Every agency quotes "it depends." Here are actual ranges instead. The Malaysia and Singapore figures below are the bands we see across the client accounts we manage in those markets — real, first-party, aggregated data. The Australia figures are different: curated from published third-party sources, not our own managed accounts, because we don't yet manage a large enough AU sample to publish first-party figures — each AU band carries its own source link and verification date so you can check it yourself. Use all three to sanity-check what you're paying now — and read the full methodology before you quote them anywhere.
Resource · Updated Quarterly
MY, SG & AU Paid Ads Benchmarks
by Industry (Q3 2026).
CPL, CPC and cost-per-consultation ranges for the verticals we run campaigns in — Malaysia and Singapore from our own managed accounts, Australia curated from published sources — updated as the market moves.
Quick answer (Q3 2026): for a non-competitive Malaysian vertical, expect roughly RM8–25 Meta CPM and RM1.5–8 Google Search CPC as a baseline. Regulated or high-competition verticals (clinics, property, high-value B2B) run well above this — see the 3 market tables below (Malaysia, Singapore, Australia) for the specific vertical you're pricing against.
Malaysia (MYR)
| Industry | Channel | Key metric | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aesthetic clinic | Meta | Cost per lead | RM15–45 |
| Aesthetic clinic | Meta | Cost per booked consultation | RM90–260 |
| Aesthetic clinic | Meta | Consultation show-rate (with qualification) | 45–70% |
| Dental | CPC (implant/Invisalign at high end) | RM6–18 | |
| Dental | Cost per lead | RM60–180 | |
| Dental | — | Invisalign case value | RM9,000–16,000 |
| Interior design | Meta | Cost per lead | RM25–70 |
| Interior design | Meta | Budget-fit qualified lead rate | 30–55% |
| General SME | Meta | CPM | RM8–25 |
| General SME | Search CPC (non-competitive) | RM1.5–8 |
Source: shakalakaa managed-account data, 2026.
Typical monthly management retainers (Malaysia)
| Service | Range |
|---|---|
| Social media management | RM2,500–6,000/mo |
| Google/Meta Ads management | RM1,500–5,000/mo flat, or 15–20% of spend |
| SEO | RM2,000–8,000/mo |
Source: shakalakaa managed-account data, 2026.
Singapore (SGD)
| Industry | Channel | Key metric | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aesthetic clinic | Meta | Cost per lead | SGD 25–80 |
| Aesthetic clinic | Meta | Cost per booked consultation | SGD 120–350 |
| Dental | CPC | SGD 8–25 | |
| Dental | Cost per lead | SGD 80–250 | |
| Interior design | Meta | Cost per lead | SGD 30–90 |
| General SME | Meta | CPM | SGD 8–22 |
Source: shakalakaa managed-account data, 2026.
Australia (AUD) — curated, not first-party
Unlike the Malaysia and Singapore figures above, these are curated from published third-party industry reports, cross-referenced across sources where possible — not aggregated from shakalakaa's own managed accounts. Every band below links its source and the date it was verified. Vertical-specific AU figures (aesthetic clinic, dental, interior design) are not yet published — we couldn't source them with enough confidence this round, so they stay gated rather than guessed. See our Australia practice page and AHPRA & TGA Ad Compliance Checker.
| Metric | Range | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search CPC (cross-industry) | A$2–A$4 | Source | 2026-07-27 |
| Meta CPC (average) | A$1.47 | Source | 2026-07-27 |
| Meta CPM | A$9.63–A$21.73 | Source | 2026-07-27 |
| GST rate | 10% | Source | 2026-07-27 |
General cross-industry range; specific verticals run materially higher (e.g. legal ~$8.67, dental ~$7.66). Median ~$14.38 across the reported period; high-demand verticals (finance/insurance) regularly exceed $30, food/beverage sits closer to $12.
