Xiaohongshu advertising cost: every ad format, and when it works

You are spending on Xiaohongshu (小红书), the app sold abroad as RedNote. The dashboard shows clicks. It doesn’t show which format is doing the work.

If you change one thing, move money into search. Most of the paid side runs through one bidding platform, Juguang (聚光). A boost tool, a creator marketplace and a store tool sit around it.

Format	What it is for	What it costs	Verdict
Feed ads	Reach people browsing the home feed	Ours: CPM 10 to 30 yuan, CPC from 0.3 yuan	After search, aimed at recent searchers
Search ads	Catch people typing your category	CPC bidding, set per keyword	Your first real spend
Self-serve boost	Test your own recent notes	From 75 yuan an order	A cheap test before anything else
KOL amplification	Push filed creator notes further	Creator fee, plus bidding	Only on notes already earning saves
Store and lead ads	Orders, DMs and forms	Per click, toward a target cost	Leads for services, store ads if you sell in app
Splash and brand zone	Launch-day reach	From 50,000 yuan, our planning figure	Last, not first

Figures marked “ours” come from our advertising services page. They are our planning ranges, not a platform average. Everything else is sourced and dated below, and every source was checked twice in September 2026. For the same exercise on Tencent’s side, see our WeChat advertising guide.

How Xiaohongshu advertising cost is set: five ways to buy

The route decides the price, so start there.

Juguang (聚光) is the main one, the bidding system behind feed and search ads, and Xiaohongshu (小红书) sells the two as a pair.

Juguang offers a “dual engine” of feed and search products. The platform describes the model as seeding in the feed and harvesting in search. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang product manual, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/37f82988d0e9273cd645bb819c37a4e0f697bc70.pdf

The premium placements sit in the same system: splash (开屏), the full-screen ad at app open, and brand zone (品专), a branded landing block inside search.

Juguang’s product matrix covers feed, search, live, splash screen and brand zone placements, plus “box” and non-standard formats. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang operations guide, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/a7a8ea23090c625636d68195559a074e18165972/聚光平台操作说明.pdf

A note on dates. Xiaohongshu wrote its Juguang guides in 2022, when the platform was new, and still hosts them on its own servers. They describe the mechanics. They carry no prices.

Three smaller tools sit around Juguang. The self-serve boost tool (薯条) lives in the app, Pugongying (蒲公英) handles creators and Qianfan (千帆) serves merchants with a store.

Qianfan is built for merchants with a Xiaohongshu store, to promote products and live rooms. The self-serve boost tool starts at 75 yuan and can boost Pugongying collaboration notes and product notes. Source: Sanjieke (三节课), via Sohu (搜狐), December 2025. https://m.sohu.com/a/968496983_624051

Five routes, one budget. Buy them in sequence.

Feed ads: cost, targeting, what they are for

A feed ad is a note in the discovery feed with a small tag on it. It looks like everything around it (which is the point).

Feed ads appear in the discovery feed from the sixth slot, then every tenth slot after that. Native notes carry a 赞助 (sponsored) tag. Lead-form ads carry a 广告 (ad) tag. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang feed ad product guide, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/5d013a20d7c3ef6f581dcd33f31933284139756e.pdf

You pay per click, or you set a target cost and let Juguang (聚光) bid. The target-cost mode, oCPC, comes with a guardrail.

Under target-cost bidding (oCPC), Juguang aims to keep the conversion cost within about 20% of the advertiser’s target. The mode carries over-cost compensation. A third mode, Nobid, spends a set budget with no cost cap. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang feed ad product guide, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/5d013a20d7c3ef6f581dcd33f31933284139756e.pdf

Then there’s targeting. You can go broad, let the system choose or pick interests. The option that matters most for a foreign brand is keyword interest. It reaches people who searched your terms in the past three days, the closest the feed gets to intent. Our in-feed planning range, from our advertising services page: CPM 10 to 30 yuan, CPC from 0.3 yuan.

Feed ads plant the idea. They rarely close it, so buy them after search and point them at recent searchers first.

Search ads: the most underused product on the platform

Two numbers make the case.

Xiaohongshu’s monthly active users passed 400 million, with 800 million searches a day. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书) Video Creator Trend Observation Report, reported by Beijing Business Today (北京商报), May 2026. https://finance.sina.com.cn/jjxw/2026-05-27/doc-inhziqxq9291575.shtml

77% of daily active users use search to solve a problem, and 75% browse the recommendation feed. Source: Huxiu (虎嗅), May 2026. https://www.huxiu.com/article/4861801.html

Search is as common as browsing. Budgets don’t reflect it.

