Google is introducing a significant update to how average daily budgets fare for campaigns using ad scheduling – and it could literally change the total monthly spend.
What’s going on. Starting March 1, 2026, Google Ads will begin accelerating budgets to spend up to the full monthly limit of 30.4x, even if campaigns run only on certain days with scheduled ads.
How does this work:
- The double overspend rule every day remains in place.
- The average monthly budget of 30.4x remains unchanged.
- Campaigns will not run outside scheduled hours.
- But Google will now try to hit the monthly ceiling within the allowed schedule.
Why do we care. So far, advertisers who use limited schedules – like weekends only – use less time per month because Google matches active days. Campaigns using ad scheduling may start spending more money per month – even though the daily budget and payment limit have not changed.
Google will now push harder to reach the full monthly limit of 30.4x during scheduled days, which may double spending on weekend-only or limited-hours campaigns. Without adjusting the daily budget, marketers run the risk of unintentionally exceeding their monthly goals.
For example. A weekend-only campaign with a daily budget of $100 previously spent about $800/month (about eight weekend days).
Under the new travel concept, it can spend up to $1,600/month – hitting $200 (double the daily budget) for each scheduled day.
What Google says. According to Google Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin, the goal is to better align slow-moving behavior with advertisers’ expectations of monthly revenue limits. Money will continue to be driven by campaign goals such as conversions or conversion rate, and no campaign will exceed the existing payment rates.
Ginny also clarified that only advertisers who received notifications about this update will be affected and the change will be rolled out gradually.
Between the lines. This is less about expanding the limits – and more about how Google uses what’s already there. For advertisers who rely on ad scheduling to naturally push spend, this could result in unexpected increases unless daily budgets are rebalanced.
What you need to do now:
- Review campaigns using ad scheduling.
- Recalculate daily budgets based on actual monthly goals.
- Low daily budgets if you want to maintain previous monthly cash levels.
An important point. Google doesn’t change how much you can spend — it changes how quickly you’ll spend it. In-flight and short-term campaigns should be completed before March 2026.
First seen. This update was made by Jordan Fry who shared a message from Google that he received on LinkedIn.
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