Why is Google Ads charging me more than my budget?

If Google Ads is charging you more than your daily budget, there are a few common reasons why this might happen — but most of the time, it's not actually overcharging in the long run. Here's why:

🔁 1. Overdelivery
Google Ads can spend up to 2x your daily budget on any given day. This is called overdelivery, and it helps account for days with more traffic or better performance opportunities.

Example: If your daily budget is $10, you might be charged up to $20 in one day — but Google averages it out so that over the month, you won't be charged more than:

$10/day × number of days in the month

So if April has 30 days and your daily budget is $10, the max monthly spend should not exceed $300.

🧾 2. Monthly Budget vs. Actual Spend
You might be looking at daily spend and thinking it's over, but Google balances this out over the monthly billing cycle. You can check the "Billing" section in your Google Ads account to see your actual charges.

⚠️ 3. Multiple Campaigns
Make sure you're not setting daily budgets across multiple campaigns — each campaign's budget is tracked separately. If you have:

Campaign A: $10/day

Campaign B: $15/day
👉 Your potential total daily spend is $25/day

💳 4. Auto-Renewal or Billing Thresholds
If you're billed on a threshold system (e.g., every $500), your billing may look like big chunks even if your daily budget is within limits. That's just how the billing cycles work.

📈 5. Manual Bidding or Broad Match Keywords
If you're using manual CPC or broad match keywords, you could be bidding aggressively and getting a lot of clicks fast, which may spike costs temporarily. Consider using Maximize Clicks or Target CPA/ROAS with caps if you're seeing unexpected charges.