What's the Average CPC on Facebook Ads by Industry in 2026?

Facebook Ads cost an average of $0.70 per click for traffic campaigns and $1.92 per click for lead-generation campaigns in 2026, according to WordStream's Facebook Ads Benchmarks report — but that average hides a wide industry spread, from $0.34 per click for Shopping & Gifts traffic campaigns up to $9.78 per click for Dentists running lead-generation campaigns.

Traffic Campaigns and Lead Campaigns Aren't the Same Auction

Facebook's ad auction prices every campaign objective separately, because it's really pricing the action Facebook has to optimize for. A traffic campaign only needs someone to click through to a website, a cheap, low-friction action Facebook can predict accurately. A lead campaign needs Facebook to find people likely to fill out a form or hand over contact information, a narrower and more valuable audience — which is why the lead-campaign average CPC runs nearly three times higher than the traffic-campaign average.

Why Dentists and Finance Pay the Most

At the expensive end of WordStream's breakdown, Dentists pay $9.78 per click on lead campaigns, reflecting high customer lifetime value — a single new patient is worth thousands of dollars over years of visits — combined with real local competition, since most dental practices in a given area bid on the same nearby audience. Finance and Insurance sit at the high end of the traffic-campaign breakdown for the same underlying reason: a converted lead is worth enough that advertisers can rationally outbid almost everyone else for the click.

Where the Cheap Clicks Are

Restaurants and Food pay just $0.74 per click on lead campaigns, and Shopping & Gifts pays $0.34 per click on traffic campaigns — categories where the value of a single click or lead is inherently lower, so the auction settles at a lower price. A low CPC isn't automatically good news, though: it usually means the return per click has to stay just as low, or the campaign math stops working.

What Actually Moves Your CPC Within an Industry

Two accounts in the same industry can still see very different CPCs. Facebook's ad relevance and quality signals reward creative that holds attention and drives real engagement with a lower effective CPC, while broad, low-relevance creative gets shown to a less receptive audience and pays a premium for the same placement. Audience size matters too — an overly narrow custom audience competes for a small pool of impressions and inflates CPC, while a well-built lookalike audience usually settles lower.

Seasonality Shifts These Numbers Too

All of these figures are annual averages, and CPC on Facebook climbs during Q4 as retailers compete for the same holiday shopping audience, then eases back in the slower first quarter — so a spike in November against a January benchmark isn't necessarily a sign anything's wrong with the account.

Bottom Line

Use $0.70 (traffic) and $1.92 (leads) as cross-industry starting benchmarks, then check your specific vertical in WordStream's breakdown before deciding whether your account's CPC is actually a problem — a dentist paying $9 a click is on benchmark, while a restaurant paying the same number has something real to fix.

Sources: WordStream, "Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2025."