How do brands pay for advertising on Snapchat?

How the price is set

• The Snap auction decides which ad to show and how much to charge the winner. Winners are not chosen on bid alone; Snap also weighs ad quality and relevance.
• Auto-Bid lets Snapchat set the bid to get the most goal actions for your budget.
• Max Bid caps how much Snapchat can bid for you while it aims for the most efficient cost per action.

How billing works

• You add a payment method in Ads Manager when you are ready to launch your first ad.
• The Billing & Payments view holds your payment methods, transaction history and invoices.
• Snap charges you each time your costs reach your billing threshold. Thresholds start small and rise after successful payments, so how often you are charged depends on your spending.

In practice

Snap recommends $20 to $50 a day, above the $5 minimum, so campaigns get through the exploration phase. For app installs, start on Auto-Bid with the App Installs objective, then move to Max Bid only once you know the cost per install your payback model can carry.

See how we budget Snapchat for apps on our Snapchat ads agency page.