// GOOGLE AD GRANTS
Google Ad Grant management for Australian not-for-profits
Google Ad Grant management, run once as a fixed-fee project rather than billed to you every month. The grant gives an eligible not-for-profit up to US$10,000 a month in free Google Search advertising. Most grant accounts never spend it, because the account has to satisfy rules a normal Google Ads account does not.
// WHAT IT IS
What a Google Ad Grant is, and what it is actually worth
Google Ad Grants is a free advertising allowance for eligible not-for-profits: up to US$10,000 per month of Google Search ads. Search only. There is no Display, no YouTube, no Gmail and no Performance Max inside the grant.
The figure is in US dollars, so the Australian equivalent moves with the exchange rate and should be read as approximate. The budget resets each month and does not roll over, so any month you underspend is gone.
It is a real asset. It is not free money. The account carries conditions that a paid Google Ads account does not, and those conditions are the reason most grants sit largely unspent.
// ELIGIBILITY
Google Ad Grants Australia: who is eligible and who is not
Australian eligibility runs through Google for Nonprofits. This is the part worth checking before you spend any time on campaigns, because a whole category of organisations that assume they qualify do not.
What you need to qualify
- A charity registered with the ACNC, the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.
- Or an organisation holding DGR status, Deductible Gift Recipient, with the ATO.
- Or an income-tax-exempt not-for-profit as the ATO defines one.
- An active ABN. ACNC registration typically takes up to 28 days, so start there if you are not registered yet.
- Located in Australia, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands or Norfolk Island.
- A live website with substantial content on it, not a holding page.
Not eligible
- Government entities and government departments.
- Hospitals and healthcare organisations.
- Schools, academic institutions and universities. Those go to Google for Education instead.
Your website is part of the eligibility test, not an afterthought. If it is thin, slow or half-finished, start with a not-for-profit website and layer the grant work on afterwards.
// WHY GRANTS UNDERPERFORM
Six rules that make an Ad Grant different from a normal Ads account
Nobody underspends a US$10,000 budget on purpose. They underspend it because the grant account is fenced in six ways at once, and a strategy built for a paid account walks straight into all six.
The $2.00 cost-per-click cap
Under manual CPC and most bidding strategies an Ad Grant account cannot bid above $2.00 a click. The cap lifts for campaigns using Maximize Conversions bidding. In a competitive auction you are not outbidding a paying advertiser at $2, which is why grant traffic has to be won on long-tail searches rather than the obvious head terms.
The 5% click-through-rate floor
Ad Grants accounts have to hold a 5% click-through rate at account level. Miss it for two consecutive months and the account can be deactivated. That single rule kills the "run every keyword and see what sticks" approach most free-budget accounts start with.
Conversion tracking is a precondition
Tracking has to be live and working before campaigns are approved, and the account needs at least one meaningful conversion recorded each month. If tracking breaks quietly, which it does, the account is at risk and nobody finds out until it is.
Smart Bidding is mandatory on newer accounts
Accounts created on or after 22 April 2019 must use conversion-based Smart Bidding. That only works if the conversions being fed to it are real and correctly configured. Bad conversion data does not just report badly, it bids badly.
Keyword rules with teeth
No single-word keywords. No overly generic terms. Low quality-score keywords have to be removed rather than left running. Geotargeting has to match the areas you actually serve, and there are minimum account-structure requirements to meet.
Grant ads are served at lower priority
Ad Grant ads sit below paying advertisers in the auction. The grant is genuinely valuable, but it is not the same asset as a paid account with the same nominal budget, and any agency telling you otherwise has not run one.
// THE RISK
The grant can be taken away, and that is the point of the work
Ad Grants is not a set-and-forget budget. Miss the 5% account-level click-through-rate minimum for two consecutive months and the account can be deactivated. Breach the keyword, bidding, structure or conversion-tracking policies and the same thing can happen.
This is the part that gets left off most sales pages, because "free Google advertising" sells better than "an account with published thresholds you have to keep clearing". Ongoing compliance work is not an upsell invented to justify a fee. It is the actual job.
If a page or a pitch makes an Ad Grant sound like easy money, treat that as information about the person selling it.
Every figure and rule on this page reflects Google's published Ad Grants and Google for Nonprofits policy as at July 2026. Google changes this policy, so confirm the current requirements and thresholds against Google's own documentation before you make a decision on them. Nothing here should be read as permanent.
// THE SCOPE
What Google Ad Grant management covers here
Four stages, in this order, because the order is not optional. Tracking has to exist before campaigns get approved, and eligibility has to be settled before either.
Eligibility and access
We confirm your ACNC registration, DGR status or ATO exemption against the current Google for Nonprofits requirements before anything else happens. If you are not eligible yet, we tell you that first, and we do not charge you to find out.
Tracking before campaigns
Conversion tracking gets built and verified before campaigns go up, because Ad Grants will not approve them otherwise and Smart Bidding is only as good as the conversions behind it. Donations, enquiries, sign-ups and calls, each defined as a real action.
Compliant campaign build
Campaign and ad group structure that meets the account-structure minimums, keywords chosen to live inside the $2.00 cap, geotargeting set to the areas you actually serve, and ad copy written for people searching for the help you provide.
Handover in writing
A written record of what was built, what the compliance thresholds are, what to check each month and what will get the account flagged. The account is in your name. You keep all of it.
