Published September 29, 2026 · by Luis Gomez · The cost-per-lead numbers below are from a Local Services Ads account I run, and they are published with the dashboards.
Short answer: Google takes your historical average weekly Local Services Ads budget, divides it by 7, and that becomes your average daily budget in Google Ads. Monthly spend is then capped at the daily number times 30.4. A $350-a-week account becomes $50 a day and at most $1,520 a month. You can change the number after the move; what you cannot do anymore is cap your cost per lead, so the budget is now the only brake.
The conversion rule, in Google’s words
From Google’s migration help page: “Your historical average weekly budget is automatically divided by 7 to determine your daily average budget.” Monthly spend is capped at the daily average multiplied by 30.4. Two things in that sentence matter more than they look.
“Historical average.” Google does not necessarily take the number you see on the budget screen today. If you raised or lowered your budget recently, the average it converts may be higher or lower than your current setting. Check the converted figure on your first login rather than assuming.
“Daily average.” A Google Ads daily budget is an average, not a ceiling. Individual days can run over it when there is more demand; the month is what is capped. If you are used to a weekly budget that behaved like a hard stop, this is the adjustment.
Worked examples
| Weekly budget today | Daily budget after the move | Monthly cap (daily × 30.4) | Old monthly, for comparison (weekly × 4.33) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $150 | $21.43 | $651 | $650 |
| $250 | $35.71 | $1,086 | $1,083 |
| $350 | $50.00 | $1,520 | $1,516 |
| $500 | $71.43 | $2,171 | $2,167 |
| $750 | $107.14 | $3,257 | $3,250 |
| $1,000 | $142.86 | $4,343 | $4,333 |
The monthly totals barely move. That is the point Google is making, and it is true. The difference is not the size of the budget; it is what the budget is now doing without a cost-per-lead cap underneath it.
Trap 1: the budget used to share the work with a cost-per-lead cap. Now it works alone.
Under the old dashboard many owners ran manual bidding with a maximum cost per lead. That setting is gone. Google says manual bidding and vertical-level target cost per lead are deprecated in the move; the system sets bids. So the same $50 a day that used to mean “up to $50, at no more than $45 a lead” now just means “up to $50”. If your market gets expensive, you get fewer, pricier leads inside the same budget, and nothing on the account stops it.
The fix is not a setting. It is a habit: once a week, divide spend by charged leads and write the number down. On the account I run, cost per charged lead went from $46.66 in April 2026 to $39.89 in July 2026 with manual bidding in place. After migration that number is the thing to watch, and the only lever left when it drifts is the budget itself and the job types you leave switched on. What a lead costs by trade has the ranges to compare against.
Trap 2: from October 1, the budget also buys missed calls
Google told advertisers in late August that from October 1, 2026 a missed call received during your listed business hours can be charged as a lead if the caller stays on the line more than about 20 seconds. If your phone tree makes callers press a key, the clock starts at the key press. A follow-up call from the same person can be charged if the first one was not.
For the budget this means a daily number that used to buy answered conversations can now be partly spent on rings nobody picked up. The cheapest fix in the trades: the number on the account rings a human within 20 seconds during the hours you list, and the hours you list are the hours you actually answer. The full to-do list before your date is in the migration email checklist.
Trap 3: “daily average” days can run over
Because Google Ads treats the daily figure as an average, a busy Tuesday can spend more than $50 on a $50-a-day campaign, balanced by quieter days later in the month. The monthly cap still holds. The trap is reading one day’s spend, panicking, and cutting the budget in half, which also cuts the leads. Judge the campaign on the week and the month, never on a day.
How to set the number after the move
Do not start from the budget. Start from what a job is worth to you:
- Revenue per charged lead. Average ticket times close rate. A $600 drywall repair closed 4 times out of 10 is $240 of revenue per charged lead.
- What you can pay per lead and still be glad. For most repair trades that is a quarter to a third of the revenue per lead. Here, $60 to $80.
- How many leads a month you want. If the schedule is half full and you want it full, count the jobs, divide by the close rate, and that is the leads number.
- Leads times cost per lead, divided by 30.4, is the daily budget. Twenty leads at $40 is $800 a month, about $26 a day.
Set that, then check charged leads and cost per charged lead every Friday for the first month. If the cost per lead climbs past the number in step 2, the answer is job-type discipline and service-area trimming first, budget second. The drywall account’s four months of billing show what that discipline looks like in practice.
Questions owners keep asking
Does my money carry over from the old dashboard? Your billing relationship carries into Google Ads and you keep paying per valid lead. Google’s page does not describe any prepaid balance transfer, because Local Services Ads bills for leads after the fact. Export your billing and credit history before the move; that history is the part that does not come across.
Can I go back to a weekly budget? No. Google Ads works on daily average budgets with a monthly cap. You can set any daily number you like after the move, and you can change it as often as you want.
Will Google spend more than my monthly cap? Google’s stated rule is that monthly spend will not exceed the daily average multiplied by 30.4. Individual days can exceed the daily average; the month cannot exceed the cap.
What happens to my maximum cost per lead? It is removed. Manual bidding and vertical-level target cost per lead are deprecated in the migration. Your controls after the move are the daily budget, your job types, your service areas and your business hours.