Daily Budget Overrun

What AdGradr checks

AdGradr pulls 90 days of daily-segmented spend data per campaign budget and compares actual daily spend to 2x the campaign’s current daily budget. Days where actual spend exceeded that 2x cap by a meaningful amount are reported as breaches.

For shared budgets, spend is summed across all campaigns sharing the budget before comparison, since Google’s 2x rule applies to the budget total, not per-campaign.

This is a standalone check, meaning it does not affect your overall AdGradr score. It surfaces a billing issue that may be eligible for a credit from Google.

Why this matters

Google’s documented policy caps daily spend at 2x your daily budget. If your daily budget is $100 and Google charges you $215 on a Tuesday, the $15 over the cap is potentially eligible for a credit under their over-delivery policy.

Most advertisers never check this. Google does not flag it proactively, and the spend simply appears on the invoice. You can claim a credit if you ask, but you have to ask, and you have to provide the dates and amounts.

The cap exists because Google’s pacing algorithm intentionally over-delivers on high-traffic days and under-delivers on slow days, with the monthly average landing near your intended daily budget x 30.4. The 2x cap is the upper bound on any single day. Charges above 2x are policy violations, not pacing.

What good looks like

No days where spend exceeded 2x the daily budget cap on any campaign or shared budget over the last 90 days.

Common mistakes (when investigating breaches)

1. Lowering a budget recently and reading historical breaches against the new (lower) cap. AdGradr shows breaches against your current daily budget. If you dropped a budget from $200 to $100 last week, days from before the drop will look like they breached the new $100 cap even though the budget was $200 at the time. Cross-reference dates against your budget change history before filing.
2. Filing for tiny overages. AdGradr filters out rounding noise, but a $2 overage on a single day is unlikely to be worth Google’s review time even if it technically qualifies.
3. Waiting too long. Google does not have a hard deadline for over-delivery credits, but the longer you wait the more friction the support agent will introduce. File within 30 to 60 days of the breach.

How to file a credit request

If AdGradr surfaces breaches that hold up against the budget-change caveat:

1. Open the AdGradr report’s Billing Integrity section. It lists each breached budget with: budget name, daily budget amount, breach dates, total overage in dollars, and which campaigns share the budget.
2. Verify against Google Ads. Open the affected campaign(s), check the daily budget on the breach dates against your change history.
3. Open a Google Ads billing support case. You can do this from the Tools menu in Google Ads. Reference the campaign name(s) or budget name, the specific dates, and the overage amount per date.
4. Request a credit under Google’s daily budget over-delivery policy. Phrase it that way. The support team has training on this exact policy.
5. Track the response. Credits typically appear on the next invoice if approved. Approval is not guaranteed but is common when the breaches are documented clearly.

When to ignore this check

If all breaches turn out to be artifacts of recent budget changes, ignore the finding. The cap was higher when the spend happened, so no policy was violated.

If breaches are tiny (sub-$10 totals across the 90-day window), the credit is probably not worth the time to file.

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