// THE ALTERNATIVES
A fixed fee against the monthly retainer everyone else sells
Almost every Ad Grant offer on the market is a monthly retainer, and some of them are priced in US dollars. Here is where a one-off project sits next to the other three options, including the two that do not involve paying us.
| WHAT YOU WANT | WEB BLEND PROJECT | MONTHLY RETAINER | DO IT IN-HOUSE | LEAVE IT UNSPENT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Know the total cost before you start |  One fee, agreed in writing |  Open-ended, month on month |  Cheap in cash, not in hours | Costs nothing |
| Conversion tracking built before campaigns | Stage two of four | Depends who you got | Often the part that slips | Nothing to track |
| Someone tells you the compliance thresholds | Written into the handover | Varies wildly | If someone reads the policy | Not covered |
| You own the account and the setup | Your name, your accounts | Ask before you sign | Yours already | Nothing to own |
| Keeps working after you stop paying | The setup stays live | Output stops with the fee | Only what you finished | Nothing to keep |
| BEST FOR | Not-for-profits who want it built properly once | Organisations wanting someone on it monthly | Teams with a person and the time | Nobody, really |
One fee for the project, quoted in writing before anything starts, and no monthly retainer attached to it. If you want us watching the account every month afterwards, that gets scoped on its own so you choose it deliberately rather than inherit it.
// WHERE WE STAND
What we have done, and what we have not
Web Blend manages Google Ads accounts. Many of them. That is the everyday work: campaign and ad group structure, search terms, negative keywords, and conversion tracking that reports honestly instead of flattering the invoice.
Tracking is the part we are hardest on, including on ourselves. We rebuilt our own measurement stack end to end: a Google Tag Manager container now on its eleventh version, form submissions and lead events wired as GA4 key events, per-landing-page source parameters so a lead can be traced to the page that produced it, and an enforced production content security policy. While we were in there we found seven misconfigured conversion actions sitting in our own Google Ads account. They are on our own remediation list and not finished yet, and we would rather tell you that than let you assume otherwise. Finding them is the competence an Ad Grant account lives or dies on, because Ad Grants will not approve campaigns until tracking works and newer accounts have to bid on those conversions.
We have not managed a Google Ad Grants account. Ad Grants is its own product with its own compliance regime, and we are not going to blur that into "years of experience with Google". There is no Ad Grant case study to show you and no reinstatement record to point at.
What we bring is the Google Ads discipline plus the rules, and the rules are published. The $2.00 cap, the 5% click-through-rate minimum, the Smart Bidding requirement, the keyword restrictions: Google writes all of it down, and anyone willing to read it and then actually watch the account can work to it.
So, plainly. If you want an agency with a decade of Ad Grant case studies and a wall of reinstatements, that is not us, and it is a reasonable thing to want. If you want someone who will tell you the truth about your account, build the tracking properly, and charge you once instead of every month, that is what this is.
For paid search outside the grant, our Google Ads management page covers how we run normal Ads accounts, including the tracking setup described above.
// QUESTIONS
Straight answers before you ask
Not sure whether your organisation qualifies, or whether the grant is worth the effort for you? Ask us directly and we'll tell you honestly, including when the answer is no.
Get in touchIs my organisation eligible for a Google Ad Grant?
In Australia, eligibility runs through Google for Nonprofits. You generally need to be a charity registered with the ACNC, or hold DGR status with the ATO, or be an income-tax-exempt not-for-profit as the ATO defines one. You also need an active ABN, a live website with real content on it, and to be located in Australia, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands or Norfolk Island. Government entities, hospitals and healthcare organisations, and schools, universities and academic institutions are not eligible. Schools go to Google for Education instead. These are the requirements as at July 2026, so confirm them against the current Google for Nonprofits policy before you rely on them.
How much is a Google Ad Grant actually worth?
Up to US$10,000 per month in free Google Search advertising. That figure is in US dollars, so the Australian equivalent moves with the exchange rate and should be treated as approximate. The budget resets monthly and does not roll over, so an unspent month is simply gone. Most grant accounts never come close to spending the full amount, mainly because of the $2.00 cost-per-click cap and the account rules that come with the grant.
Have you managed Google Ad Grants accounts before?
No. We manage Google Ads accounts, a lot of them, and that is where the skill comes from: account structure, search terms, negative keywords and conversion tracking that reports honestly. We have not run an Ad Grants account specifically, and we are not going to imply otherwise. The Ad Grants rules are published by Google and they are knowable. If you want an agency with a decade of Ad Grant case studies, that is not us, and it is a fair thing to want.
Can a Google Ad Grant be suspended?
Yes. Missing the 5% account-level click-through-rate minimum for two consecutive months can get the account deactivated, and so can breaching the keyword, bidding, structure or conversion-tracking policies. That is the entire reason ongoing attention matters. We will not claim a reinstatement track record, because we do not have one. What we will do is tell you where the account stands against each threshold rather than let you find out from Google.
Is this a monthly retainer?
No. Most Ad Grant management is sold as a monthly retainer, and some of it is sold in US dollars. Ours is a one-off project with a defined scope, one fixed fee agreed in writing before we start, and no rolling fee attached to it. If you want someone watching the account every month after that, it is scoped as its own decision rather than switched on by default.
Can we just run the Ad Grant ourselves?
Plenty of organisations do, and if you have someone in-house who will read the policy and check the account monthly, that is a legitimate option. The work is a conversion-tracking setup that survives contact with reality, a keyword set that can win inside a $2.00 cap, and someone watching the click-through rate before it costs you the account. If nobody has time for that, the grant tends to sit there unspent.
Do we need a new website before applying?
You need a live website with substantial content, that is a Google for Nonprofits requirement, and the ads have to send people somewhere that explains what you do and lets them act. If your current site does not do that, a not-for-profit website is the better first spend and the grant work sits on top of it afterwards. We will tell you which of the two you are before you pay for either.
// READY WHEN YOU ARE
Find out if the grant is worth it for you
Tell us about your organisation, your ACNC or DGR status and what you need people to do when they land on your site. We'll come back with a straight read on eligibility and one fixed price. No retainer, no lock-in.
Get a fixed scope and price