# Ad Budgets, Spend Approval and Who Pays > How your ads budget works in Revnu. What you approve when Revnu asks for an amount a day, one monthly budget across every channel, the platform billing your own ad account, why ads paused early, the smallest budget each channel runs, ad credit, currencies, and how to relaunch safely. Canonical: https://revnu.com/docs/ad-budgets Last updated: 2026-10-18 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. > **Note:** **Three words, two things.** The **learning budget** and the **test budget** are the same thing: the card on **Ads** called **Approve a … Learning Budget**. **Ad Tests** is a different thing: the switch in **Settings > Agent** that decides whether each test inside that budget asks you first. ## Who pays for the ads? You do, directly. Campaigns run in your own ad accounts, and Google, LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Microsoft or TikTok bills the payment method on that account. Revnu doesn't take a cut or add a markup. Ad spend never passes through Revnu. What you pay Revnu is your plan (from $99 a month on Pro), and that's separate. ## How do I set the monthly budget? ### 1. Open Ads Open **Ads** in the dashboard. The **Monthly Ads Budget** card is at the top of **Campaigns**. ![The Ads page. The Monthly Ads Budget card says Not Set, with the Set Budget button on the right](/docs/screens/ads.webp) ### 2. Press Set Budget Press **Set Budget**. Once a budget exists, the button says **Edit Budget**. ### 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. Save it Press **Save Budget**. Revnu may move money between channels inside this total. It can't raise the total on its own. 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 on **Ads** as a card such as **Approve a Google Ads Learning Budget**, with three numbers: | On the card | What it means | |---|---| | **Total** | The most the tests may spend, ever. This is your worst case. | | **Daily maximum** | The most they may spend in one day. The "£10 a day" in Revnu's message is usually this. | | **Length** | How many days the tests run. | > **Note:** **Approve Learning Budget** agrees to real spend on your ad account, up to the **Total**. Read the Total as your worst case before you press it. 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**, but nothing launches until you set one. A launch without a monthly budget is refused with "Set a monthly ads limit before launching campaigns." **To decline**, don't approve 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, a learning budget can only be lowered or turned off without a new approval. Raising it is always 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 ## 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 budget card shows **Paused**, 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 and Microsoft 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 also report spend late, so the final total for the month can still land slightly above what Revnu saw. Ads also pause if Revnu can't check reported spend safely, for example when an ad account reports in a currency it has no exchange rate for. The tooltip on **Paused** says 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 refuses 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. Raise the budget if you need to If you want to spend more this month, press **Edit Budget** and raise the total. **Resume Ads** refuses while spend is at or above the budget. ### 2. Press Resume Ads Press **Resume Ads** on the budget card. This allows launches again. It doesn't restart anything by itself. ### 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. A new month doesn't restart your ads; **Resume Ads** does. ## 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. Some platforms also refuse to serve below a daily amount. Where neither Revnu nor its ads guidance states a platform floor, the table says so. | Channel | Smallest daily budget | |---|---| | Google Search | No platform floor Revnu enforces. Revnu's monthly minimum applies. | | Google Performance Max and Demand Gen | No hard floor Revnu enforces. These campaigns learn only from conversions, so Revnu follows Google's guidance: about 3 times your target cost per result a day for Performance Max, about 10 times for Demand Gen. | | Microsoft Ads | No platform floor Revnu enforces. | | LinkedIn Ads | No platform floor Revnu enforces. | | X Ads | No platform floor Revnu enforces. | | Reddit Ads | About USD 5 a day. That's Reddit's rule, which Revnu plans around. Revnu doesn't check it for you. | | TikTok Ads | USD 20 a day per ad group. TikTok enforces it, and accounts in other currencies have their own floor. | | Meta (Facebook and Instagram) | [Pilot accounts](/docs/meta-ads) only. | At TikTok's minimum, four ads running at once spend about USD 80 a day. ## What can't a tiny budget do? - **It can't run below a platform's floor.** A monthly budget that can't cover USD 20 a day can't run a TikTok ad all month, and Revnu's monthly budget can't go below 50. - **It can't judge many ideas at once.** Revnu runs one well-funded test at a time rather than several that each get a few clicks a week. - **It can't judge a rare outcome quickly.** If your first outcome is a purchase or a booked call, a small budget may run for weeks before a zero means anything. Counting sign-ups or trial starts first helps. See [set up outcomes](/docs/set-up-outcomes). If a test can't plausibly reach your result at your budget, Revnu says so before you approve and suggests a smaller plan. ## 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, but you claim it yourself in Google Ads billing. Revnu can't accept offers or enter payment details. - **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. Revnu can't see them. - **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, set on the budget card. 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. ## Next step [How Revnu runs and judges your ads](/docs/how-revnu-runs-ads). ## Frequently asked questions ### What am I approving when Revnu asks for an amount a day? Usually a learning budget for one channel: a Total, a Daily maximum and a Length in days. The Total is the most it can ever spend, and on Pro each new ad still waits for your yes before it launches. ### Does Revnu take a percentage of my ad spend? No. Each ad platform bills your own ad account directly, so spend never passes through Revnu. Revnu charges only your plan. ### Is the monthly ads budget per channel? It's one budget across every ad channel. Revnu decides how to split it and pauses everything before reported spend passes it. ### Why did my ads pause right after I launched them? Revnu paused them to keep you inside your monthly budget: the daily budgets of your live ads, with the extra a platform may spend on one day, would already pass what's left of it. Raise the monthly budget, or run fewer ads at once. ### Can Revnu spend more than my budget? Revnu pauses everything before reported spend reaches your budget. Platforms report spend with a delay, so the final total can land slightly above it. ### Why are my ads still paused after I raised the budget? Revnu waits for you to restart them. Click Resume Ads on the budget card, then approve or resume the campaigns you want running. ### How do I turn down a budget Revnu proposed? Leave the card unapproved and tell Revnu in chat. To spend less, tell it the amount and it prepares a new card. ### Will I be charged before I approve an ad? No. Campaigns are built paused, and launching or adding money always waits for your approval. ### What's the smallest budget Revnu will run? A Monthly Ads Budget of 50 in your account's currency. On top of that, TikTok won't serve below USD 20 a day per ad group and Reddit below about USD 5 a day. Google Search, Microsoft, LinkedIn and X have no platform floor Revnu enforces. ### Do I need a monthly budget before I approve a learning budget? You can approve the learning budget first. Ads launch once a Monthly Ads Budget is set. ### Is a learning budget the same as a test budget? Yes, two names for the same card on Ads. Ad Tests is the separate setting in Settings, Agent that decides whether each test inside it asks you first. ### Who pays when I use a Google ad credit offer? You pay Google directly, and Google applies the credit under the offer's terms. The offer's deadline is in Google Ads billing, so check it there and set a monthly budget that reaches the spend in time. ### What's the difference between the learning budget and the monthly budget? The monthly budget is the ceiling for all ad spend. The learning budget is an amount inside it, for one channel, that you approve once so Revnu can run tests.