TL;DR
- Microsoft Advertising emailed advertisers under the subject line "Updates to Max CPC for new campaigns", stating that from 1 October 2026 Max CPC will no longer be available when creating new non-portfolio campaigns.
- The notice was reproduced in a LinkedIn post by freelance PPC manager Joey Bidner on 20 August 2026 and reported by PPC Land.
- Microsoft Ads Liaison Navah Hopkins said on 20 August 2026 that target impression share, eCPC and portfolio bidding strategies keep the ability to add a Max CPC.
- The email says nothing about campaigns already running with a Max CPC, and no migration path was published, unlike the August 2025 consolidation that converted standalone Target CPA and Target ROAS into Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value.
- Hopkins also restated that Microsoft continues to allow campaigns to over achieve on TCPA/TROAS regardless of budget limited status, the opposite of Google's 17 August 2026 change.
Microsoft Advertising has told advertisers by email that from 1 October 2026, Max CPC will no longer be available when creating new non-portfolio campaigns. The email, sent under the subject line "Updates to Max CPC for new campaigns", was reproduced in a LinkedIn post by freelance PPC manager Joey Bidner on 20 August 2026 and reported by PPC Land. Microsoft Ads Liaison Navah Hopkins confirmed the carve-outs the same day: "Target impression share, eCPC, and Portfolio bidding strategies will retain the ability to add a Max CPC."
What Microsoft Advertising is removing on 1 October 2026
The Microsoft Advertising email states, in its own words, that "From 1 October 2026, Max CPC will no longer be available when creating new non-portfolio campaigns." Two words in that sentence carry the whole change. The first is creating: the restriction as written applies at the moment a campaign is built. The second is non-portfolio: the restriction as written applies to campaigns that are not attached to a portfolio bid strategy.
A Max CPC bid is the hard ceiling an advertiser sets on what a single click may cost. It is the oldest control in paid search and, for most agency teams, the last one that behaves like a lock rather than a suggestion. Target CPA, target ROAS and maximise-clicks style strategies all express a goal that the auction may miss in either direction. A Max CPC expresses a number the auction cannot exceed. Removing it from new campaign creation removes the one setting that fails closed.
What stays, according to Navah Hopkins on 20 August 2026
Hopkins, Microsoft Ads Liaison, said on 20 August 2026 that three routes keep the ability to add a Max CPC: target impression share, enhanced CPC, and portfolio bidding strategies. That statement is the only published detail on what survives. Everything below is a reading of it, not an additional Microsoft claim.
The table below sets the state of each route against the 1 October 2026 date, using only what the email and Hopkins said.
| Campaign or strategy | Max CPC after 1 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| New non-portfolio campaigns | Not available at campaign creation, per the Microsoft email |
| Portfolio bidding strategies | Retain the ability to add a Max CPC (Hopkins, 20 August 2026) |
| Enhanced CPC (eCPC) | Retains the ability to add a Max CPC (Hopkins, 20 August 2026) |
| Target impression share | Retains the ability to add a Max CPC (Hopkins, 20 August 2026) |
| Campaigns already running with a Max CPC | Not addressed in the email or in Hopkins's statement |
Portfolio bid strategies
A portfolio strategy is a bidding configuration that lives above the campaign and can be applied across several campaigns at once. Keeping a Max CPC there means the ceiling stops being a property of one campaign and becomes a property of a shared object. For an agency, that is a different operating model rather than a like-for-like replacement: the ceiling has to be planned before launch, it is edited in a different place from the campaign, and a change made for one campaign lands on every campaign sharing that portfolio. Teams that have never used portfolios on Microsoft Advertising will be taking on a new structural layer just to keep a control they already had.
Enhanced CPC
Enhanced CPC is the hybrid that sits between manual bidding and full automation: the advertiser supplies a bid and the system adjusts around it. Because it keeps the advertiser-supplied bid as its input, it keeps a Max CPC as a meaningful number. This is the closest thing to a drop-in continuation of the old habit, and the tradeoff is that eCPC's adjustments sit on top of the bid rather than beside it.
Target impression share
Target impression share chases a visibility goal rather than a cost goal, which is exactly why a bid ceiling matters inside it: without one, the strategy has no reason to stop paying more to reach the share target. The route survives, but it only suits campaigns where impression share is the actual objective. Using it purely to retain a CPC ceiling would mean changing what the campaign is optimising for, which is a large price to pay for a safety rail.
What the Microsoft Advertising email did not say
The notice is short and its silences matter more than usual. It says nothing about what happens to campaigns already running with a Max CPC configured. It does not describe a migration path, an automatic conversion, or a deadline by which existing configurations must change. It does not say whether the setting disappears from the interface for those campaigns, stays and keeps working, or stays and stops being honoured. PPC Land's report does not resolve this either. Anyone telling you which of those three it is on 21 August 2026 is guessing.
The notice also does not explain the reasoning. There is no stated performance argument, no cited data, and no reference to a broader bidding roadmap. And it does not carve out campaign types by name beyond the portfolio distinction, so the practical scope of "non-portfolio campaigns" across Microsoft's campaign inventory is not spelled out in what has been published.
