Common questions about Google Ads charges (original) (raw)

This article addresses common questions about Google Ads charges.

Learn more About Google Ads charges for automatic payments.

In this article

• Why do I have identical charges to my credit card or bank statement?
• Why am I charged more than my average daily budget?
• Why am I charged after initiating a manual payment?
• Why am I charged after stopping my ads or canceling my account?
• Why are the charges on my bank statement and Google Ads account don’t match?
• Why am I charged after entering a promotional code?

Why do I have identical charges to my credit card or bank statement?

There are a few reasons you may have 2 identical charges to your credit card or bank statement:

• Authorization request: This is a request between our billing system and the bank that issued your credit card. It happens nearly every time a payment is made, and the request appears as a pending amount that's identical to an already processed charge. These requests normally disappear within several days, although this can vary by bank.
• Double charge:
  • An error can cause a double charge, which means your account is billed twice for the same amount, and neither charge is marked as pending on your statement. Google can’t refund or cancel the payment, but any additional payment will serve as a credit applied to future advertising spend. Sometimes an automatic payment may occur even after manual payment is initiated due to the time needed for the payment to be recognized by Google.
  • If your account spend is high and you’ve reached your threshold amount more than once in a day, an automatic charge may be triggered. If your account spend is very high, you may be eligible to increase your threshold amount. Learn more about how to Change how often you’re charged.

If the double charge or authorization request doesn’t resolve on its own, reach out to your bank for support.

Why am I charged more than my average daily budget?

To help your campaigns reach their potential, your campaign might spend up to twice your average daily budget on a given day. If your costs exceed your monthly spending limit (30.4 times your average daily budget for most campaigns),

Learn more about About overdelivery and your average daily budget

Why am I charged after initiating a manual payment?

If you use the automatic payment setting and then make a manual payment, you might still be charged on your automatic billing cycle in the following scenarios:

• An automatic payment was already in progress when you initiated your payment: If you made a manual payment while the automatic payment cycle was underway, you may still be charged. This is most likely to happen if you make a manual payment when you’re close to your billing threshold and at the end of the calendar month.
• You reached the end of your billing cycle: After you make a manual payment, your account returns to its usual billing cycle. You'll still receive an automatic charge after your account costs reach your payment threshold or on the first day of the next month.

Why am I charged after stopping my ads or canceling my account?

When you stop your ads from running by canceling your account, pausing your campaigns, or removing your campaigns, it can take several hours for Google Ads to stop serving your ads completely. You’ll be billed for any unpaid advertising costs accrued before your ads stopped running. After your ads stop running, you won’t accrue any more costs and should not be charged.

Note that our system operates on a monthly billing cycle, so it may be several weeks before you receive your final charges.

How to check for unpaid advertising costs

To check for unpaid advertising costs:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Billing icon .
2. Click Summary.
3. Check the Balance card at the top of the page for you unpaid advertising costs.

Why are the charges on my bank statement and Google Ads account don’t match?

Sometimes, your bank statement charges look a bit different from those that you see in your Google Ads account.

Charges are off by a day or two

Since both Google Ads and banks operate on different systems, payments don't always happen at the same time. In most cases, this is expected and will resolve within a few days.

Bank charges aren't appearing in Google Ads

If this happens, here's what you can do to review the two accounts:

• In many cases, your 10-digit customer ID number is shown on your bank statement. If you have more than one Google Ads account, check each account for the charges to ensure they weren’t applied to a different account than you were expecting. Learn more about how to Troubleshoot unidentified Google Ads charges.
• If you still can't figure out where the charge is coming from, you can contact our support team. To help us better support you, have a screenshot or scanned copy of the charges in question prepared, making sure to redact any charges and information that aren’t relevant to your request.

Other issues

If you are still experiencing issues matching charges between your bank statement and Google Ads, provide the following information when you reach out to support so they can properly investigate and assist you:

• Screenshot of your bank statement showing the charges in question, clearly showing the date, amount, currency and last 4 digits of the card used.
• Your Google Ads Customer ID (this is a 10 digit number usually found on your bank statement).
• If you have multiple Google Ads accounts, specify the account you believe the charge(s) relate to.

Why am I charged after entering a promotional code?

If you’re on automatic payments, when your promotional credit runs out, your ads will continue to run and you'll accrue advertising costs. If you've used up your credit and want to stop accruing costs, you can pause your campaigns.

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