The short answer
Work your budget backwards from the goal: inquiries per month ÷ share of visitors who inquire × your industry's cost per click. A Vienna electrician who wants 20 inquiries a month needs about $1,140 a month at $5.71 per click and a 10% inquiry rate, roughly $38 a day. A hair salon gets 20 bookings for about $140 a month.
The same click costs more than eight times as much depending on the industry: an electrician in Vienna pays $5.71 per click on average, a hairdresser $0.68.Source: Semrush, Austria database, June 2025
So the budget question isn't a matter of taste. It's a calculation with three numbers, and all three are below.
What a click costs in Vienna, by industry
| Industry | Search term | Searches/month | Avg. cost per click (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electrician | elektriker wien | 4,400 | 5.71 |
| Moving company | umzugsfirma wien | 1,600 | 5.40 |
| Locksmith | schlüsseldienst wien | 14,800 | 4.44 |
| Plumber | installateur wien | 12,100 | 2.71 |
| Emergency plumber | installateur notdienst wien | 2,900 | 2.47 |
| Painter | maler wien | 1,300 | 2.02 |
| Carpenter | tischler wien | 1,900 | 1.55 |
| Tax advisor | steuerberater wien | 2,900 | 1.42 |
| Roofer | dachdecker wien | 880 | 1.35 |
| Cleaning company | reinigungsfirma wien | 4,400 | 1.23 |
| Tiler | fliesenleger wien | 1,900 | 1.13 |
| Dentist | zahnarzt wien | 14,800 | 1.06 |
| Lawyer | rechtsanwalt wien | 2,400 | 1.03 |
| Physiotherapy | physiotherapie wien | 6,600 | 0.81 |
| Hairdresser | friseur wien | 12,100 | 0.68 |
| Vet | tierarzt wien | 4,400 | 0.47 |
| Restaurant | restaurant wien | 33,100 | 0.29 |
Source: Semrush, Austria database, June 2025. Average cost per click for the main search term, in US dollars. Your real price depends on competition, time of day, the quality of your ad and your bids. The free Keyword Planner in your Google Ads account shows current ranges for your own search terms.
What the table shows:
- Many searches doesn't mean expensive clicks. “restaurant wien” is searched 33,100 times a month and costs $0.29 per click. “elektriker wien” is searched 4,400 times and costs almost twenty times as much.
- Clicks get expensive where one job is worth a lot and many businesses compete for the same customer: electricians, moving companies, locksmiths.
- So your budget depends on your industry first, not on a gut feeling.
Work out your budget in 4 steps
- 1Set the goal.
How many inquiries (calls, forms, bookings) do you want per month, and how many can you actually handle?
- 2Look up your cost per click.
In the table above or in the Keyword Planner in your Google Ads account.
- 3Estimate your inquiry rate.
What share of visitors to your page call or write? If you don't know, calculate two scenarios, 5% and 10%, and replace the guess with your real number after four weeks.
- 4Convert.
Monthly budget = inquiries ÷ inquiry rate × cost per click. Daily budget = monthly budget ÷ 30.4.
Why 30.4? That's how Google calculates it: on a single day your campaign can spend up to twice your daily budget, but in a month never more than 30.4 times it.
Example for 20 inquiries a month:
| Industry | Cost per click | Budget/month at 10% | Budget/month at 5% | Cost per inquiry (10% / 5%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electrician | $5.71 | $1,142 (≈ $38/day) | $2,284 (≈ $75/day) | $57 / $114 |
| Plumber | $2.71 | $542 (≈ $18/day) | $1,084 (≈ $36/day) | $27 / $54 |
| Painter | $2.02 | $404 (≈ $13/day) | $808 (≈ $27/day) | $20 / $40 |
| Tax advisor | $1.42 | $284 (≈ $9/day) | $568 (≈ $19/day) | $14 / $28 |
| Dentist | $1.06 | $212 (≈ $7/day) | $424 (≈ $14/day) | $11 / $21 |
| Physiotherapy | $0.81 | $162 (≈ $5/day) | $324 (≈ $11/day) | $8 / $16 |
| Hairdresser | $0.68 | $136 (≈ $4/day) | $272 (≈ $9/day) | $7 / $14 |
Calculated from the click prices above. The 5% and 10% inquiry rates are planning assumptions, not results.
