Are X ads cheaper than Facebook ads? Costs and differences

Are X ads cheaper than Facebook ads?

Per impression and per click, usually yes. X Ad Campaign runs campaigns on X and compares them with Facebook for clients regularly, and the published benchmarks agree with what the accounts show: attention on X tends to cost less than on Facebook. Whether that makes X the cheaper way to win customers depends on the business, which is the more useful question.

Hootsuite’s own benchmarks put X’s cost per thousand impressions below Meta’s, and its cost per click at about half¹. Sociallyin’s breakdown points the same way, with clicks on X starting below forty cents² against just under a dollar on average for Facebook³.

Those are averages across very different advertisers, and they compare attention, not results. The rest of this page is about why the prices differ, what each platform does better, and how to test which one brings your customers more cheaply.

What do X and Facebook ads cost side by side?

Published figures are ranges from different samples, but the direction is consistent.

Sources disagree on the exact numbers because they measure different industries, objectives and periods. They agree that X tends to be the cheaper of the two per unit of attention. For X alone, Enrich Labs reports a median cost per acquisition a little over twenty dollars⁴ across agency accounts, a useful reminder that the number that matters is the cost of a result, not of a click. The detailed X picture is in what X ads cost.

Why is X often cheaper per click?

Because fewer advertisers compete for each person. Both platforms sell attention through auctions: every time someone opens the app, advertisers whose targeting includes that person bid, and the platform weighs each bid against how likely the ad is to get a response. On X, Hootsuite describes it as a second-price auction⁵, in which the highest bidder pays just above the next bid.

The price therefore depends on competition. Facebook’s size and commerce tools attract an enormous number of advertisers, from global brands to local shops, all bidding for overlapping audiences. X has fewer advertisers bidding for its audience, so impressions and clicks often clear at lower prices.

That also explains when X gets expensive: around big live events, product launches and busy seasons, when many advertisers want the same conversation at the same moment.

What does Facebook do better?

Reach, commerce and lead tools. In the U.S., Pew Research Center finds that most adults use Facebook, against about a fifth who use X⁶. A business whose buyers are spread across the whole population, including older age groups, simply finds more of them on Facebook.

Facebook’s advertising system is also built deeply around selling: product catalogues that show each person the items they looked at, shops inside the app, instant lead forms that fill in a person’s details, and very mature conversion optimisation. For online shops with large catalogues and for lead generation at volume, those tools often outweigh a higher price per click.

What does X do better?

Conversation, timing and price. X is where many people follow news, live events and their industry in real time, and its targeting can reach people by the keywords and topics they are discussing as it happens. For launches, events, news-driven offers and audiences that follow a field closely (technology, finance, sport, media, B2B specialists), that is hard to buy elsewhere.

The audience leans younger and more professional: Pew finds a third of adults under thirty use X, against one in ten over sixty-five⁷. For offers aimed at younger professionals, founders and developers, X often delivers a relevant audience at a lower price than Facebook.

Its timeline also rewards brands that sound like people rather than advertisers, which suits founders and teams willing to speak plainly.

And it is cheaper to test on. Lower prices per impression mean a test budget buys more data, which makes X an efficient place to try messages and creative before scaling them anywhere.

How do targeting options compare?

Facebook targets mainly by who people are; X adds what people are talking about right now. Both offer location, age, gender and language, both let advertisers upload customer lists, retarget website visitors and build lookalike audiences from them.

Facebook’s strength is breadth and automation. Its interest and demographic data cover a huge share of the population, and its broad, automated targeting has become very good at finding buyers when given a clear conversion signal and enough budget. Many advertisers now run Facebook with little manual targeting at all.

X’s strength is intent in the moment. Keyword targeting reaches people who post, search or engage with specific terms; conversation topics reach people following a subject; follower lookalikes reach people similar to the followers of chosen accounts, such as competitors or industry voices. For a brand whose buyers discuss their problem openly, that is a direct line to the moment of need. It works less well where buyers rarely talk about the category in public.

How do the ad formats compare?

They overlap more than they differ. Both run image, video and carousel ads in the feed, both offer short vertical video, and both support app-install and website formats with clear calls to action.

