Microsoft Ads Is Dropping Max CPC, and Google Import Is Where It Bites
Microsoft Advertising will remove the Max CPC field from new standalone campaigns using Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value and Maximize Clicks starting October 1, 2026. Existing campaigns keep their caps, but a cap removed after that date can never be added back. A second deadline, January 12, 2027, ends Max CPC support for API users, third-party tools and Google Import.
The October date is the one in every headline. The January date is the one that will actually cost people money, because most Microsoft Ads accounts I've come across are not built in Microsoft Ads at all. They're Google campaigns mirrored over through Google Import, and the people running them check Microsoft maybe once a week.
Google Import is the quiet part
The change was first announced by email on August 20 (subject line "Updates to Max CPC for new campaigns," per Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable), and the early coverage stuck to the simple version: new campaigns lose the field, old ones keep it, portfolio strategies are exempt. Fine.
Then this week Search Engine Land reported two details that were not in the original email. First, removing Max CPC from an existing campaign after October 1 is irreversible. Second, there is a January 12 deadline for API users, tool providers and Google Import, after which Max CPC won't be supported for new campaigns or for existing campaigns not already using it.
Think about what that means for an imported account. Your Google Search campaigns run on a portfolio strategy with a bid cap, or maybe on standalone Target CPA with a max bid limit. Import pushes them to Microsoft on a schedule. After January 12, any campaign that gets created or re-created on the Microsoft side through Import lands without a cap. Nobody gets an error. The campaign just runs uncapped, and you find out when the CPC column looks wrong three weeks later.
Microsoft has said, in the words of its own liaison, that "further updates about the future of Max CPC will be provided later." That phrasing, to me, reads like the existing-campaign exemption has a shelf life too. I could be wrong. But I would not build a Q4 plan on the assumption that caps on old campaigns survive into 2027.
Why Microsoft says the cap hurts (and where they're half right)
Microsoft's stated reasoning, quoted by Brooke Osmundson at Search Engine Journal, is that Max CPC "can interfere with its automated bidding systems, including when the maximum is set above a campaign's average CPC." Navah Hopkins, Microsoft's ads liaison, put it more bluntly on LinkedIn: caps "override stated goals and can lead to spend pacing irregularities."
Read that carefully. The claim is about pacing, not price. Microsoft is not saying you'll get cheaper clicks without the cap. It's saying the cap makes the bidder miss its daily spend pattern, which is a different problem and, honestly, a smaller one for most advertisers than "what did I pay per click."
On the mechanics, though, they have a point. Microsoft's own API documentation for bid strategies says Target CPA and Maximize Conversions stop optimizing bids entirely if a campaign falls below 30 conversions in any 30-day period. A tight cap on a Bing campaign that already has thin volume pushes it under that threshold, and now you have a "smart" strategy that has quietly reverted to doing nothing. The cap didn't protect the CPA. It turned the bidder off.
Where I'd push back: Microsoft Ads is a low-volume channel for a lot of accounts, and low volume is exactly where a cap earns its keep. On Google you can trust the target because the bidder has enough signal to hit it. On Microsoft, plenty of campaigns never reach 30 conversions a month, and the cap is the only thing keeping a $4 average CPC from becoming $11 on a slow Tuesday.
The portfolio loophole changes your account structure
Max CPC survives in three places: Target Impression Share, Enhanced CPC and portfolio bid strategies. The portfolio one is the practical escape hatch, and Microsoft has been steadily expanding it. PPC Land covered the addition of Maximize Conversion Value to portfolios earlier this year, so all the standalone strategies losing the cap have a portfolio equivalent that keeps it.
The catch is that a portfolio pools conversion data across every campaign inside it. That's the whole point of a portfolio. It's also why it changes how you build the account. If you drop one holiday campaign into a portfolio just to keep its cap, that campaign's bids are now influenced by whatever else is in the pool. Put it in a portfolio of one and you've technically kept the cap but lost nothing else, which is the workaround I expect most people will use. It's a bit silly. It also works, for now.
The rollout order matters too. Search Engine Journal reports the change lands in the UI first, then Microsoft Advertising Editor, then the API. So there's a window in October where a campaign you can't cap in the web interface can still be capped through Editor or a bulk upload. I wouldn't rely on it, but if you need a stopgap for a mid-October launch, that gap exists until January.
