Overspent $104k on a client's account - what now?

justauser

Worked at a small agency that got acquired back in March. Before that, I'd been there three years. They wanted to transition me to PPC manager over six months, but we were always stretched thin - two specialists for 25+ client accounts. One quit, and after the acquisition, they never replaced them. So I ended up handling all 25 Google Ads accounts solo.

One client has a $150k ad spend and always wants more. Their Google budget is $60k. Last month we were pacing slow, so I bumped the daily to hit $60k before April ended. Completely forgot to dial it back on May 1st. That's a law client. We had to tell him yesterday we overspent $104k. He was pissed. Even though the extra spend brought in $223k in revenue - more than covers it - he doesn't care. Wants the agency to pay.

Everyone's pissed at me, but they're being respectful. Thing is, this was my first real mistake. On May 1st I had a miscarriage. The same week, my 24-year-old cat died, and my kid broke her leg - loads of hospital appointments. I only took three sick days total. They don't know the full story, but still.

There's nothing in the contract about overage, and the client's card is attached directly. Is the agency liable for the $104k? If they keep me, how do I recover from this? Feels like I've been set up to fail, but I'm terrified.

budgetburner

Take the time off next time. Seriously. You went through hell and thought fresh eyes wouldn't matter? They always do. Not blaming you - but work isn't worth your mental or physical health. Would you rather lose a client or lose your sanity?

socialbutterfly

Absolutely understand the panic 😅 but honestly? The agency holds the bag on this one. Overage situations like this happen more often than people think in agency life.

A few things I've seen from the leadership side:

🔹 Yes, they'll be furious - it's a big number. But decent management will ask the right questions: was the account set up with proper safeguards? Were budgets clearly communicated? Or was this a one-off slip versus a pattern?
🔹 In my experience, if it's a first-time mistake and the person wasn't negligent or reckless, the agency eats the cost. They'll review internal processes and probably tighten spend controls.
🔹 If the employee was genuinely set up to fail (no limits, poor training, vague client briefs), that's on the agency. If it's repeated incompetence, different story.

At the end of the day, the agency's insurance or their own margin covers the overage. Not the employee's personal bank account. Breathe - it's a process, not a firing squad.

24fire

across the pond here, but the same principle applies - the company carries the liability, not the individual. early in my career I made a comparable mistake: overshot a client's Google Ads budget by about $80k. got asked to write up a process document explaining how I'd prevent it recurring. That was it. If the agency has any sense, they'll treat it as a tuition fee - a costly lesson in building tighter campaign guardrails. nothing else came of it

prpro

I've been on the leadership side of agencies for a while, and honestly, seeing someone own this kind of mistake properly is worth more than a perfect record. if you were reporting to me, here's what I'd look for.

first, take full accountability. Don't sugarcoat it. explain exactly where the process slipped-not to deflect, but so we can all see the crack in the system. then, and this is the key bit, bring a plan. show me how we patch that crack so it never happens again. Propose a change in workflow, a double-check step, a budget alert system-whatever fits your setup.

it sounds like your team went from two people to one doing the same work. That's a recipe for exactly this kind of oversight. Your executives almost certainly know that. But it's still on you to flag when the load becomes unsafe, and to frame it around solutions, not complaints.

is this fireable at my agency? Possibly, if it's part of a pattern. an one-off like this, though? we'd treat it as a painful lesson, not a career-ender. own it, fix it, learn from it. that's how you build trust

splittester

Oh, I had a far larger disaster than that. i only scraped through because two senior leaders championed me, but the ceiling turned to lead above my head. A few months later, i moved on-knew I'd never climb again there

nightowl

overspending by six figures is a nightmare, but honestly, agencies that run high-spend accounts without proper safeguards are setting themselves up for exactly this. The real liability falls on the agency, not the individual operator-they carry E&O insurance precisely for moments like this. They'll likely try to negotiate with both the client and Google, but law firms tend to be litigious and Google will argue they delivered the impressions. the insurer will investigate, and premiums will climb, but that's the cost of doing business at scale.

what's more telling is the lack of checks and balances. In my world of Amazon PPC, you'd never let a single person control six-figure budgets without daily alerts and approval workflows. Mistakes happen-I've made ones that still haunt me years later-but a healthy agency builds redundancy into the system. This isn't entirely your fault, the structure failed you as much as you failed the process.

you've clearly had a rough run outside work, and that compounds the pressure. Don't let one costly lesson define your career. Learn from it, rebuild trust through consistency, and remember that every experienced advertiser has a painful story like this buried in their past. The macroeconomic lesson here? always treat budget like a live grenade-one slip and everything changes

localpack

Mate, I feel your pain - that pit-in-your-stomach moment when you realise the budget went rogue 😅

This happens way more often than people think. Not just a you problem. Back in February last year, my media buying team was given the wrong daily budgets for a client's account and we overspent by around $40k on Google. bloody nightmare.

