Budget pacing calculator

Check whether this month's spend is ahead of, behind, or on pace for your budget.

Google spreads a daily budget as best it can, but it does not manage your month. A campaign that runs a little hot every day quietly overspends by the 25th, and one that is starved all month leaves enquiries on the table. This calculator turns four numbers you already have into a plain answer: are you ahead, behind, or on pace?

How the calculator works

  1. Enter the monthly budget you actually want to spend, not the sum of the daily budgets Google shows you.
  2. Enter the number of days in the month, today's date and the spend so far. Google Ads shows month-to-date cost on the Overview page.
  3. The calculator works out what you would expect to have spent by today (budget divided by the days in the month, times today's day number) and projects the month's total from your current daily rate (spend so far divided by days elapsed, times days in the month).

How to use the result

  • More than about 10% ahead of pace: check which campaign is spending fastest before you cut. A campaign that is winning enquiries at a good cost deserves the budget; one that is buying junk searches does not.
  • Behind pace with good results: raising the daily budget on your best campaign is the cheapest growth you will find this month.
  • Do the check weekly, not once. A single busy day can swing the projection.

Questions we get asked

Why does my daily budget not equal my monthly budget divided by 30?

Google can spend up to twice the daily budget on a busy day and balances it over the month, so the monthly cap is really the daily budget times 30.4. This calculator uses your real monthly figure instead.

What if I started the campaign mid-month?

Use the day of the month the campaign started as day 1: enter the days remaining from that date as the days in the month, and count today from the start date.

Does Ads Toolbox do this automatically?

Yes. One of its 17 daily checks watches month-to-date spend against the budget on every campaign and tells you which campaign is driving any overspend.

Want this checked for you every day? See the 17 checks Ads Toolbox runs on a connected Google Ads account.