Understanding LinkedIn advertising costs in the UK can feel overwhelming for many businesses. It’s often seen as expensive or only suitable for large companies with big budgets. In reality, the cost itself isn’t the problem. The issue is how LinkedIn is typically used.
For many UK businesses, starting advertising on LinkedIn too early doesn’t work. Running broad, interest-based campaigns to cold audiences drives up costs and delivers weak results. Businesses often blame the platform, but LinkedIn is performing exactly as it should- the issue is launching campaigns at the wrong stage.
This guide is written to help you avoid wasting money and to show where LinkedIn genuinely performs well and where it doesn’t.
Contents
- LinkedIn Ads Pricing in the UK: What You’re Actually Paying For
- How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on LinkedIn UK? Real Examples
- Why LinkedIn Advertising Costs in the UK Feel Expensive
- How Much LinkedIn Ads Cost Compared to Other Platforms
- Planning a LinkedIn Ad Budget Efficiently
- LinkedIn Ads Cost UK: When Higher Spend Actually Makes Sense
- Final Thoughts
LinkedIn Ads Pricing in the UK: What You’re Actually Paying For
LinkedIn ads don’t come with a fixed rate card. The platform runs on an auction, where advertisers compete to reach specific professional audiences. Costs vary based on how competitive your audience is, how specific your targeting is, and how relevant your ads are to the people seeing them.
In the UK, typical cost per click (CPC) often sits around £3–£8 depending on industry. In more competitive B2B sectors such as SaaS, finance, or professional services, CPCs of £8–£15 or more are common, particularly when targeting senior decision makers.
You can also be charged in other ways, such as per 1,000 impressions (CPM) or by other billable events depending on your campaign objective. These costs tend to follow the same drivers: tighter targeting and stronger competition generally increase prices, while higher relevance can improve efficiency.
Understanding LinkedIn’s bidding and relevance scoring upfront can prevent wasted spend.
How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on LinkedIn UK? Real Examples
Below are realistic UK benchmarks to help you sense check budgets. These aren’t fixed prices. They vary based on industry competition, how specific your targeting is, ad relevance, and whether you’re advertising to warm or cold audiences.
To avoid confusion, here’s what LinkedIn typically charges you for:
- CPC (cost per click): you pay when someone clicks (common for traffic or click-optimised campaigns)
- CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions): you pay for visibility and reach (common for awareness or impression-based bidding strategies)
- CPV (cost per video view): you pay for video views in some video setups
- Cost per send: you pay per delivered message (Message Ads / Conversation Ads)
- Important: Cost per lead (CPL) is how you assess efficiency for Lead Gen Forms, but you’re usually billed via CPC or CPM.
Sponsored Content (feed ads)
Typically billed using CPC or CPM, depending on your objective.
- CPM for awareness and reach: £25 to £75 per 1,000 impressions
- CPC for broader targeting: £3 to £7 per click
- CPC for senior or specialist B2B audiences: £5 to £15 per click
Text Ads (sidebar ads)
Usually billed using CPC.
- CPC: £2 to £4 per click
Engagement is often lower than feed placements, so cheaper clicks do not always produce cheaper leads.
Message Ads and Conversation Ads
Billed on cost per send.
- Cost per send: £0.80 to £1.50 per delivered message
Results depend heavily on audience size, offer strength, and how well the message matches intent.
Lead Generation Ads (Lead Gen Forms)
Billed via CPC or CPM, but typically assessed using CPL (your cost per submitted form).
- CPL: £65 to £150 per lead
Warm audiences and strong offers usually sit towards the lower end. Cold targeting and higher consideration services often push costs up.
Realistic UK Example
A UK consultancy targeting finance leaders using retargeted website visitors might see CPCs of £7 to £10 and leads at £90 to £130. Running the same offer to a cold audience typically increases both CPC and CPL, because you’re paying to create intent rather than capture existing demand.
What Budgets Are Realistic?
£40 to £80 per day is often enough to generate early signal on targeting and creative. For meaningful optimisation, many B2B campaigns need at least £500+ per month, with the best optimisation typically coming from higher spend.
Costs fluctuate by industry, campaign type, audience specificity, and time of year. Treat these benchmarks as a practical starting point rather than a guarantee.
Why LinkedIn Advertising Costs in the UK Feel Expensive
LinkedIn often feels expensive because it gives advertisers access to highly specific professional audiences, such as senior decision makers and niche industries. That level of precision has real value, but campaigns built on broad assumptions, without a clear offer or intent signals, can burn budget quickly.
LinkedIn tends to perform best when you bring data into the platform, such as website visitors, existing CRM contacts, or people who have already engaged with your content. Retargeting warmer audiences, and expanding cautiously from what is already working, usually improves efficiency and lead quality.
