What is CPC? Cost per click explained, with Google Ads CPC estimates for 339 US keywords across 11 industries

CPC stands for cost per click: the amount an advertiser pays each time someone clicks their ad. Your average CPC is what you spent divided by the clicks you got. That is the whole definition, and it is the easy part. The hard part is knowing what a click should cost for your business.

So we pulled Semrush's CPC estimates for 339 US searches across 11 industries on 3 November 2026. Across all of them the median estimate was $12.32, and the median of the 11 industry medians was $9.47, but the range was enormous: from $0.34 for "condos for sale" to $252.78 for "truck accident lawyer". Insurance had the most expensive industry median at $35.44, and ecommerce the cheapest at $2.08. The full table is free to download at the end.

What CPC means and how it is calculated

CPC is reported two ways, and people mix them up.

• Average CPC is what you actually paid: total ad cost divided by the number of clicks. Google Ads shows it for every campaign, ad group and keyword.
• Maximum CPC (your bid) is the most you are willing to pay for one click. With automated bidding, Google sets this for you within your targets.

In Google's auction you usually pay less than your maximum. You pay roughly what it takes to stay above the advertiser ranked below you. Ad quality counts too: Google judges how likely your ad is to be clicked, how relevant it is to the search and how good the landing page is, and a better showing on those lets you hold a position for less. Google reports a summary of that judgement as Quality Score. That is why two businesses bidding on the same keyword can pay very different CPCs.

CPC is one of three pricing ideas you will meet. CPM is the cost per thousand impressions, common on Facebook and Instagram. CPA, or cost per acquisition, is what each lead or sale ends up costing once you add up the clicks or impressions behind it. CPC sits in the middle: it tells you the price of attention, and the price of a customer depends on what happens after the click.

CPC by industry: the median click in 11 industries

Insurance clicks had a median of $35.44, about 17 times the ecommerce median of $2.08. We use the median, the middle keyword, because a few very expensive keywords would distort an average. Here is every industry we priced.

Legal is the odd one out. Its median of $13.68 hides two different markets: every family, immigration and estate keyword we checked cost under $12, while 11 of the 13 personal injury keywords cost more than $100. That is why the middle half stretches from $9.09 to $119.22 and the legal average is $60.92. One of the two injury exceptions, medical malpractice, has a Semrush estimate far below other published figures. We break that down in our law firm marketing study.

Our read on the pattern: CPC tracks how much one customer is worth to the advertiser once the searcher is ready to buy. An insurance policy, a software subscription or an injury case is worth thousands, so advertisers can afford to pay a lot for a click. A pair of running shoes earns a store far less, and its clicks are priced to match. Real estate looks cheap only because most of its searches are people browsing listings.

The most expensive clicks

12 keywords in our data cost $100 or more per click. Eleven were personal injury searches, and one was "google ads management" at $228.10, which we read as agencies bidding to win advertisers as clients. It is one estimate on a modest keyword, so treat it as a sign of competition.

Intent pushes prices up within an industry too. Insurance searches asking for a quote had a median of $71.04 across 4 keywords, against $19.14 for 6 other insurance searches. Part of that gap is the mix of products, but it holds within a product: "car insurance quotes" was $75.60 against $46.80 for "cheap car insurance", and "life insurance quotes" $31.50 against $20.06 for "term life insurance". In home services, emergency searches cost more than repairs, as our home services CPC study shows.

The cheapest clicks

The cheapest keywords were property and shopping searches. "Condos for sale" was $0.34, "homes for sale" $0.48 and "running shoes" $0.76. In our view, property searches like these are dominated by listing portals, and local agents mostly leave them alone because the searcher is still browsing. Product searches like running shoes are mostly bought through Shopping ads, so a keyword CPC estimate may not reflect what those clicks cost. Cheap clicks are only a bargain if they turn into customers.

The flip side is interesting: in real estate, "sell my house" was estimated at $69.29, one of the dearest keywords outside legal and insurance. Our read: a seller brings a listing, so agents, iBuyers and cash buyers all bid for these searches, and the price shows it. We cover that in our real estate marketing study.

What makes your CPC higher or lower

• Competition on the keyword. More advertisers bidding, and bidding higher, raises the price for everyone.
• Ad and landing page quality. An ad that matches the search and a fast landing page about the same thing can win a position for less. Your Quality Score report shows where you fall short.
• Location and timing. The same keyword costs more in some cities and at some times of day.
• Match types and negatives. Loose match types pull in searches you did not mean to pay for. Negative keywords keep the budget on the searches that convert.
• Bidding strategy. Automated strategies aimed at conversions will pay more per click when they predict a click is likely to convert.

Is a high CPC bad?

Not by itself. An expensive click that turns into a customer beats a cheap click that never calls. That is why we judge accounts on cost per lead and cost per customer, and treat CPC as a diagnostic. When CPC rises, the useful questions are whether conversion rates held, whether search terms drifted, and whether a competitor entered the auction.

Our view is that the useful question for most businesses is "which clicks turn into customers, and how many of them can I afford?" Start with the click price of the keywords that matter in your industry, divide by your realistic conversion rate, and you have a cost per lead to plan around. Our guide to why cost per lead is high covers what to check when that number climbs.

What we would change: how to lower your CPC without losing customers

• Tighten the keyword list. Pause broad terms that spend without converting and add negatives from your search terms report.
• Match the landing page to the search. A page about the exact service searched improves Quality Score and conversion rate at the same time.
• Split expensive intents out. Emergency and quote searches cost more than the rest of their industry in our data, so give them their own budgets and they cannot starve the rest.
• Use location and schedule settings. Spend where and when your customers search and your team can answer.
• Answer cheap research searches with content. Price and "how to" searches are often cheap, and a good page can win them for free through organic search.

If you run Google or Meta ads in the US, UK, Canada or Australia and your clicks cost more than your industry's median above, or your cost per lead keeps rising, give us read access to the account. A senior buyer will write a free audit of your ad account: the search terms you pay for and would never choose, what each one costs you per month, whether your conversion numbers are true, and the three things we would fix first. It usually takes two working days, the document is yours to keep, and you get one follow-up email. If you have not advertised yet, the same page gets you a free plan instead. Our Google Ads management runs month to month, with a named buyer on every account and a written report every week.

How we did this

Questions about CPC