A common planning rule splits search and feed budgets at 1:3 or 1:2, with feed at roughly three times search. Source: Woshipm (人人都是产品经理), October 2024. https://www.woshipm.com/share/6130476.html

A search ad is a note placed on the results page for a keyword you buy.

Search ads appear on the keyword results page from the third slot, then every tenth slot. They show as notes, and billing is per click. Source: TopMarketing, April 2024. https://itopmarketing.com/info16378

You choose exact or phrase match, and Juguang (聚光) has a tool for bidding up your rank on a term. Its “claim the track” objective (抢占赛道) runs on search only.

Why is it underused? Foreign teams bring a Meta habit and treat Xiaohongshu (小红书) as a feed. Their buyers use it as a search engine for products, and a search ad waits for them to ask.

Make search your first real spend, right after a cheap boost test. Start with your brand name, then three to five category and problem terms written the way Chinese buyers type them.

Note boosting: promoting a note versus running an ad

You can put money behind a note in two ways. The self-serve boost tool (薯条) is the light one.

The self-serve boost tool has no follower threshold and a minimum spend of 75 yuan (750 in the platform’s internal currency) per order. Only content published in the last 90 days can be boosted. Source: Woshipm (人人都是产品经理), May 2026. https://www.woshipm.com/share/6397056.html

It’s cheap and it runs from a phone. That’s also the limit.

A Juguang (聚光) ad built on the same note is the heavy one: an objective, a bid mode, targeting and, for search, a keyword list.

Feature	Self-serve boost (薯条)	Juguang note ad
Entry cost	75 yuan an order	Your daily budget
Which notes	Last 90 days, own or collaboration notes	Own notes or filed creator notes
Set up	Self-serve on a phone	Objective, bid mode, targeting
Best for	Testing which note works	Scaling the note that won

In practice, boost six notes at the floor and put Juguang money behind the one or two the feed carries.

Amplifying creator posts: the filing rule

Amplification means paying to push a creator’s post past their own audience. On Xiaohongshu there’s one hard rule.

Only filed (报备) notes can be boosted through Juguang. Source: TopMarketing, April 2024. https://itopmarketing.com/info16378

Filed means the deal went through Pugongying (蒲公英), the official creator marketplace, and that filing has a price.

Content cooperation through Pugongying carries a platform service fee of 10% of the deal in the standard mode. Source: Niaoge Biji (鸟哥笔记), October 2022. https://www.niaogebiji.com/article-482538-1.html

Pay a creator off-platform and you save the fee, then lose the option to put Juguang (聚光) money behind the post.

So two costs stack: the creator fee and the ad spend behind the post. Our guide to Xiaohongshu marketing cost covers the creator side.

Put money only behind creator notes that are already earning saves and comments on their own.

Store and lead ads: when the goal is a sale or a DM

Two Juguang (聚光) objectives are built for money, not reach.

Juguang’s product sales objective sends people into a store or to its products. Its lead collection objective asks them to submit a sales lead or start a direct message inquiry. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang product manual, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/37f82988d0e9273cd645bb819c37a4e0f697bc70.pdf

Store ads only make sense if you sell inside the app. For merchants with a Xiaohongshu store, Qianfan (千帆) handles product and live-room promotion.

Lead ads fit service brands: schools, clinics, travel, B2B. You can send people to a form or into a DM. The labels differ, and it shows.

In the feed, direct message ads carry the 赞助 (sponsored) tag, like a normal note. Lead-form ads carry the 广告 (ad) tag. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang feed ad product guide, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/5d013a20d7c3ef6f581dcd33f31933284139756e.pdf

On a platform built on advice, a DM ad reads like advice. The form, less so.

Our call for service brands: lead ads into DMs, with the inbox staffed before launch. Store ads wait until the store has reviews.

Minimum budgets and deposits: what you need to start

That’s the formats. Now the money you need to switch them on.

Xiaohongshu (小红书) publishes no minimum deposit for Juguang (聚光). Its own guide lists the steps, and the money step has no number on it.

Opening a Juguang account runs from registering the app account, to professional account verification, to submitting promotion qualifications, to “recharge and start”. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang operations guide, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/a7a8ea23090c625636d68195559a074e18165972/聚光平台操作说明.pdf

The platform’s own flow lists documents for foreign companies too.

