Head to head
Google Ads vs Microsoft Ads
By Oliver Wakefield-Smith, Digital Signet. Updated July 2026.
Same keywords, two auctions, very different crowd sizes. One side of this comparison has a current benchmark; the other does not, and pretending otherwise is how folklore numbers spread. Here is the honest version.
What can be stated
Google search: $5.42 average CPC across 24 industries in 2026 LocaliQ, 2026 data. Microsoft: no published rates, no minimum spend, no deposit Microsoft Advertising, FAQs, and no current-vintage public CPC benchmark we could verify. So this comparison is indicative, not a priced table: the widely reported direction is that Microsoft's thinner competition clears at lower prices, and the honest test is your own account, not a blog delta.
What you give up moving budget to Bing
Volume. Bing's share of search is a small fraction of Google's in most markets, skewed toward desktop, work machines and older users. A keyword bringing 300 Google clicks a month might bring 30 on Microsoft. Cheaper clicks that do not fill the budget are a bonus, not a strategy: run Microsoft as an increment after Google, sized to what its volume can actually absorb.
Run both: the import workflow
Microsoft Ads imports Google campaigns nearly wholesale: keywords, ads, bids, negatives. The effort cost is an afternoon plus ongoing double bookkeeping; keep the two accounts synchronised or the imported copy quietly rots. Cap the Microsoft budget, run two weeks, then read your measured CPC with the find-your-CPC calculator and compare cost per lead, not cost per click.
Platform detail on each side: Google Ads and Microsoft Ads; industry context on the benchmark board.