What to check before you sign a Google Ads agency contract

The contract checklist

Rule of thumb: everything that keeps your ads running should be in your name, so you can leave without losing the account or the tracking. These are the 11 clauses to read before you sign.

Who owns your Google Ads account

In practice, whoever holds Admin access and pays Google controls the account, so make sure both are your business before launch. Google has five user access levels, and only Admin can give account access, change access levels and unlink manager accounts (Google Ads Help).

Agencies run client accounts from a manager account (MCC). Two rules on ownership of client accounts decide who keeps control:

1. "If a manager creates a new account, the manager will automatically become the owner of that account." Linking an existing account does not make the agency the owner by default.
2. "The client account still owns its data and has the ability to remove ownership access by unlinking", but only a user with admin access on your side can do it (Google Ads Help).

So open the account with your company email, or be added as Admin the day it is created, then accept the agency's link request. Google's third-party policy also requires a separate account for each advertiser, and its transparency requirements oblige agencies to give you your customer ID when you ask.

Who pays Google

Ad spend should be charged to your own card, through a payments profile in your name, so your ads never depend on the agency's billing. The payments profile records "the name and address of the person or company legally responsible for the profile" (Google Ads Help), and that name can be public: after verification, ad disclosures show "Ads funded by (payment profile name)" when it differs from the verified advertiser name (Google Ads Policy Help).

If the agency pays Google and rebills you:

• on monthly invoicing, if the paying manager account is unlinked, "the account will stop serving" (Google Ads Help);
• on a card-paid account, changing who pays means settling the balance and completing advertiser verification again (Google Ads Help).

Setup fee, monthly fee and ad budget in Montreal

An agency has to tell you in writing, before your first purchase, that it charges a management fee. Google's transparency requirements say: "At a minimum, inform new customers in writing before each first purchase and disclose the fee on all customer invoices" (Google Ads Policy Help).

Here are the terms published by firms that serve Montreal, or all of Canada, according to their pages consulted in October 2026:

Setup runs from $300 at Digitad, which it covers if you sign for 6 months, to $4,000 for Raw Art Media's top plan. Ask what setup includes: at ThinkProfits, call and form tracking starts with the $699 plan. On a percentage, the fee rises with spend whether or not the work does: at 15%, it is $150 on $1,000 and $450 on $3,000. Ask for a cap.

You set the ad budget. On these pages, the lowest suggested is $500 a month (Balgio's first plan), and Tréma asks for at least $1,500. Estimate yours with my Google Ads cost per click in Montreal data and the Google Ads budget calculator; my guide to Google Ads management cost in Montreal compares fee models over a full year.

Minimum terms and cancelling under Quebec law

A Google Ads agency contract in Quebec is a contract for services, and the client can end it unilaterally, even once the work is in progress, unless the contract clearly waives that right. Article 2125 of the Civil Code of Québec reads: "The client may unilaterally resiliate the contract even though the work or provision of service is already in progress."

Article 2129 sets the price of leaving: you pay, "in proportion to the agreed price, the actual costs and expenses, the value of the work performed before the end of the contract or before the notice of resiliation and, as the case may be, the value of the property supplied", where it can be put into your hands and used by you; the agency repays any advances beyond what it earned; and "each party is liable for any other injury that the other party may have suffered." Two limits matter before you sign for 6 or 12 months:

1. Waivers. The right "is not of public order", so a client may waive it, provided the waiver is "clear, express and unequivocal", explains Langlois Lawyers. Look for "waive", "article 2125" or "firm term". In a December 10, 2025 judgment (Quad/Graphics, 2025 QCCS 5159) summarized by Osler, however, the Superior Court held that agreeing to a fixed term and later extending it was not a waiver.
2. Discounts tied to the term. The same summary notes that in the Bell and Rogers cases (2016 QCCA 1496 and 1497), the Court of Appeal upheld that "discounts granted specifically in exchange for the client's agreeing to a fixed-term service agreement" can be recovered as a termination indemnity. In Osler's reading, a provider may claim compensation for a discount or other concession, "but only if it proves that it made the concession specifically in exchange for the fixed term of the contract."

Aim for month to month or a short first term, 30 days' written notice or less, and no exit fee beyond work already done.

Reports, real leads and French-language ads

Your report should show what Google actually charged, separate from the agency's fee, and what each call or form cost. The first part is a Google rule: agencies must "report the exact amount charged by Google, exclusive of any fees that you charge" (Google Ads Policy Help).

To count real enquiries, ask for conversions defined in your own account: calls that last at least a minimum length you choose, and forms actually submitted. If you don't want your website touched, calls placed from the ad itself can be counted with nothing installed; calls to the number on your site need the Google tag (Google Ads Help). My French guide to call and form tracking covers the setup.

Language is the Montreal-specific clause. Since September 2026, Google has been removing the campaign-level language setting from Search campaigns, so ads are matched on the language of the ad itself (Google Ads Help). And under section 52 of the Charter of the French Language, commercial documents must be in French "regardless of the medium used"; the OQLF applied that rule to a Montreal merchant's Facebook and Instagram posts in a March 2025 letter. Even if most of your clients speak English, the contract should say who writes the French ads and give each language its own landing page.

What you keep when you leave

You keep whatever was built in your own accounts; whatever lives in the agency's accounts stops when the link is cut. An unlinked account "won't lose its own account campaign history or access to any Google Ads features", but three things stop working (Google Ads Help):

• the agency's cross-account conversion tag, which stops recording conversions for later clicks;
• shared remarketing lists, which stop filling, so ad groups that target them stop running;
• monthly invoicing paid by the agency: the account stops serving unless billing was moved first.

The rest depends on the contract:

• Tag Manager. Google says to "make sure your account is managed by someone in your organization, not an external agency", with at least two admins. A container with no admin is deleted, and remaining users have 30 days to export it from the trash (Tag Manager Help). Containers export as JSON and import into your own account (Tag Manager Help).
• Google Analytics 4. The Administrator role has "full control of Analytics", including managing users (Analytics Help).
• Call tracking numbers. Google forwarding numbers are available in Canada and run through call reporting in your own Google Ads account (Google Ads Help). For numbers from a third-party tool, have the contract say which account they sit in and what happens to them when you leave: transfer or removal.
• Landing pages. On your domain, they stay. On the agency's platform, they leave with the agency unless the contract says otherwise.

What Always Booked charges

Google Ads management at Always Booked costs from $900 for setup, then $450 a month, month to month. You set the ad budget and pay it directly to Google. The Google Ads account is in your name, paid with your card; I work in it through my manager account, and if you leave, you keep the account, the campaigns and the data. Setup includes call and form conversion tracking and, when I built your site, a dedicated landing page; each month you get a plain-language report. Ask me every question on the checklist, as you would any agency.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Questions