Platform charges and management are separate
Every invoice shows your advertising money and Porchlight's management fee on separate lines. Google reports and invoices show Google's exact charges for your ads, excluding our fee. Meta charges and our fee are also shown separately. On the Pay Google directly option, the advertising money is on Google's invoice to you, not ours. The price page shows each component before you buy.
What the management fee covers
The campaign price shows Porchlight's fee before purchase and on each invoice. It covers campaign setup, management and reporting. Reports count contacts such as call taps and quote-form submissions; a call tap is not reported as a completed call.
On a custom media-budget campaign, the percentage part of our fee is earned only on media actually spent. If unspent media is refunded, the matching percentage fee is refunded too.
How campaign money is handled
You pay Porchlight before the campaign period starts. We pay the platforms for the ads from the advertising money in your order. Unspent money carries forward to your next period. If you stop early or do not buy another period, we pause the ads within one business day and refund unspent money within 10 business days. You can ask for your Google Ads customer ID at any time.
If you choose to pay Google directly, your ad spend never passes through us. Google charges your card as the ads run and sends you its own tax invoices. Our invoice then shows only our management fee and any other services. The account is yours, and Google's reports show the same charges we report to you.
Account ownership and access
Your website and domain are yours, and your Facebook Page or Instagram account stays yours. We use shared access; you can remove our access at any time. Meta ad accounts, pixels and visitor audiences stay with Porchlight.
Unless you choose to own your Google Ads account (clause 7.7), each Google Ads account is set up for your business and run by Porchlight. It stays with us by default when you leave. You can ask for its Google Ads customer ID at any time. To take over the account, ask us in writing; we hand it over within three business days. You then pay Google directly. Meta ad accounts, pixels and audiences stay with Porchlight. Your Facebook Page or Instagram account remains yours.
Google is not Porchlight
We are not Google, and we don't speak for Google. Google's own terms and policies apply to the advertising. You can read them, and contact Google about a third party, at Google's third-party policy page.