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 132 advertisers running lead-generation spend, 42 had no CRM opportunity signal at all, so cost per lead is the only number they have.
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.