Microsoft Advertising drops Max CPC from new automated bidding campaigns

Microsoft Advertising will remove the Max CPC setting from new campaigns that use automated bidding, starting on 1 October 2026. Max CPC is the ceiling an advertiser puts on the price of a single click.

Three bid strategies lose the ceiling on 1 October

The change covers Maximise Conversions, Maximise Conversion Value and Maximise Clicks. In new campaigns built on those three settings, the field for a click ceiling will simply not be there. The advertiser sets a budget and a goal. The system then decides what each click is worth.

Campaigns created before 1 October keep what they have. Microsoft has not named a date when older campaigns would have to move.

Portfolio strategies and Target Impression Share keep the cap

The ceiling survives in three places. Portfolio bid strategies keep it, so do Target Impression Share and enhanced CPC. A team that wants a hard limit on click prices can still have one. It has to build the campaign as a portfolio strategy, which also means sharing one goal across several campaigns.

Navah Hopkins says a cap can override the stated goal

Navah Hopkins, product liaison at Microsoft Advertising, gave the reason in the company update. A click ceiling can override the goal an advertiser has already set. It can also make a budget burn unevenly through the day. Search Engine Land reported the change first, on 20 August, and Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Roundtable covered it separately.

Microsoft points buyers to other controls: target cost per acquisition, target return on ad spend, budgets, conversion value rules and seasonality adjustments. Each of those tells the system what a result is worth, rather than what a click may cost.

Search platforms keep moving control away from the click

The direction is not unique to Microsoft. Last week Google Ads added store sales measurement and a local targeting toggle, both built around automated decisions. Outside search the same pattern shows up: ChatGPT ads reached a $1 billion run rate on a buying model with almost no manual bid controls.

What to build before the October date

There is a small job with a deadline attached. If an account needs a hard click ceiling for a new product, a test or a client with a fixed cost per click, build that campaign in September or plan it as a portfolio strategy. After 1 October the only brake left is the value you report back to Microsoft. That makes the conversion values and the target cost per acquisition in the account the thing to check now, because nothing else will hold spending down.