How much money do you need to start search arbitrage?
More than most guides suggest. You need a testing budget you can afford to lose, plus enough cash to cover ad spend until the feed pays, which is commonly 30 to 60 days later. A modest test of, say, $100 a day therefore ties up several thousand dollars before any revenue arrives. Tools and content add further cost.
Work it through with illustrative numbers. Spending $100 a day for 60 days is $6,000 out of pocket before the first full payment under Net 30 terms. Add a tracker subscription, a domain, content and perhaps a spy tool, and the realistic floor for a serious test is in the mid thousands. Much of the test budget should be treated as tuition, because early campaigns usually run below break-even point.
The bigger need comes with success. Scaling a profitable campaign to $2,000 a day means roughly $60,000 of spend each month while revenue lags behind. That gap is the cash-flow float, and it is why established operators use a credit line and why undercapitalised ones fail while technically profitable.