Glossary
What is Price bucket?
Also called: price band
A price bucket is one price step, such as 2.80, that Prebid rounds a bid down to before sending it to the ad server as hb_pb.
हिंदी में पढ़ेंA price bucket is a single step on Prebid’s price scale. With the default medium granularity, the buckets run from 0.00 to 20.00 in steps of $0.10, so a $2.87 bid falls into the 2.80 bucket. Bids above the cap are sent as the cap.
Each bucket needs a matching line item in Google Ad Manager: a Price priority line item targeting that exact hb_pb value, with a rate equal to the bucket. If a bucket has no line item, bids in it never compete, and nothing warns you.
The numbers add up quickly. Medium granularity has 201 buckets, so 201 line items per set. With send-all-bids, each of 10 bidders needs its own set: 2,010 line items. Ad Manager allows 450 line items per order, so that needs at least 5 orders. Prebid’s Line Item Manager can build them, and on Ad Manager 360, header bidding trafficking can replace them for web banners.
Example
A $3.46 bid with medium granularity goes into the 3.40 bucket. The line item targeting hb_pb=3.40 has a $3.40 rate, so the bid competes in Ad Manager at $3.40.
Why it matters to publishers
Every bucket without a matching line item is a price at which you cannot sell, so bucket coverage is worth checking after any Prebid change.