What saved us? Opened a support case, explained it was a genuine error (with proof), and Google issued an one-time courtesy credit. Didn't get the full $40k back, but recovered about 70%. If you've got a Google rep, hit them up directly - they've usually got a bit more flexibility than the frontline support chat.

Don't beat yourself up. This is fixable. You'll probably get something back. Just move fast and be honest.

ranktracker

Ouch. That's a nasty one. The agency you were working through should carry professional indemnity insurance specifically for this kind of thing. Even as a contractor running Google CPC campaigns I make sure I've got cover up to a million, precisely so these slip-ups don't land on my personal doorstep. First thing is to check your contract and the agency's insurance policy - most reputable ones will have a clause for accidental overspend. Don't panic, but do get that policy document out ASAP.

bouncekiller

oh honey, you think $104k is bad? Let me tell you about the time i managed to spend a client's entire monthly budget in a single day-and then accidentally did it four more times. I'd just started in PPC and somehow forgot you enter a daily budget, not a monthly one. brilliant timing too: I went on holiday the next day. Came back to find our biggest client had blown through their whole month in less than a week. Sure, they weren't thrilled, but the extra revenue did roll in. We smoothed it over by running their ads for free for the next few months-no management fee, just ad spend. They paid for the overcharge, we absorbed the fees, and I learned a very expensive lesson about reading the damn interface before you leave town.

24fire

These situations tend to reveal more about the agency than the individual. I've witnessed a seven-figure blunder once-the agency had insurance, and the person was let go a few months later. Another time, a £250k mistake happened, and that same buyer stayed on for another two years, no consequences at all. In both cases, the outcome felt disconnected from the severity of the error. Ultimately, it's a question of culture and risk appetite, not just the dollar amount.

trafficcop

Budget scripts are a godsend, seriously they've saved my arse more than once. Fingers crossed everything works out for you. You've got this, mate.

datanerd

Plenty of good advice already about the liability side of things, so I'll focus on the upside you might salvage from the mess.

first thing I'd check: was the ROAS or CPA anywhere near acceptable? If those extra conversions came in at a sensible cost, you've effectively bought more data and bigger remarketing lists. that can be turned into future value. more impressions and clicks mean larger audiences for prospecting later.

A colleague once made the same kind of typo-confused a comma with a dot on a budget limit. Blew €50,000 over a weekend. this was a decade ago when broad match was basically a wildcard, so the spend matched on utter garbage. No redeeming data there. After that i wrote a simple Google Ads script that checks daily spend against the budget and pauses the campaign if it exceeds 120% of the daily cap. Something like this:

function main() {
 var budget = AdsApp.currentAccount().getBudget(),
 var limit = budget.getAmount() * 1.2,
 var spent = budget.getStatsFor('TODAY').getCost(),
 if (spent > limit) {
 AdsApp.currentAccount().pause(),
 MailApp.sendEmail('you@domain.com', 'Budget breached', 'Account paused at €' + spent),
 }
}

Runs every hour. saved me a few times since. Might be worth setting up while you assess the damage

cyberpunk

Agency-side here. Had a similar screw-up with one of my account managers a couple years back.

First off, a proper agency usually carries professional indemnity insurance for exactly this sort of thing. Secondly, since the client didn't actually lose the money-the spend just went over budget-you'll likely negotiate what the real damage is. If the ROAS on that extra $104k was only 30% weaker, that's a tangible loss, but not catastrophic.

As the account manager, your agency should be covering you here. If they don't, that's a red flag about where they put the risk. That's the whole point of being an agency owner-we take the hit, not the person running the account.

conversionninja

Oh, I feel this in my bones. That gut-wrenching, glittering little nugget of truth you've just learnt? It's the kind of scar that builds the most beautiful brand armour. The whole "Google can spend up to 30x your daily budget" line is buried in the small print like a ghost in the design system - you never see it coming until it's swallowed your entire colour palette.

