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 and the dataset is available.
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 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
|---|---|---|
| $166 | $120 | |
| $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 page. LinkedIn costs more per lead and closes more of them; Google Ads 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. For all three social channels on one table, see the head-to-head paid social benchmark.
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 names the rules and the dataset is CC BY 4.0.