Another smart approach is to use LinkedIn to build the right audience first, then use those insights to support other channels. For example, LinkedIn can drive high quality site visits and content engagement, which you can then nurture and retarget through email, search, and lower cost platforms where appropriate.
If you want LinkedIn advertising to work for your UK business, start with defined goals and warm audiences, then scale selectively based on performance. This shift alone can significantly reduce wasted spend.
How Much LinkedIn Advertising Costs in the UK Compared to Other Platforms
Compared to Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads, LinkedIn is usually the most expensive platform in the UK on a pure cost per click basis. That is largely because you are paying for access to a more specialised professional audience, and because competition can be intense in B2B categories.
To keep the comparison fair, it helps to compare like for like:
- LinkedIn CPC: typically £4.50 to £7.50 for many campaigns, with £8 to £15+ common in competitive B2B sectors or when targeting senior, specialist audiences.
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) CPC: often £0.50 to £1.50, with many campaigns sitting in the ~£0.30 to £2.00+ band depending on objective and competition.
- Google Search CPC: commonly around £1.50 to £5.00 for many UK advertisers, but it can range from £0.50 to £10+, and £5 to £15+ is not unusual for competitive, high intent B2B keywords.
The key point is that cheaper clicks do not automatically mean cheaper growth. LinkedIn often delivers fewer clicks, but those clicks can be more commercially valuable in B2B because the targeting is closer to the buying committee. That is why it is common to see higher costs on LinkedIn alongside stronger lead quality when the offer and targeting are right.
A practical way to reduce overall acquisition cost is to use LinkedIn as the precision layer, then let other channels do the volume work. For example, you can use LinkedIn to drive high quality visits and engagement, build warm audiences, and then retarget and nurture those people via cheaper channels and search journeys, where appropriate.
Planning a LinkedIn Ad Budget Efficiently
LinkedIn campaigns work best as a precision tool, not a volume channel. The most efficient starting point is usually warm audiences, such as website visitors, CRM lists, engaged video viewers, and people who have interacted with your page, alongside tightly defined account based targeting where it fits. Without that groundwork, LinkedIn can feel expensive because you are paying premium rates to generate awareness from scratch within a narrow professional audience.
Start with the objective, then set a test budget that can generate enough signal to learn. As a practical guide for UK campaigns:
- Brand awareness to senior decision makers: around £25 to £50 per day is often enough to test positioning, creative angles, and initial audience response.
- Lead generation (Lead Gen Forms or conversion focused): typically £60 to £120 per day gives you a better chance of generating enough clicks and leads to make optimisation decisions, especially with tighter targeting.
If budgets are lower, you can still run campaigns, but learning is slower and results can look inconsistent because there is not enough data coming through to judge performance confidently.
As performance data accumulates, shift budget towards what improves efficiency. That usually means moving spend from broad prospecting into mid funnel and retargeting, doubling down on the best performing messaging, and tightening audiences rather than widening them. In most UK B2B accounts, broad targeting without prior intent signals is where wasted spend happens.
A practical bonus of this approach is that LinkedIn can help you create high quality warm audiences, which you can then nurture through other channels and search journeys, where costs are often lower.
LinkedIn Advertising Costs UK: When Higher Spend Actually Makes Sense
Higher LinkedIn costs are easiest to justify when the value per customer is high and the buying process is professional, complex, or committee led. LinkedIn tends to be a strong fit for B2B services, SaaS, recruitment, professional networks, and high value offerings where the cost of a qualified conversation matters more than the cost of a click.
Higher spend makes the most sense when:
- Your targeting is specific and commercially relevant, such as job function, seniority, industry, and account lists
- You have a clear offer and landing experience that matches the audience’s level of intent
- You can follow up properly, either through sales outreach, email nurture, or a defined next step
- You are using warm audiences and retargeting, not relying solely on cold traffic
If your offer is low value, your audience is broad, or you mainly need volume quickly, other channels like Facebook, Instagram, or search can often be more cost efficient. In those cases, LinkedIn can still play a useful role as the precision layer, driving the right people into your ecosystem, while other platforms and search support cheaper reach, nurturing, and repeat exposure.
For consultants, recruiters, SaaS, and B2B service providers, higher CPCs are often justified when they consistently produce better quality leads and more relevant conversations. The headline cost matters less than whether the channel is delivering qualified opportunities.
Final Thoughts
LinkedIn costs can appear high, but when it’s used at the right stage, campaigns are often commercially sensible.
Cold, broad targeting tends to push costs up while results fall short. LinkedIn usually performs best when you have already validated messaging, built initial intent through other activity, and then retarget people who have engaged, visited key pages, or match a proven audience profile.
If you want support planning or refining LinkedIn campaigns around real business objectives, explore our Paid Social Ads service as a next step.