Yes it is. Asbestos illness related clicks are at $800 per click. Insirance can be at $600. Thats how Google makes thier billions of dollars. And you are absolutely right - noone will help you with google ads if you dont have minimum $5,000 and they want constant six month of commitment to tweak their algorythms to be able to produce some good traffic for your brand and landing page/s. Someone says you need to be creative with keywords. Sure. But then dont expect nice chunk of leads as obviously most people searching for something will not be creative with their search keywords.

$10-$15 isn't the most expensive. There are industries like insurance or loans where it can get as high as $50.

I'm serious. Check this - https://app.kwfinder.com/dashboard?source_id=0&keyword=proje...

That's likely for the top, most obvious, biggest keywords. Google Ads is very winnable if you're creative. Skip the obvious keywords and find other inroads. It can (and has) work for "small" companies not looking to brute force with deep pockets.

They're selling a high-value product and competing in that space, so it makes complete sense.

In the Healthcare space, some people are paying $50+ for highly competitive, highly targeted keywords.