Free template · 6 pages
The free Google Ads budget pacing sheet: cut-to-date pace, the daily budget to hit and alerts, in one spreadsheet
Get the free template ↓A ready-made PPC budget pacing spreadsheet for Excel and Google Sheets. Enter each campaign’s monthly budget, schedule and spend to date, and the sheet calculates expected spend at the hour you pulled the data, pace, status, the daily budget that lands the month, the month-end forecast and an alert when a campaign is off pace by enough money to matter. It applies Google’s 2x daily and 30.4x monthly rules, including the June 2026 change for weekday-only campaigns, and turns a quarterly budget into monthly targets by platform.
- The pacing sheet (.xlsx) with live formulas for Excel and Google Sheets
- Cut-to-date formulas: expected spend, pace, daily budget to hit and forecast
- Weekday-only campaigns and Google’s June 2026 pacing rule built in
- An alert rule that combines a tolerance band with a dollar floor
Written by the PlanConversion Strategy Team, from programs run for ABB, KNIME and Nakisa. For paid media managers, demand generation leaders and marketing operations teams who pace Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and LinkedIn Ads budgets every month.
What’s inside
Everything in the template
Practical and specific: questions, checks and decisions you can use in your next meeting, not theory.
Cut-to-date formulas: expected spend, pace, daily budget to hit and forecast
Weekday-only campaigns and Google’s June 2026 pacing rule built in
An alert rule that combines a tolerance band with a dollar floor
A monthly targets tab: quarter to months to platforms
A 10-minute morning routine, and when a sheet stops being enough
Free preview
The two formulas the sheet is built on
- Expected spend to date = monthly budget x time elapsed / time in the period. Time elapsed counts today’s hours up to the moment you pulled spend, so a 6 am pull is compared with 6 hours of today, not 24. Weekday-only campaigns count business days.
- Daily budget to hit = (monthly budget - spend to date) / time left. Set it in the platform after translating it with that platform’s rule: in Google Ads, a monthly plan becomes a daily budget of plan / 30.4 for campaigns active 16 or more days.
The full template
Google Ads budget pacing sheet template
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Unlock the templateRelated service
Paid media
LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft, programmatic and intent platforms managed against pipeline.
Questions
About this template
Does the template work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload the .xlsx to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets, or use File, Import in a new sheet. Every formula uses functions that Excel and Google Sheets share, such as NETWORKDAYS, EOMONTH and WEEKDAY.
Is there a PDF version?
Yes. When you open the template here, we email you the PDF of this guide with a link back to this page. The spreadsheet downloads from the unlocked page.
Does it handle weekday-only campaigns?
Yes. Set Schedule to Weekdays and the sheet counts business days for expected spend, and the Google daily budget column applies Google’s June 2026 rule (plan / 30.4 for 16 or more active days).
Can I use it for Microsoft Ads and LinkedIn Ads?
Yes. Pace, forecast and alerts work for any platform. The Google daily budget column fills only for Google Ads rows; the Monthly targets tab gives the Microsoft Ads and LinkedIn Ads settings.
When should I move from a sheet to a pacing tool?
When the morning update takes longer than the decisions, when several accounts or platforms share a budget, or when nobody is free to update it every day. The budget pacing library at planconversion.com/tools/budget-pacing-console/learn compares the options.
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