---
title: "Meta Ads Cost for B2B in 2026: Facebook and Instagram CPL, CPC and CPM Compared"
url: https://metadata.io/meta-ads-cost-b2b
description: "What Facebook and Instagram cost B2B advertisers: $145 and $138 per lead, and the one channel where retargeting is genuinely cheaper. From $57.6M of 2025 spend."
source: metadata.io
---

Channel cost reference · 2025 data

# Meta ads cost for B2B: Facebook and Instagram compared

Every number below comes from B2B advertisers running Facebook and Instagram in 2025, inside a dataset of $57.6M of measured spend across 153 advertisers, with closed-won revenue traced back to the ads. No email gate. The [method is published](https://metadata.io/benchmark/methodology) and the [dataset is available](https://metadata.io/benchmark/dataset).

## How much do Meta ads cost for B2B?

A B2B lead costs $145 on Facebook and $138 on Instagram, the two cheapest channels in this dataset. Facebook clicks run $1.95 and Instagram $2.82, both a fraction of the $9.39 LinkedIn charges.

| Metric | Facebook | Instagram |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per lead | $145 | $138 |
| Cost per click | $1.95 | $2.82 |
| Cost per thousand impressions | $15.50 | $18.25 |
| Click-through rate | 0.79% | 0.65% |
| Click to lead conversion | 2.6% | 4.0% |

## Is Facebook or Instagram cheaper for B2B leads?

Instagram, narrowly, at $138 against $145. The route there differs: Facebook wins on click-through rate (0.79% against 0.65%) and Instagram wins on conversion (4.0% against 2.6%). A 5% CPL gap is not a reason to move budget.

## Is Meta retargeting cheaper than prospecting?

On Facebook, yes, and it is the only channel in this dataset where the expected pattern holds. Retargeting costs $120 per lead against $166 for prospecting. On LinkedIn the relationship inverts: $234 retargeting against $194 prospecting.

| Channel | Prospecting | Retargeting |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook | $166 | $120 |
| LinkedIn | $194 | $234 |

## Which Meta ad format produces the cheapest B2B leads?

Image, at $136 per lead against $225 for video on Facebook. Video costs 65% more and this is the most consistent format finding in the dataset: the same ordering holds on LinkedIn, where image runs $200 against $265.

## What do cold Meta audiences cost?

Cold Facebook audiences run $166 per lead at 2.5% conversion across 59 advertisers. Cold Instagram runs $153 at 3.9% across 37 advertisers.

## Does a cheap Meta lead mean a cheaper customer?

Not necessarily, and this is the trap in every cost-per-lead comparison. Cost per lead and cost per customer are different numbers, and the gap between them is where most B2B media budgets are lost. Of 105 advertisers running lead-generation spend, 65 had no closed-won revenue traceable to their ads at all.

## Where does Meta sit against the other channels?

Cheapest per lead, and the furthest from the buyer. The full cross-channel comparison is on the [B2B advertising benchmarks](https://metadata.io/b2b-advertising-benchmarks) page. [LinkedIn](https://metadata.io/linkedin-ads-cost-b2b) costs more per lead and closes more of them; [Google Ads](https://metadata.io/google-ads-cost-b2b) costs the most of any channel here. For how to run the channel on these numbers, with the audience and format cuts, see [Meta ads for B2B: what Facebook and Instagram actually deliver](https://metadata.io/resources/blog/fb-ad-strategies). For all three social channels on one table, see the [head-to-head paid social benchmark](https://metadata.io/benchmark/head-to-head-comparison-of-the-performance-of-the-major-paid-social-channels).

## How were these numbers calculated?

Spend-weighted aggregates across B2B advertisers who ran Meta in 2025. Suppression thresholds mean no cut is published on a sample too small to be worth anything; cuts that failed were killed, not caveated. The [full method](https://metadata.io/benchmark/methodology) names the rules and the [dataset](https://metadata.io/benchmark/dataset) is CC BY 4.0.