How Much is Click Fraud is Costing You?

Free Calculator

Click Fraud Calculator Click fraud takes 7–15% of every ad budget. Find out yours.

60 seconds, no signup. Built on Lunio's analysis of 2.7B+ ad clicks. Find out your industry's invalid traffic rate, your wasted spend, and the revenue you could recover.

Step 1 of 3

Start with the basics.

Primary ad platform

Monthly ad spend on this platform

Step 2 of 3

Pick your industry & CPC.

Your industry

Your average CPC (we'll pre-fill an industry estimate)

Industry · Platform · $0 annual spend

Click fraud is taking $0

from your business every year. That's $0 every month walking out the door — and another $0 every day you don't act.

Invalid clicks / yr

Wasted ad spend

Invalid traffic

Google won't fix this. Lunio will.

Run a free 14-day audit on your live account and see your real numbers — broken down by campaign, keyword, geo and domain.

✓Your actual IVT rate ✓Top wasted-spend sources ✓Recoverable revenue

Start my free audit →

No credit card 5-min setup Read-only access

Calculations based on Lunio's Global Invalid Traffic Report 2026. Eight industries shown use Lunio-measured rates; additional industries use Lunio-methodology estimates calibrated against comparable verticals. Lost revenue applies Lunio's conservative 3:1 ROAS baseline — every $1 of wasted ad spend equals roughly $3 in missed revenue. Actual results vary by account.

How the calculator works

The calculator applies the average invalid traffic rate for your selected platform to your ad spend, then uses your cost per click (CPC) to estimate how many of those clicks are likely invalid.

The formulas:

Estimated wasted spend = Ad spend × Platform IVT rate
Estimated invalid clicks = (Ad spend ÷ CPC) × Platform IVT rate

Monthly figures are multiplied by 12 for an annual estimate and divided by 30 for a daily estimate.

Worked example: A business spending $50,000/month on Google (7.57% IVT) at a $2.00 CPC would see an estimated $3,785/month ($45,420/year) in wasted spend, across roughly 1,893 invalid clicks each month.

Assumptions and notes:

Platform rate applied. Estimates use the average IVT rate for your chosen platform from the report. Your industry selection pre-fills a conservative CPC estimate, which you can edit to match your own accounts.
Monitor-only benchmarks. Rates reflect campaigns running without active protection, so they represent ambient exposure rather than a worst-case or best-case scenario.
Directional, not exact. Every account has a unique IVT profile. Two direct competitors in the same market can see very different rates depending on funnel design, targeting, and inventory. Treat the output as a benchmark-based estimate, not a precise audit.
Lost revenue isn't included. The figures show wasted spend only. The true cost is higher once you factor in the revenue those fake clicks would have generated had they converted at normal rates.

Click fraud rates: Industry benchmarks

Our analysis revealed that high-value sectors with aggressive cost-per-click competition attract the most fraud.

But even low-rate industries feel the pain: retail's tight margins mean a 6% IVT rate can swallow a meaningful share of profit per transaction.

Lead gen verticals suffer the downstream effects the most, as junk form fills clutter CRMs and waste disproportionate amounts of time and money.

Learn more: 2026 Global Invalid Traffic Report

Click fraud calculator: Invalid traffic rates by industry

Click Fraud Calculator FAQs

What is click fraud? Accordion description i

What is invalid traffic (IVT)?

Invalid traffic, or IVT, is any click, conversion, or website event that doesn't come from a genuine user with real intent. It's a broader category than click fraud: it includes bot activity, automated scraping, accidental clicks, and non-human engagement, as well as outright fraud.

Invalid traffic isn't always malicious, but it's always wasteful. It drains budgets, pollutes analytics, and corrupts the data that bidding algorithms rely on to optimise your campaigns.

In short, click fraud is one type of invalid traffic — IVT is the full iceberg beneath it.

What's the difference between click fraud and invalid traffic?

Click fraud is the deliberate, malicious clicking of ads to waste budgets or earn fraudulent revenue.

Invalid traffic is the broader category that includes click fraud and non-malicious sources like bots, price scrapers, and accidental clicks.

All click fraud is invalid traffic, but not all invalid traffic is fraud — though both waste your budget.

Where does the click fraud calculator data come from?

Click fraud rate ranges are derived from our analysis of over 2.7 billion clicks across 6 ad major platforms and 8 industries.

Take a look at the findings in full by downloading our Global Invalid Traffic Report.

How accurate is this calculator?

The calculator gives a benchmark-based estimate, not a precise measurement. It applies real average IVT rates from 2.7 billion analyzed clicks to your inputs.

Your actual rate depends on your specific accounts, targeting, and inventory mix. To measure exactly how much you're losing, run a free 14-day traffic audit with Lunio.

How much of my ad budget is lost to click fraud?

On average, about 8.51% of digital ad spend is lost to invalid traffic, though the figure varies widely by platform and industry.

A business on Google might lose around 7.57%, while a TikTok advertiser could lose over 24%. Enter your spend above to see an estimate tailored to your platform and industry.

What is a normal click fraud or invalid traffic rate?

There's no single "normal" rate, but the all-channel average is 8.51%.

Search campaigns sit lower (around 5.21% on Google Search) because of strong purchase intent and tight controls, while display, video, and social inventory run much higher. Rates above 15–20% are common on platforms with less mature anti-fraud systems.

Which ad platform has the most invalid traffic?

In our dataset, TikTok had the highest average invalid traffic rate at 24.20%, followed by LinkedIn at 19.88%.

Google had the lowest at 7.57%, reflecting years of investment in fraud detection driven by ad fraud litigation. However, even a 7% average invalid traffic rate can represent a huge drain on ad budgets.

Which industries are most affected by click fraud?

Gaming and iGaming is the most exposed industry at 18.49%, followed by education (14.41%) and telecoms and utilities (14.26%).

High-value sectors with aggressive CPC competition are the biggest targets for organised fraud. Even lower-rate industries like retail (6.03%) suffer significant financial impact due to razor-thin margins.

Can I get a refund for invalid clicks?

Sometimes, but only partially – and rarely ever easily.

Platforms like Google issue "Invalid Activity Adjustments" that refund the most obvious fraud – duplicate clicks, known bot IPs, and clear automation.

But more sophisticated "soft" invalid clicks behave convincingly enough to slip past detection and are rarely refunded, so they keep wasting budget and corrupting your optimization signals.

Is click fraud getting worse?

It's expected to. AI-powered bots can now navigate websites, solve CAPTCHAs, and mimic human browsing with increasing precision, and the rise of agentic AI (autonomous agents that browse and transact on behalf of users) will blur the line between genuine and non-human traffic even further.

Legacy rule-based click fraud tools that rely on simple blocking will struggle to keep up.