I've watched that horror movie from the sidelines, once for a client whose account had been a serene lake for years, then suddenly turned into a roaring waterfall of spend. Half a million evaporated before anyone could hit pause. The visual of a budget spiralling into the void is haunting, but it taught me that an account budget isn't just a safeguard - it's the silent aesthetic of trust. You can't build a beautiful brand story if the numbers are screaming.

In my world, working with female-founded startups, I look for people who've lived through the wreckage. The lessons from what not to do are the ones that polish a CV into something truly luminous. You'll be fine. That panic will turn into your most valuable case study.

adcraft

$104k is a lot, but the real issue here isn't the overspend - it's that you let it happen without any oversight. People in the thread saying "it happens, no big deal" have clearly never had to explain a five-figure discrepancy to a client or a finance director. i've worked at agencies where a $10k overspend would trigger a formal review, $104k would get you walked out the same day, no questions asked.

You had pacing problems before life got rough, and you still didn't arrange coverage. that's not bad luck, that's poor planning. whether they keep you depends on how much they value the client relationship versus your salary. if i were your manager, I'd be asking why you didn't flag it sooner - not sympathising

weekendhustle

i completely get the panic, but honestly? The client wanted to increase spend anyway, and you delivered that - plus it actually generated extra revenue. that's not nothing. Yeah, it was an accident, but the outcome wasn't disastrous. It's not like you wasted cash on garbage placements.

full refund feels way over the top from the client. A discount on management fees for a few months? Totally fair. but full refund? Bit of a power move on their part, if you ask me.

Don't beat yourself up too much. We've all had that "oh no" moment with budgets - it's practically a rite of passage in this industry. You'll nail the next campaigns, and one slip-up won't define you. Move on and keep delivering awesome results 😊

chatbox

The insurance route is one of those things you never think about until you're staring down a six-figure overdelivery. I've had a few close calls over the years-nothing quite that dramatic, but I've seen what happens when a campaign goes rogue because someone fat-fingered a bid adjustment or forgot to set a daily budget cap.

A few things I'd flag for anyone else reading this:

Implementation-layer safeguards - If you're using Google Ads scripts or GTM to manage budgets server-side, you can build in a hard stop. I've set up a daily spend alert that pings Slack and kills the campaign if it exceeds 110% of the budget. Takes an hour to set up, saves years of grey hair.
Verification workflow - Before any client budget change goes live, I make sure there's a checklist in the system. Screaming Frog can help audit URLs before launch, but for budgets it's more about manual approval gates. Even a simple two-person sign-off process catches most of the big ones.
Insurance is the backstop, not the first line - My broker told me most professional indemnity policies cover genuine mistakes as long as you can prove you had reasonable processes in place. The "reasonable" part is key. If you're running campaigns without budget alerts or a second set of eyes, the insurer might push back.

Still, £104k on a client's tab is a proper heart-stopper. Hope you had a decent policy and a understanding client.

copycat

I've been on the agency side when this happened a few times. It's terrifying in the moment, but honestly, you'll be fine as an individual. The agency carries that risk - they'll negotiate with the client, maybe offer some credit or absorb part of the overage. That's what professional indemnity insurance is for if the relationship goes sour.

Just show up, do your job, and treat this as a very expensive lesson. Absolute worst case, you end up looking for a new agency, and that usually comes with a pay bump anyway. Breathe through it.

analyticsjunkie

Honestly, breathe. This isn't entirely on you - your company should have more safety nets than a trapeze artist. If they handed you the keys to a £104k budget without any guardrails, that's on them, not just you.

At our place we've got three layers of protection so this kind of thing doesn't happen. First, we set a monthly spend cap whenever budgets change significantly. Second, we've got a script that pings a Slack channel every week with spend data, and if an account goes over a threshold it tags people and sends emails like a panicked parrot. Third, weekly sit-downs where the PPC lead walks through the account with the account manager. Yeah, I'm paranoid about overspend too - for good reason.

But even if all three fail, we've got insurance for this exact nightmare. We'd try to fix it with the client first, and if that falls apart, insurance kicks in. So if one of my team did this, I'd be pissed, trust would take a hit, but I wouldn't fire them. I'd work through it. You don't give someone 25 accounts if you don't trust their ability to bounce back. Own it, steal our prevention system, show you're still invested in the work - you'll be fine.

Also, the client is almost certainly not getting every penny back. They'll push hard to squeeze what they can, but they'll settle for something like free months or a partial refund. Most agency contracts cap liability anyway. They know the game.

Sorry your personal life is also getting shat on right now. Hope this takes some weight off.