The calculator
Google Ads management cost calculator
Set your monthly ad spend and see what a typical agency would charge to manage it, next to what Ad-Aura charges at the same spend. The numbers are arithmetic from published rates — whether either option performs better for your business is a separate question no honest tool can answer from a slider.
Typical agency
$1,000/mo
Minimum retainer — below the 20%-of-spend line at this budget · about 33% of your total outlay
Ad-Aura · Starter
$99/mo
Flat $99 base, no usage fee · about 5% of your total outlay
At $2,000/mo of ad spend, the management fee difference is $901/mo — money that, on the agency side, never reaches an ad platform. That is the whole of the claim: a price gap, not a promise about results. Run the same number on the pricing page to see how it shifts as you grow into Growth or Business.
What you're actually comparing
An agency retainer bundles month-one work that's genuinely valuable — keyword research, account structure, conversion-tracking setup — with recurring work that, on a simple-to-moderate account, is a few hours a month: checking search terms, shifting budget toward what converts, drafting fresh ad copy. Ad-Aura's agents do that recurring loop daily and stage every change for your approval, which is why the recurring price can be a flat base instead of a retainer. We wrote up the full breakdown in what a $1,500/month agency actually delivers, and there are cases — complex accounts, regulated industries, full-funnel brand work — where the agency is genuinely the better call.
The calculator above uses the bottom of the typical $1,000–$3,000/mo local-agency retainer range as a floor, because below roughly $5,000 of monthly spend a flat percent-of-spend cut understates what agencies actually charge. That keeps the comparison honest at low budgets rather than flattering us. Either way you can build your first campaigns in test mode and click around the live demo before you spend a dollar.
Sources & citations
Where these figures come from
Agency rates. The $1,000–$3,000/mo retainer range, the 10–20% of-ad-spend cut (we use the 20% upper-midpoint), and the $500–$5,000 setup-fee range come from published SMB-agency rate cards and 2026 industry pricing surveys — the same sources behind our essay what a $1,500/month agency actually delivers and the Ad-Aura vs. hiring an ad agency comparison.
The minimum-retainer floor. We apply a $1,000/mo floor to the agency figure so the percent-of-spend math doesn't pretend an agency would work for a few hundred dollars at low spend. It's the conservative, comparison-flattering-them choice.
Ad-Aura rates. The flat base ($99 / $199 / $399) and take rates by tier are the exact figures published on the pricing page, which is the source of truth — this calculator imports the same numbers, so the two can never disagree.
What we don't claim. Nothing here predicts clicks, leads, ROAS, or revenue. The only claim is the management-fee arithmetic; the performance question is yours to test.
Ad-Aura is AI agents that draft, monitor, and optimize ad campaigns for small businesses — staged for your approval, starting at $99/mo flat, no retainer. Click around the live demo or see the full pricing math.