At first login the user picks an advertiser account or an agency account, the second for agencies, which sign up on a separate platform. Domestic companies upload a business license. Overseas companies upload a business registration or certificate of incorporation. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang registration and account opening flow, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/cc8a5f81ddb6d91d6be9dfb34e62b49b999f234b/聚光平台注册与开户流程.pdf

Any floor you hear comes from whoever opens the account. Get it in writing. What we can publish is below.

Route	Entry point	Source
Self-serve boost	75 yuan an order	Woshipm, May 2026
Juguang, feed and search	None published; we start at 5,000 yuan (about 700 dollars)	Xiaohongshu; ours
Juguang, working budget	15,000 to 30,000 yuan a month, our advice	Ours
Splash and brand zone	From 50,000 yuan each	Ours

The 15,000 to 30,000 yuan range, roughly 2,100 to 4,300 dollars, is where a campaign collects enough data to optimize properly. Below it, a good week and a bad week can look the same.

For overseas clients we run the ad account through our local structure, with weekly spend reports. Ad spend is billed at cost with no markup. Our own fee is on our pricing page, and the RedNote agency page sets out what we run on the platform.

Benchmarks: what a click, a thousand views and a lead cost

Xiaohongshu (小红书) publishes no average CPC, CPM or cost per lead. A figure labeled “platform average” did not come from the platform.

Metric	Figure	Where it comes from
In-feed CPM	10 to 30 yuan	Ours, early 2026
In-feed CPC	From 0.3 yuan	Ours, early 2026
Lead ad CPC, one case	0.33 yuan, CTR 5.95%	Xiaohongshu case, 2022
Search CPC, one keyword	3.47 yuan market bid, face cream	Woshipm, 2024
Cost per lead	Not published	No dated source

The platform’s own case shows what good targeting does.

A medical aesthetics advertiser collecting leads targeted people who had searched related keywords in the previous three days. Over seven days it reached a 5.95% click-through rate at 0.33 yuan per click and collected 40 forms. Source: Xiaohongshu (小红书), Juguang feed ad product guide, platform document, May 2022. https://fe-video-qc.xhscdn.com/fe-platform/5d013a20d7c3ef6f581dcd33f31933284139756e.pdf

A contested search term costs far more per click.

Juguang’s keyword planner showed a market bid of 3.47 yuan a click for 面霜 (face cream). Source: Woshipm (人人都是产品经理), October 2024. https://www.woshipm.com/share/6130476.html

Cost per lead turns mostly on your category and on how fast someone answers the DM, and nobody publishes an average. Your own is easy to find: after two weeks, divide spend by forms or DMs in Juguang’s report, which also shows clicks, click-through rate and average cost per click.

Which format to buy first with a small budget

If your account is already running and results are flat, check the order before the spend. The pattern we see most in audits: feed funded, search barely touched.

1. Boost to test. Six notes at the 75-yuan floor. Keep the one or two the feed carries.
2. Search next. Put the winning note on your brand term and three to five category terms.
3. Feed third. Target people who searched those terms in the last three days.
4. Creators fourth. File the deal, then amplify only what earns saves.
5. Brand ads last. Splash and brand zone once search volume on your name exists.

Sometimes the agency did nothing wrong. Good notes, funded search and still a flat month? That can simply be a small budget. Below the level where the system has data to learn from, results swing.

Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum ad spend on Xiaohongshu?

The self-serve boost tool (薯条) starts at 75 yuan, about 11 dollars, for one order on a note published in the last 90 days. Juguang (聚光), the bidding platform for feed and search ads, has no published minimum deposit. We start Juguang campaigns at 5,000 yuan and advise 15,000 to 30,000 yuan a month for enough data to optimize.

Are Xiaohongshu search ads worth it?

For most foreign brands, yes, and they are the first thing to buy. Xiaohongshu (小红书) reports 800 million searches a day, and 77% of daily users turn to search to solve a problem. Search ads catch buyers at the moment of intent. Start with your brand name and a few category terms, written in natural Chinese.

What is a typical CPC on Xiaohongshu?

There is no published platform average. Our in-feed planning range starts at 0.3 yuan a click. A 2022 platform case showed 0.33 yuan on a well-targeted lead campaign. Competitive search terms cost more: one October 2024 example showed a market bid of 3.47 yuan for face cream.