Software Companies Pay $30.36 per Google Ads Click on Average vs $10.82 Across Industries

A finance manager tired of chasing invoices searches for "ap automation software". Software vendors compete for that visit, because a single customer can sign a contract worth years of subscription fees. The one whose ad gets the click pays $295.91 for it, before the prospect has even seen a demo.

Cost per click, or CPC, is what an advertiser pays each time someone clicks its ad, whether or not that person signs up. It decides how many prospects a monthly budget reaches. For a software company, the price of a click has to be weighed against what a customer is worth over the life of the contract, and that math differs widely between categories.

A click on a software keyword costs $30.36 on average, 2.8 times the $10.82 average across 18,477 keywords in 23 industries. Only personal injury law and insurance cost more. The typical software keyword costs $13.19, but business categories such as accounts payable automation, contract management and security software cost hundreds of dollars a click.

In September 2026 we collected Google Ads Keyword Planner prices for software (SaaS) keywords, each searched at least 2,900 times a month in the US. We kept the 195 keywords that match core software terms and have a price above zero. For those we calculated the average, median and spread of cost per click and compared them with 18,477 keywords across 23 industries. We also collected state-level prices for the 25 largest states and Microsoft Ads prices for the 146 keywords priced on both platforms.

Software as a service, or SaaS, is software sold by subscription and used online. Cost per click is Google's estimate of the average price an advertiser pays for one click on an ad shown for that search. The median is the middle keyword: half cost less, half cost more. The volume-weighted average counts each keyword by how often it is searched. Each state is compared with the national price of the same keywords.

Software ranks 3rd of 23 industries by average cost per click, behind personal injury law and insurance. Its median, $13.19, is well under half its average, because a group of business software categories costs hundreds of dollars a click while many tool searches cost under $10. The middle half of software keywords cost between $5.27 and $41.95, and 60% cost $10 or more.

Weighted by how often each keyword is searched, the average rises to $35.34, because some of the biggest searches are expensive too. "cloud accounting software", the most searched software keyword at 368,000 searches a month, costs $128.56 a click.

The most expensive 10% of software keywords cost $69.12 or more. "ap automation software" leads at $295.91, followed by "contract management software" at $284.13 and "edr software", a type of security software, at $236.42. Property management, fleet management and law practice software all cost more than $100 a click.

Every keyword in the top 12 is a business category: finance, legal, security, property and fleet operations, IT. These products are sold to companies on annual contracts, often to many users at once, so a single new customer can justify a very expensive click. Consumer and general tool searches sit far lower on the list.

For the 146 software keywords priced on both platforms, a click on Microsoft Ads, which shows ads on Bing, costs $4.93 on average against $35.50 on Google Ads, 86% less.

Location changes the price too. Among the 25 largest states, Indiana pays the biggest premium at $37.96 on average, 41% above the national price of the same keywords, followed by Alabama at $38.54 (34% above) and Arizona at $36.12 (23% above). New York and Michigan have the biggest discounts, at 20% below. Each state is compared with the national price of the keywords priced there, which is why a slightly higher average can be a smaller premium. Software search demand peaked in March 2026 and was lowest in December 2025, a swing of 1.6 times.

Match bids to contract value. A $295 click can make sense for software sold on annual contracts, but only if the landing page leads to a demo or trial that sales follows up on quickly. Track each keyword through to pipeline and revenue, not just sign-ups, because the expensive categories are only worth it when those clicks close.

Test Microsoft Ads. The same software keywords cost about 86% less on Bing, so even modest volume there can produce leads at a fraction of the Google price. Start with your highest-value categories and compare cost per demo on each platform. As a saas ppc agency, Suff Digital runs software campaigns across both platforms and measures them against pipeline, not clicks.

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