The differences follow each platform’s habits. Facebook and Instagram have richer shopping formats: catalogue ads that pick products for each person, collection ads and in-app shops. X’s formats lean towards conversation and moments: promoted posts that look like ordinary posts, video before publishers’ content, and takeovers of the timeline or trends for big launches and events.

Creative style matters more than the format list. Ads that look native to the feed outperform polished adverts on both platforms, and the same creative rarely works equally well on each. Expect to adapt the message: shorter and more conversational on X, more visual and product-led on Facebook.

Which platform suits which business?

The one where your buyers are and your offer fits the format.

Many businesses end up using both: Facebook for catalogue and retargeting at scale, X for reaching engaged niche audiences and moments. The split follows results, not habit.

How do you compare them fairly?

With the same result, measured the same way, over the same period. Pick one business result (a purchase, a qualified lead, an install) and track it on both platforms with each platform’s pixel or server connection, checked with a test conversion. Run each for a few weeks, long enough to leave the learning phase, with budgets large enough for each to optimise.

Then compare cost per result, and check it against the business’s own numbers. Each platform’s report claims the sales it touched, so totals often add up to more than the business sold. Orders in the shop system or leads in the CRM, together with a free-text “how did you hear about us?” question, keep the comparison honest.

Keep everything else equal where you can: the same offer, the same landing page and, as far as the formats allow, the same message. If the X test sends people to a different page or a different discount, the comparison measures the page or the discount, not the platform.

Watch quality as well as cost. A cheaper lead that never buys is more expensive than a dearer one that does. For B2B, judge leads by how many become real conversations, not by how many forms were filled in.

How should you split a budget between X and Facebook?

Start with a test, then follow the results. A common approach is to keep the current Facebook budget running, add a measured month on X with enough budget for one campaign to learn, and compare cost per result at the end. If X delivers customers more cheaply for some audiences or offers, move budget in steps and watch whether the cost holds as spend grows. If it does not, keep X small or stop.

The split rarely ends at all-or-nothing. Each platform tends to win for some audiences, offers and moments, and a business that uses both, each for what it does best, is also less exposed when one platform’s prices rise or an account runs into trouble. What to do when a Meta account is restricted is covered in Meta ad account restricted.

What do benchmark comparisons miss?

Your audience, your offer and your creative. Benchmarks average across thousands of advertisers with different products and different levels of skill. A strong ad on the right audience routinely beats the averages on either platform; a weak one falls below them.

They also miss measurement differences. Each platform attributes conversions in its own way, over its own windows, so reported costs per result are not directly comparable until you check them against your own sales data. And they miss timing: prices on both platforms move with seasons and events, so a comparison run in a quiet month may not hold in a busy one.

When is the cheaper click the wrong reason to choose?

When your buyers are not on X. If they are mostly older or spread across the general population, the lower price buys attention from people who will not become customers. Facebook’s larger reach is worth paying for.

When the sale depends on a catalogue or built-in forms. Shops that live on dynamic product ads, and businesses that need instant lead forms at volume, usually get more from Facebook’s tools than from X’s lower prices.

When nothing is measured. Without a tracked result on both platforms, cheaper clicks are just cheaper clicks. The comparison only means something once it is about customers.

Quick answers

Are Twitter (X) ads cheaper than Facebook ads?

Per impression and per click, usually yes: several benchmarks put X below Meta on both. Cheaper attention is not automatically cheaper customers, though. Facebook reaches far more people and has deeper shop and lead tools. X Ad Campaign compares the two on cost per sale or lead for the client’s own offer, which is the only comparison that settles it.

Why are X ads cheaper per click than Facebook ads?

Mostly because fewer advertisers compete for each person. Facebook’s reach and commerce tools attract a very large number of advertisers, which pushes auction prices up. X has fewer advertisers bidding for its audience, so impressions and clicks often clear at lower prices, especially outside busy events and seasons.

Should I move my budget from Facebook to X?

Not all of it, and not on price alone. Test X alongside Facebook with a measured month, using the same definition of a result on both, and move budget in steps towards whichever delivers customers more cheaply for your offer. For many businesses the answer is both, each doing what it does best.

When is Facebook the better choice instead of X?

When your buyers are older or broadly spread across the population, when you sell through a product catalogue, or when you need lead forms and shop tools built into the platform. Facebook’s size and commerce features matter more than X’s lower prices in those cases, and the cheaper click on X would buy the wrong attention.