How much can one inquiry cost?
The second calculation matters just as much: what does a new customer bring you, and how many inquiries turn into a job? An example: if one job leaves you €300 and every third inquiry becomes a job, one inquiry can cost at most €100. If your cost per inquiry is higher, you lose money with every ad, however good the click numbers look.
You can run your own numbers with our free Google Ads budget calculator.
The 6 settings that matter in a local campaign
The recommended default also reaches people who are only interested in Vienna, for example someone in Linz planning a trip. “Presence” reaches only people who are probably in your area right now or usually are. For a business that works on site, it's almost always the right choice. Also narrow the area to your radius or districts.
“elektriker 1100 wien” or “installateur notdienst” show buying intent. Exclude words that almost never lead to jobs: job, lehre, ausbildung, gehalt, gratis, selber, anleitung (job, apprenticeship, training, salary, free, yourself, how-to). Those are people looking for a job or a DIY guide, and each of their clicks costs the same.
If your ad invites calls, run it only when someone is there to pick up the phone.
Your phone number right in the ad, plus the link to your Google Business Profile so your address and reviews show.
Send clicks to the matching service page, not the homepage. Someone searching “emergency plumber” wants the emergency page with the phone number at the top, not your company history.
Set up calls and forms as conversions. Without that you optimize for clicks instead of inquiries and never know what an inquiry really costs.
How to get your profile ready for Google Maps is on our Google Business Profile page.
The 5 most expensive mistakes
- Leaving “Presence or interest” on. You pay for clicks from people outside your area.
- No excluded search terms. Job seekers and do-it-yourselfers click your ad.
- Leaving the Display Network on in a search campaign without meaning to. Check your network settings to see whether “Display Network” is switched on. For a local search campaign it rarely makes sense, because budget then flows into banner placements.
- Sending every click to the homepage. Visitors have to search, and many leave.
- “Optimizing” without measurement. If you only see clicks, you push down the cost per click and often lose the inquiries.
When Google Ads isn't worth it for a local business (yet)
- Your Google Business Profile is empty or has hardly any reviews. The profile is free and shows on Google Maps. Fix it first.
- You can't take on more inquiries. Then you're buying inquiries you have to turn down.
- Nobody searches for what you offer. Google Ads serves existing demand. A new product nobody knows yet is easier to launch with social media ads.
- An inquiry costs more than a job brings in. Work that out with the formula above before you spend the first euro.
Do it yourself or hire an agency?
With the calculation and the six settings above, many local businesses can start on their own if they plan half an hour a week: check search terms, add exclusions, count inquiries. An agency makes sense when several services, locations or campaigns come together, or when there's no time. What management costs is in Google Ads Agency Vienna: What Does Management Cost? An honest decision guide is at Agency or do it yourself, and our services are at Google Ads agency.
Frequently asked questions
Q1. What's the minimum budget for Google Ads?
What matters is getting enough clicks each month to learn something. Our rule of thumb: plan for about 100 clicks a month. At $5.71 per click that's about $570, at $0.68 about $70. With fewer clicks, after four weeks you can hardly tell whether the campaign works.
Q2. How fast will I see results?
Once Google has reviewed them, ads can run right away. Meaningful numbers, meaning your real inquiry rate and your real cost per inquiry, usually take three to four weeks.
Q3. What does a Google Ads click cost in Vienna?
It depends heavily on the industry. For the main search terms, Semrush averages (June 2025) range from $0.29 (“restaurant wien”) to $5.71 (“elektriker wien”). The table in this article shows 17 industries.
Q4. Is Google Ads worth it for small businesses?
Yes, if people actively search for your service and a job brings in more than an inquiry costs. You can check both beforehand with the two calculations in this article.
Q5. Do I need Google Ads if I already have a Google Business Profile?
The profile is the free foundation and should always come first. Google Ads adds to it when you want to be visible above the profile, or show up for search terms where your profile doesn't appear (yet).