Metric comparison
CPC vs PPC
By Oliver Wakefield-Smith, Digital Signet. Updated July 2026.
Short answer: they are not rivals and not synonyms. PPC is the channel, CPC is its price metric. You run PPC campaigns; each click they buy costs a CPC.
PPC = the channel · CPC = what its clicks cost
"We do PPC" is a sentence about strategy. "Our CPC is £2.40" is a sentence about arithmetic. Google Ads Help, definition
Why everyone mixes them up
Both abbreviate to consonant soup, both involve clicks, and in casual use they point at the same activity. An agency saying "PPC costs are up" nearly always means CPC has risen. The conflation is harmless in conversation and expensive in a contract: an agreement to "reduce PPC spend" and one to "reduce CPC" commit to entirely different things. Spend is budget; CPC is efficiency.
When the difference matters
Three moments. Reading reports: dashboards report CPC, never "PPC", as a column. Negotiating with an agency: agree targets in CPC, CPL or CPA, not the channel name. Learning the field: PPC covers search ads, Shopping, some social and retail formats; CPC is one of several pricing metrics inside it, next to CPM and CPV.
New to the vocabulary entirely? Start at CPC in marketing or the plain formula page.