targeting |
| Cost per lead (website) | $120-$350+ | Landing page, offer and audience |
| Cost per video view | Usually well under $1 | Length, audience, creative |
These ranges are for B2B campaigns targeting professional audiences in the US and UK. Highly senior or tiny audiences (e.g. CFOs at enterprise banks) can cost much more.
Why LinkedIn costs more than Google or Meta
It's supply and demand. LinkedIn has far fewer users than Meta and far less ad inventory, and nearly every B2B company wants to reach the same people: decision makers at mid-sized and large companies.
What you're paying for is precision. On Google you can only guess who's searching. On Meta, targeting is increasingly broad. On LinkedIn you can show an ad only to heads of finance at SaaS companies with 200-1,000 employees in Germany. If one deal is worth $20,000+, paying $12 for a click from exactly the right person is often cheaper than paying $3 for ten clicks from the wrong ones.
Worked example: B2B software on LinkedIn
A B2B company spending $6,000 a month at about $11 per click, using Lead Gen Forms with a useful offer (a benchmark report) and a sales team following up within a day.
| Step | Example |
|---|---|
| Monthly ad spend | $6,000 |
| Average cost per click | $11.00 |
| Clicks | 545 |
| Conversion rate to leads | 9.0% |
| Leads | 49 |
| Cost per lead | $122 |
| Close rate to customers | 12% |
| Customers | 5.9 |
| Cost per customer | $1,019 |
| First-year contract value | $18,000 |
| Revenue | $106,036 |
| Return on ad spend | 17.7x |
About $122 per lead and $1,019 per customer: roughly 17.7x in first-year revenue. LinkedIn only works like this when deal values are high. At a $1,000 deal value, the same numbers would lose money.
How much to budget for LinkedIn Ads
| Stage | Monthly budget | What it allows |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | $10/day per campaign | LinkedIn's floor; too little to learn much |
| Testing | $2,000-$3,000 | One audience, two or three ad variations, basic retargeting |
| Steady B2B programme | $5,000-$15,000 | Several audiences, a full funnel and regular creative |
| Enterprise / ABM | $15,000+ | Account lists across regions, multiple offers and formats |
How to lower your LinkedIn Ads costs
Don't over-narrow audiences
Tiny audiences are expensive and burn out fast. Aim for tens of thousands of people for most campaigns, then exclude the wrong ones.
Switch off Audience Network
LinkedIn Audience Network shows ads outside LinkedIn and often brings cheap, low-quality clicks. We test it carefully or leave it off.
Use Lead Gen Forms well
Pre-filled forms convert much better than landing pages on mobile. Add a qualifying question to keep quality up.
Retarget cheaply elsewhere
Reach new people on LinkedIn, then retarget them on Google and Meta, where impressions cost a fraction as much.
When LinkedIn Ads are worth the price
A good fit if…
- Your average deal or customer lifetime value is several thousand dollars or more
- You sell to specific roles, industries or company sizes
- You have a sales team to follow up leads within a day
- You can offer something useful: a report, an assessment, a demo worth taking
Probably not right if…
- You sell a low-cost product to consumers
- Your buyers already search for what you do (start with Google Ads)
- Your total budget is under $2,000 a month
- You expect a sale directly from a cold ad