What removing a cap actually did in one published account
The best public data point I've found on cap removal comes from a Google Ads account, not Microsoft, so take it as directional. Jyll published a case study on a campaign that ran at a $2 average CPC with a bid limit and produced 6 conversions in 30 days at a $120 CPA. They removed the limit and switched to Maximize Conversions.
For the first four days, average CPC jumped to $28. Fourteen times higher. That is the moment most account managers would have put the cap straight back on. After two weeks, CPC had settled at $10, conversions were up to 24, and CPA had fallen to $68. Four times the conversions, half the CPA, at five times the original click cost.
Two things worth sitting with. One, the bidder needed a two-week learning window with ugly numbers in it, and if that window overlaps with your Black Friday budget, you may not be able to afford the lesson. Two, this happened on Google, where there was enough conversion volume for the algorithm to learn. A Bing campaign doing 6 conversions a month might never come out the other side, because it's under Microsoft's own 30-conversion floor.
So Microsoft's advice, which is to run its optimization experiment removing the cap on existing campaigns, is actually good advice. Just run it on your highest-volume Microsoft campaign, not your typical one, and run it now so it's done before Q4 spend ramps.
The Google contrast nobody is pointing out
One detail from PPC Land's reporting strikes me as more strategically interesting than the cap itself. Hopkins noted that Microsoft "continues to allow campaigns to over achieve on TCPA/TROAS regardless of budget limited status."
That is a direct shot at Google. On August 17, Google changed how Target CPA and Target ROAS behave on budget-limited campaigns: they now deliver closer to the stated target, so a campaign with a $10 tCPA that was actually getting $5 conversions will drift toward $10. Search Engine Journal ran a whole prep guide on resetting targets before the switch.
So the two platforms are moving in opposite directions on one axis (Google removes your free overperformance, Microsoft keeps it) while moving in the same direction on another (both are stripping out manual price controls). PPC Land drew the same line to ChatGPT Ads, which made "Maximize results" the default in August while explicitly saying it does not guarantee any CPA or CPC target. We covered that ChatGPT Ads default switch at the time, and the pattern has only gotten clearer since: every auction wants your goal, none of them want your ceiling.
My prediction: within 12 months, Google removes the max bid limit from standalone Smart Bidding too, and points everyone at portfolios the same way Microsoft just did. Microsoft usually follows Google. On this one, I think Microsoft is the test market.
The pre-October cap audit
Three things, in order of how much they'll hurt if you skip them.
Launch capped holiday campaigns before October 1. Any new standalone campaign you create on or after that date has no cap, period. If you know a Q4 campaign needs a ceiling, build it in September, even if it sits paused for three weeks. Paused campaigns created before the deadline keep the field.
Export every Microsoft campaign with a Max CPC and tag its origin. Native or imported. For the imported ones, decide now whether the Google-side structure moves to a portfolio (so the cap survives the January 12 cutoff) or whether you accept uncapped delivery on Microsoft and set a tighter tCPA instead. Microsoft's suggested replacements, per SEJ, are budgets, tCPA and tROAS targets, conversion value rules and seasonality adjustments. A budget is a blunter tool than a cap, but it's the one that can't be taken away.
Run the cap-removal experiment on one high-volume campaign this week. Benchmark: if average CPC is still more than 40 percent above the capped baseline after 14 days, the cap was doing real work and that campaign belongs in a portfolio. If CPC drifts back within 20 percent and conversions rose, you didn't need the cap and you can stop worrying about January.
Where I'd land on this
I don't think Max CPC on automated strategies was a great control. It was a comfort blanket most of the time, and Microsoft's pacing argument is fair. But the platform that needs a comfort blanket most is the low-volume one, and that's Bing. Taking the cap away from the channel where the bidder has the least data seems backwards to me, even if it's consistent with where the whole industry is going.
Anyway, the practical version is simple. October 1 is the deadline for new native campaigns. January 12 is the deadline for everyone who lets Google Import do their Microsoft work for them. That second group is bigger, and it's the one that isn't reading the emails.
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