If you have ever asked three agencies for a Google Ads quote and received three wildly different numbers, you are not alone. Some quote a flat monthly fee. Others want a percentage of your ad spend. Some bury the management fee inside a bigger "digital strategy" package that is hard to unpick.
For a Wellington business owner trying to work out whether $250 a month is fair, or whether $1,500 a month is highway robbery, there is not much honest, plain-English guidance out there. This post is an attempt at that: an honest look at management fees versus ad spend, so you can work out if a quote makes sense before you sign anything.
The Two Numbers You're Actually Paying
Every Google Ads arrangement involves two separate amounts, and confusing them is where most owners get caught out.
- Your ad spend. This goes to Google. It pays for the clicks, the impressions, the actual advertising. Nobody manages this on your behalf in the sense of "keeping" it; it is your budget, spent on your campaigns.
- The management fee. This is what you pay an agency or freelancer to set up, monitor, and optimise those campaigns.
A fair quote separates these two clearly. If a provider cannot tell you, in plain terms, how much goes to Google and how much they keep, that is worth questioning before anything else.
Why Percentage-of-Spend Pricing Can Work Against You
A common model in the industry is charging a percentage of your monthly ad spend, often somewhere between 10% and 20%. On the surface this sounds fair: the agency earns more when you spend more, so their incentives are aligned with growth.
In practice, it creates an odd dynamic. If you want to increase your budget from $2,000 to $4,000 a month, your management fee doubles too, even though the actual work of managing the campaign (reviewing bidding, checking keywords, reading reports) does not necessarily double. The agency has an incentive to encourage more spend, not necessarily better spend.
For small and medium NZ businesses, this can mean the management fee creeps upward every time you want to scale, independent of whether performance is improving.
What a Flat Management Fee Looks Like
The alternative is a flat monthly management fee, regardless of budget size. This is the model we use at Media Giant: $250 a month, ex GST, plus your ad budget, which goes straight to Google. There is no lock-in contract.
The management fee covers:
- Initial setup of your Google Text Ads and Shopping campaigns
- Ongoing AI-assisted bid optimisation
- Monthly reporting in plain English
Because the fee does not scale with spend, a Wellington plumber running a $1,000 monthly budget and a Hutt Valley retailer running $5,000 a month pay the same management fee. What changes is how much of their own budget goes to Google.
This matters because it removes the incentive to push you toward a bigger budget than you actually need. Your budget goes to Google, not to us, and the fee stays the same whether you spend $800 or $8,000.
Where Human Oversight Should Sit in the Process
AI has changed how bidding works. Algorithms can reallocate budget toward converting keywords and products faster and more continuously than any person checking a dashboard once a week. That is a genuine improvement, and it is a big part of why AI-managed Google Ads can be more efficient than the old manual approach.
But AI bidding still needs direction. Left alone, an algorithm does not know your margins, which jobs are worth chasing, or which customers are actually profitable once you account for your time and costs. That is where human strategy still matters.
A properly run account should have:
- A human brief at the start. A real conversation about your margins, your best jobs, and the customers worth bidding for, not just a form to fill in.
- AI handling the bidding. Continuous reallocation toward keywords and products that convert, rather than a person manually adjusting bids once a fortnight.
- A human reviewing strategy monthly. Someone checking that budget is still going to Text Ads and Shopping, where buying intent lives, rather than drifting into display placements or vanity impressions.
- Reporting you can actually read. Spend, leads, and cost per lead, not a wall of jargon designed to make the agency look busy.
If a quote does not include some version of this structure (AI doing the fast, repetitive optimisation work, with a real person checking direction), you are either paying for pure automation with no oversight, or paying a premium for manual work that a well-built system could do faster.
Red Flags Worth Watching For
When comparing quotes, a few things should make you pause:
- Vague separation of spend and fees. If you cannot tell how much of your monthly payment goes to Google versus the agency, ask directly.
- Long lock-in contracts. Google Ads management should be something you can walk away from if it is not working. Open-term arrangements without lock-in put the pressure on the agency to keep performing.
- Display-heavy campaigns. If a chunk of your budget is going to display banners on random websites rather than Text Ads and Shopping, you are likely paying for impressions rather than buying intent. Buying intent lives in search and shopping results, not banner ads.
- Reporting built for marketers, not owners. If the monthly report reads like it is written to justify the invoice rather than explain what happened to your money, that is a problem. Plain-English reporting should tell you what was spent, how many leads came in, and what each lead cost.
What a Fair Quote Actually Looks Like
Putting it together, a fair Google Ads management arrangement for a NZ small or medium business should have:
- A clear, flat monthly management fee that does not automatically climb as your ad budget grows
- Your ad budget going entirely to Google, not partially absorbed into the fee
- No lock-in contract, so you are free to leave if results are not there
- AI-assisted bidding for speed and efficiency, with human strategy reviewing direction monthly
- Focus on Google Text Ads and Shopping, where buying intent actually lives
- Monthly reporting that a business owner, not a marketer, can read and understand
If a quote ticks these boxes, the number itself matters less, because you know exactly what you are paying for and why.
Next Step
If you are trying to work out whether your current Google Ads quote stacks up, or you want a straightforward, flat-fee alternative with no lock-in, get in touch with the team at Media Giant in Wellington. We will walk you through exactly where your budget goes, what the $250/mo management fee covers, and how AI-managed bidding with human oversight can get you more leads without the guesswork.