Is registration cost 5$ or 10$?

Google claims it is 5$ but charges 10$

[lapouche]

Hello all,
This is no big deal, but Google claims all over its site that the registration fee is 5$. I opened an account yesterday and on the page where you give your billing information, it suddenly tells you that the fee is 10$. I registered and was actually charged 10$.
Did I miss something?

[TheDave]

Are you working in a different currency or something?

[lapouche]

Thanks for your answer.
You are right, I am located in Canada and this is the reason for the price difference. I asked the question to Google directly and just received the answer: they tell me the cost is 10$ for Canada and Australia and 5$ elsewhere in the world! Furthermore, it is not clear whether this is in US or Canadian currency, but anyway, the current exchange rate is around 1.3, not 2.
What have we Canadians done to them? :(
I am a bit concerned with this behavior: do they have the right to do so? I mean, claiming everywhere that the cost is 5$ and after the final registration step saying: sorry if we did not mention it, but the price in your case will be doubled. I think if we were to do the same in our day-to-day business, we would probably have some problems, don't you think?
Last but not least, the minimum CPC in Canada is not 0.05$ but rather 0.08$... And again, you figure this out only when preparing your first campaign and specifying the CPC for the first time. This might prove much more costly in the long run.

I would be pleased to have other opinions on this.

[Jenstar]

This is pretty standard, and not just for Google. Others do this same thing, it is much easier to offer set prices in various currencies than keep having to update them based upon the daily rate.

If Adwords is doing marketing to the Canadian market, they obviously want to have set prices, not "signup is $5 US, which will be converted at the daily exchange rate".

Not only that, imagine the hassle if they had to update pricing across all the different currencies (Canadian isn't the only alternative currency they offer) which have to be updated everytime the exchange rates fluctuate.

If you feel the US pricing is a better option for you, then go ahead and signup with US pricing instead of Canadian. Do keep in mind that you cannot change currencies within your Adwords account (unless this has recently changed), so choose the one you would prefer to use.

<added>It does specify the currency, but most people just see the dollar figure</added>

[lapouche]

Thank you for the explanation.
As you mentioned at the end of your post, I probably missed the currency and focused on the $ sign. So this is my mistake.
I still consider that they have specified a more than conservative exchange rate as it is 40% higher than the highest rate during the last 10 years, but as I have commited and started using it, I guess I will have to live with that.

[Jenstar]

Well, it would probably cause people to wonder why the signup cost was $6.68 in Canadian funds ;) Not nice and round as $5 or $10 is.

The exchange rate is much different than what it was when they started accepting Canadian currency, so this probably makes it even more noticeable for Canadians who pay attention to those kinds of things.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Wow, busy day! Just made it to Forum 81 for the first time today.

Interesting thread.

lapouche I agree that we could be more clear on this subject, and I'll forward these comments to the right folks within AdWords later today.

AWA

[div01]

The minimum bid amounts of C$0.08 vs US$0.05 imply an exchange rate of 1.6, whereas the going rate is 1.3x. So it would seem to make more sense to bid in US$ and save on the low end stuff.

[nakulgoyal]

Yes. I always BID for my clients in US$ and pay using my MasterCard. I save a bit for my clients as well.