Field notes · educational tool

What would typical ad waste
mean at your budget?

Rough arithmetic, nothing more. Enter your monthly spend and this page runs illustrative industry ranges against it: averages and your own estimates, not your account. Nothing here connects to your data, and no math on averages can tell you what your account is doing.

A volt-green beam thinning as it crosses darkness, shedding fading sparks

Your inputs

Total across the brand's paid channels.
Your own ballpark, from memory or your dashboard. Illustrative ranges vary widely by industry and channel. There is no single "right" number.
Clicks that become a lead or sale, ballpark.

The arithmetic

Illustrative waste band · 20–40% of spend $,

per month, $, per year, if an account at your budget matched the illustrative industry band. Independent account analyses put average SMB Google Ads waste near 36% of spend ($, /mo at your number). Whether your account does, this page cannot know.

Illustrative industry ranges only. Not a benchmark report, not a grade, not a read on your account.

What this page is not: it is not an audit, an account analysis, or a grader. It has no access to your data and makes no claim about your business. It exists to show the scale of the question, because a percentage you shrug at becomes harder to shrug at in dollars.
The real number

Fair questions

Where does the waste percentage in this calculator come from?

It is a typical range from audited accounts, not a claim about yours. The calculator exists to size the question, not to answer it. The only number that means anything is the one a teardown of your own account produces.

Our agency says the account is already optimized. Does that change the math?

It changes who is accountable, not whether the waste exists. Optimization is usually measured inside the ad platform, and most of what we find sits outside it: duplicate conversions, broken tracking, and budget on queries that never convert. A dashboard can look healthy while money leaks underneath it.

What happens if the teardown finds nothing?

Then you have bought certainty that your spend is clean, which is worth knowing before you scale it. Our audits are built to document at least three leaks. If we cannot find them, the audit is free.

The only way to know your real number is a teardown of your actual account. That's the $497 audit.

Read-only access, findings in 24–48 hours, every leak documented with a screenshot and priced in the revenue it distorts. 3+ documented leaks or it's free, and the fee credits 100% toward any project or retainer within 60 days.

Pay $497 and start now → Book a 15-min call See exactly what it covers
Every audit paid · per brand, all channels included · no lock-in