Deep-dive pages by industry & market
- Aesthetic clinic ad costs — Malaysia
- Aesthetic clinic ad costs — Singapore
- Dental clinic ad costs — Malaysia
- Dental clinic ad costs — Singapore
- Interior design ad costs — Malaysia
- Interior design ad costs — Singapore
Also see the live ad cost ticker, the citable facts library, and The State of Digital Marketing in Malaysia annual report.
Buyer guides, grounded in this data
- How to choose a marketing agency in Malaysia
- How to choose a clinic marketing agency in Malaysia — KKM/MDC criteria plus real CPLs
- What a digital marketing agency costs in Malaysia
- How to check KKM/MDC ad compliance
- How to choose a marketing agency in Singapore
- What a digital marketing agency costs in Singapore
Use this data
This is the shakalakaa Digital Ad Cost Index — published under CC BY 4.0, free to reuse with attribution. A read-only JSON version is available at /api/benchmarks.php (optionally filtered with ?market=my or &industry=aesthetic_clinic — see the API documentation for full parameters). If you cite a figure from this page, link back to this page as "Data by shakalakaa" — or use the embeddable widget to drop a live, self-updating figure straight into your own site. This page updates quarterly — to cite a fixed version that will never change, link to the Q3 2026 snapshot instead.
Methodology
These ranges are aggregated from the client accounts we manage across Malaysia and Singapore, expressed as bands rather than single figures. They are directional benchmarks for sanity-checking your own numbers — not guarantees. Your actual costs depend on treatment mix, location, seasonality, offer strength and competitive pressure. We review and update this page quarterly. See the full methodology page for sample sources, deduplication, the verify_gate mechanism, and what's first-party versus curated.
Review history
- 2026-07-31: v36 V36-1.2: added hk group, first-party-small-n method (third method class alongside first-party MY/SG and curated-third-party AU), verify_gate:true on the only eligible cell (aesthetic_clinic, n=3). No dental or general_sme cell created (fails the minimum-3-account rule / not a coherent vertical). Zero HK figures read by any live page.
- 2026-07-27: v24 A3: added au group, curated from published third-party sources (rockingweb.com.au, cross-referenced against wordstream.com), NOT first-party like my/sg. Only cross-industry Google Search CPC and Meta CPC/CPM bands are published with real sources; vertical-specific AU bands (aesthetic clinic, dental, interior design) are verify_gate:true with [null, null] since no defensibly-sourced band was found for them this session.
- 2026-07-26: Added my.live_commerce group (v20 Live Commerce spec), verify_gate:true — structure only, no shakalakaa session data aggregated yet. No page reads this group; the live-commerce ROI calculator is 100% user-input. Gate clears when S confirms real ranges (spec §N4).
- 2026-07: Ranges reviewed against aggregated managed-account data; Singapore cost guides (Meta, dental, interior design) published from the same dataset.
Month-over-month trend
This data now feeds a monthly series (data/benchmark-series/), currently 1 month recorded. We'll publish real month-over-month movement — "has Meta CPM in Malaysia gone up in 2026?" — once 3+ months exist. Until then this page stays a single-snapshot reference, stated plainly rather than implying a trend line from one data point.
How to use these numbers
- If your cost per lead is well above the top of the band for your vertical, the usual culprits are targeting, tracking or landing-page fit — not budget. Check where you actually land with the free CPL Traffic Light tool.
- For clinics, the number that matters is cost per booked consultation, not cost per raw lead — a cheap lead that never shows up is not cheap.
- For interior design, track budget-fit qualified lead rate, because unqualified renovation enquiries cost your design team real hours.
- Compare management fees against the retainer table — below the floor, an account cannot get genuine ongoing optimisation.
- Running campaigns across Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong at once? See our cross-border marketing guide for why a blended regional average understates or overstates each market — or our Hong Kong practice page for HKD-native cost context on its own.
- Don't see your industry above? Submit your own ad cost data — any industry, any market — and unlock a percentile estimate against what other businesses are reporting.
Frequently asked
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Cite this
shakalakaa (Plixitt Solutions). "Malaysia, Singapore & Australia Ad Benchmarks." https://shakalakaa.my/resources/ad-benchmarks. Updated 2026-08-16. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.