How this differs from Microsoft's August 2025 bid strategy consolidation
Microsoft removed standalone Target CPA and Target ROAS strategies in an August 2025 consolidation, and that change was documented with automatic conversion into Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value. Advertisers knew where their existing campaigns would land. The 1 October 2026 Max CPC removal has been announced without that documentation, which is the substantive difference between the two announcements rather than a matter of tone. The 2025 precedent shows Microsoft is willing to publish a conversion path when it has one, so the absence of a published path here is information in itself, even though it is not yet an answer.
Microsoft and Google are pointing in opposite directions on budget-limited campaigns
In the same 20 August 2026 exchange, Hopkins restated that Microsoft "continues to allow campaigns to over achieve on TCPA/TROAS regardless of budget limited status", and pointed advertisers to conversion value rules. That is the opposite posture to Google's 17 August change, which pushes over-performing target CPA and target ROAS campaigns back toward their target in budget-limited campaigns.
Read together, the two platforms are trading places. Google is tightening how far a campaign may outrun its target while budget-constrained. Microsoft is keeping that headroom open while closing off the manual ceiling at campaign creation. An advertiser running both platforms on the same account structure and the same reporting cannot assume that a bidding assumption carried over from one will behave the same way on the other after October.
What to check in your Microsoft Advertising account before 1 October 2026
None of this requires action today, and there is no evidence in the source that existing campaigns break. What it does require is an inventory, because the change lands at creation time and creation time is when teams are least likely to notice a missing field.
- Count how many live campaigns currently depend on a Max CPC as their cost control, and note which ones would be uncomfortable to run without it.
- Check whether your account already uses portfolio bid strategies at all. If it does not, building and testing one before October is cheaper than building one under launch pressure.
- Look at the launch calendar. Any new Microsoft campaign scheduled after 1 October is affected at build time, including seasonal campaigns rebuilt from scratch each year and campaigns cloned from an old template.
- Audit the campaign-build checklists and internal templates that say "set Max CPC" as a step. Those documents will silently stop matching the interface.
- Confirm that conversion tracking is clean, because a CPC ceiling is the control that protects you when the conversion signal is wrong. If the ceiling moves out of reach, signal quality becomes the safety rail. A tracking review, whether in the platform tag or in your analytics setup, is worth more before October than after.
- Ask your Microsoft representative in writing what happens to existing campaigns, and keep the answer, since nothing published so far covers it.
What this means for Thai marketers
Microsoft Advertising sits in a particular slot in the Thai market. It is rarely the primary channel for a Thai-language consumer campaign. It shows up in B2B accounts, in travel and hospitality, and in export-oriented businesses selling to buyers in the United States, Europe and Japan, where the audience skews toward desktop and toward work machines. Those accounts typically run on modest budgets in Thai baht against clicks priced in dollars, and a manual CPC ceiling is what stops an unfamiliar overseas auction from spending a month of budget in a week.
For that profile, the portfolio route is the practical answer, and it is worth setting up early rather than discovering the missing field at launch. It is also a reason to be deliberate about which platform carries which job. If Microsoft is a supporting channel in a mix led by Google Ads, the October change is a build-process problem rather than a strategy problem. If Microsoft carries real export revenue, the ceiling question deserves a proper decision before the launch calendar forces one.
One caution specific to this market: the source describes a single date with no market-by-market staging. There is no basis for assuming Thailand gets a different timeline, and equally no published confirmation that the rollout is simultaneous everywhere. Treat 1 October 2026 as the working date and verify in the interface.
FAQ
Is Max CPC being removed from my existing Microsoft campaigns?
The source did not say. The Microsoft email addresses only what happens when creating new non-portfolio campaigns from 1 October 2026, and neither the email nor Hopkins's public clarification covered campaigns that already have a Max CPC configured. Until Microsoft publishes something on existing campaigns, the honest position is that this is unknown.
Can I still put a hard ceiling on my cost per click after 1 October 2026?
Yes, through three routes that Hopkins confirmed on 20 August 2026: portfolio bidding strategies, enhanced CPC, and target impression share. Each one changes something else about how the campaign runs, so none of them is a pure like-for-like swap for the setting being removed.
Do I have to do anything before 1 October?
Nothing is required, based on what has been published. The useful preparation is an inventory of which campaigns rely on a Max CPC and a decision about whether to adopt portfolio bid strategies, so that a campaign built in October does not launch without the control its owner assumed was there.
Is this change live in Thailand?
The email gives one date, 1 October 2026, and says nothing about country-by-country rollout, so there is no published Thailand-specific detail either way. Thai advertisers should plan on the announced date and confirm inside their own account rather than rely on a regional assumption.
Does this affect Google Ads bidding?
No. This is a Microsoft Advertising change and applies only to Microsoft campaigns. Google made a separate change on 17 August 2026 affecting how over-performing target CPA and target ROAS campaigns behave when budget-limited, and the two platforms are moving in opposite directions on that point.
The short version
The Microsoft Advertising Max CPC change is narrow in wording and wide in effect. A hard CPC ceiling is the safety rail agencies use when they hand budget to automation, and on Microsoft Advertising it stops being available at campaign creation for new non-portfolio campaigns on 1 October 2026. It survives inside portfolio bid strategies, enhanced CPC and target impression share. What happens to campaigns already running with one is the open question, and the source did not answer it. If Microsoft is part of your paid mix, the work to do this month is an inventory and a portfolio decision. If you want help mapping which campaigns lose a control they depend on, Relevant Audience runs that review as part of paid search account work.
