Ad Budgets, Spend Approval and Who Pays

You give Revnu one Monthly Ads Budget for every ad channel combined. Revnu splits it across your campaigns and pauses all of them before reported spend can pass it. Nothing spends until you approve, and each ad platform bills your own ad account directly.

Who pays for the ads?

You do, directly. Campaigns run in your own ad accounts, and Google, Meta, LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Microsoft or TikTok bills the payment method on that account.

Every dollar of ad spend goes to the platform: no cut, no markup, and it never passes through Revnu. What you pay Revnu is your plan ($99 a month on Pro), and that's separate.

How do I set the monthly budget?

1. 1

   Open Ads

   Click Ads in the dashboard sidebar. The sidebar switches to the Ads views, and Campaigns opens first. The Spent This Month band leads the page.

   Enlarge

2. 2

   Press Set Monthly Budget

   Press Set Monthly Budget beside Spent This Month. Once a budget exists, it says Edit Budget, and the band shows this month's spend against it.

3. 3

   Enter the monthly total

   Enter the most Revnu may spend across all channels in a month. The minimum is 50 in your account's currency.

4. 4

   Save it

   Press Save Budget.

Revnu moves money between channels inside this total, toward what's working. The total itself is yours to set. The budget runs by calendar month (UTC).

What am I approving when Revnu asks for £10 a day?

Usually a learning budget: the money Revnu may use to test ad ideas on one channel. It shows in Review as a card such as Approve a Google Ads Learning Budget, with three numbers:

What happens when you press Approve Learning Budget:

• Approving doesn't launch a campaign. The card says so. Every campaign is still built paused.

• On Pro, each new ad still waits for you. Ad Tests starts on Ask Me First in Settings > Agent > What Needs Your Approval, so Revnu prepares every new ad paused and asks before it goes live. If you switch Ad Tests to Just Do It, Revnu launches and swaps tests inside the learning budget without asking each time.

• It never adds to your monthly budget. Spend from the learning budget counts toward the monthly budget, which still caps everything.

• You can approve it before a monthly budget exists. Ads launch once you set one. Until then, a launch returns "Set a monthly ads limit before launching campaigns."

To decline, dismiss the card and tell Revnu in chat that you don't want to spend on that channel. To spend less, tell Revnu the amount you're comfortable with, for example "make it £5 a day for two weeks", and it prepares a new card for you to approve. Once approved, you can lower or turn off a learning budget at any time. Raising it comes to you as a new card.

Does anything spend before I approve it?

No. Revnu builds every campaign paused. These always wait for you, whatever your approval settings say:

• Launching or resuming a campaign

• Setting or raising the monthly budget

• Increasing the total daily spend

The one exception is spend you've already approved: with Ad Tests on Just Do It, Revnu launches new tests inside an approved learning budget without asking each time.

Why did all my ads pause?

Reported spend for the month got too close to your budget, so Revnu paused every campaign on every channel. The Spent This Month band shows Launches paused. Resume, and the change history says "Paused ads at the monthly budget".

Revnu pauses before the limit, not at it, because some platforms can spend more than a daily budget on a given day: Google, Microsoft and Meta up to twice it, TikTok up to 125% on Smart+ campaigns. Revnu keeps one such day free for every live campaign on those platforms. When reported spend plus that reserve would pass your monthly budget, it pauses everything.

Ad platforms report spend with a delay, so the final total for the month can land slightly above what Revnu saw. Revnu also pauses ads whenever it needs to confirm reported spend first, for example when an ad account reports in a currency with no current exchange rate. Hover over Launches paused to see which.

Worked example: why ads paused right after launch

Your monthly budget is USD 100, and you approve four TikTok ads at USD 20 a day. The reserve is 4 × USD 20 × 125% = USD 100, which already uses the whole budget, so Revnu pauses them straight away. If the reserve would pass the budget outright, Revnu holds the launch instead.

With a USD 500 budget and two Google campaigns at USD 20 a day, the reserve is USD 80, so Revnu pauses once reported spend reaches USD 420.

How do I relaunch after the budget paused everything?

1. 1

   Raise the budget if you need to

   If you want to spend more this month, press Edit Budget and raise the total. Resume works once the budget is above this month's spend.

2. 2

   Press Resume

   Press Resume after Launches paused in the Spent This Month band. This opens launches again, and you choose what restarts.

3. 3

   Pick what runs again

   Your paused campaigns stay paused until you approve or resume them. Tell Revnu which to resume, or ask it what it recommends.

The pause carries into the next month, so your ads restart when you press Resume, never on their own.

What is the smallest budget each channel will run?

Revnu's own minimum is a Monthly Ads Budget of 50 in your account's currency. A few platforms also set a daily floor, and Revnu plans around it.

At TikTok's minimum, four ads running at once spend about USD 80 a day.

How does Revnu make a small budget count?

• It fits each channel's floor. A TikTok ad runs all month on a monthly budget that covers USD 20 a day.

• It funds fewer, stronger tests. Each test aims for enough results to give a clear answer, rather than spreading a few clicks a week across many ideas.

• It counts an early outcome. A purchase or booked call is rare on a small budget, so counting sign-ups or trial starts first gets you a read in days. See set up outcomes.

Before you approve, Revnu checks that a test can reach your result at your budget, and suggests a right-sized plan when it's tight.

Questions about budgets

What does a small budget buy?

As an example, £10 a day is about £300 a month. How many clicks that buys depends on what a click costs for your buyers. Before you approve, Revnu gives its estimate for your market, such as how many clicks a day the budget buys at the bids Google shows, and labels it as an estimate, not a promise.

Can I use Google's ad credit offer?

Yes. Claim it in Google Ads billing, where your payment details stay with you.

• You pay Google, not Revnu. If the offer is "spend £400, get £400 of credit", the £400 goes from your card to Google.

• Check the offer's terms in Google Ads billing. Offers usually have a deadline to reach the spend and rules about who qualifies, and Google shows them there.

• Match your monthly budget to the offer's window. Revnu's monthly budget counts the spend Google reports, whether a credit or your card pays for it. Tell Revnu, for example, "spend up to £400 on Google this month so we qualify for the credit".

How are currencies handled?

Your monthly budget is in one currency, the one you set it in. When an ad account bills in another currency, Revnu converts its reported spend using the European Central Bank's daily reference rates, plus 2%, so that rate changes and card fees can only make it pause early, never late. If no current rate covers an account's currency, Revnu pauses ads rather than guess.