How much do Facebook and Instagram ads cost in Quebec?

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) costs less per click than Google Ads, but the audience is in a different state of mind: on Google, people are searching for your service; on Meta, you are interrupting their feed. The first harvests existing intent, the second creates demand. That changes the budget, the expectations and how you measure success.

The three envelopes to plan

1. The media budget — what you pay Meta to show your ads. You set it and control it day by day.
2. The management fee — strategy, campaign structure, audiences, conversion tracking, testing and reporting.
3. The creative — visuals, vertical video, copy, variations. On Meta, the creative carries the performance: a well-structured campaign with weak visuals fails.

What agency management costs

In Quebec, three models dominate (indicative ranges — to be confirmed for your project):

1. Percentage of media spend — generally 15 % to 30 %, with a monthly floor.
2. Fixed monthly retainer — roughly $800 to $3,000 per month depending on the number of campaigns, markets and languages.
3. Hybrid — a base retainer plus a variable portion tied to results.

A bilingual account serving both French Quebec and English Canada needs two sets of audiences and two sets of creative: budget the top of the range.

What impressions and clicks actually cost

Meta is bought mostly on CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Market benchmarks for Quebec in 2026 sit around $8 to $20 CPM and $0.50 to $2.50 per click, depending on sector, season and creative quality (indicative ranges based on market data — to be confirmed for your sector).

Three factors move those numbers far more than anything else:

• Season. November and December (Black Friday, holidays) push auction prices up sharply, sometimes by 30 % or more.
• Creative quality. A vertical video that holds attention drives the cost per result down; a generic image sends it through the roof.
• Audience size. Targeting too narrowly burns through the audience quickly, raising frequency — and therefore cost.

The realistic minimum budget

Meta's algorithm needs data to optimise. The practical rule: aim for about 50 conversions per week per ad set to exit the learning phase. If your conversion is an $80 purchase, that is reachable; if it is a $20,000 B2B quote, you need to optimise higher in the funnel (message, form, video view) and accept slower learning.

In concrete terms, for a Quebec SMB:

• $500 to $800 per month — feasibility test, one audience, one objective.
• $1,000 to $2,500 per month — cruising speed for a local retailer or service business.
• $2,500 to $6,000 per month and up — sustained acquisition, remarketing, multiple markets or two languages.

Creative costs, the line item everyone forgets

Meta burns through creative fast: a visual rarely performs for more than four to six weeks before frequency wears it out. Plan a production rhythm, not a one-time order:

• Graphic variations for a campaign — $300 to $1,500 per wave.
• Vertical video clips (9:16) — $500 to $3,000 depending on the shoot.
• Creator-style content (UGC) — $200 to $800 per video.

A clip shot for your website recycles into three or four Meta formats: it is the cheapest way to keep the machine fed.

Tracking: without it, you are buying blind

Since browser and iOS tracking restrictions, the pixel alone is no longer enough. The Conversions API (sending events from your server to Meta) recovers a good share of the lost data. Setting it up is a one-time job — a few hundred dollars — that improves both measurement and campaign optimisation.

Meta or Google: which one?

They work at different moments. Google Ads captures demand that already exists — someone searching "roofer Longueuil". Meta puts your offer in front of people who were not looking for you, which makes it effective for visual products, retail, restaurants, real estate, events and remarketing. Many Quebec SMBs get their best return by running both: Google to harvest, Meta for awareness and follow-up.

Our guide on how much a Google Ads campaign costs in Quebec covers the other half of the equation.

Let's talk about your Meta campaign

At Bollé Communications, we build Facebook and Instagram campaigns separately by language and market rather than translating an existing one — and we produce the creative in house. See our approach to Facebook and Instagram advertising, social media management and Google Ads management, or get in touch for an estimate built around your project.