How much should a small business spend on marketing?

A common benchmark is 7 to 12 percent of revenue, with established local service businesses at the lower end and growth-focused or e-commerce businesses at the higher end. This calculator starts from that band and adjusts for your industry and how fast you want to grow.

Is the marketing budget calculator free?

Yes. It runs entirely in your browser, needs no sign-up, and costs nothing.

Should the budget be a percentage of revenue or profit?

Percentage of revenue is the standard approach because it scales naturally with the size of the business and is easy to benchmark. This tool uses revenue. If your margins are unusually thin, treat the lower end of the suggested range as your ceiling.

What does the marketing budget actually cover?

It covers the cost of acquiring and retaining customers: paid advertising, SEO and content, social, website work, and the tools that support them. It does not include the cost of delivering your product or service.

Marketing budget calculator

Tell us your revenue, industry, and how fast you want to grow. We will recommend a monthly marketing budget with a channel breakdown and the benchmarks behind it.

How this is calculated

Small businesses typically spend somewhere between 7 and 12 percent of revenue on marketing. Established local service businesses sit at the lower end; competitive, paid-channel-dependent businesses like e-commerce sit higher. This calculator takes an industry baseline from that band, then scales it up or down for how fast you want to grow. The result is a midpoint with a sensible range around it, not a precise figure. Use it as a starting point for a real conversation about spend.

More free tools

All tools

Channel mix planner Split a marketing budget across SEO, ads, social, content, and web with rationale for each. CAC and ROI calculator Calculate customer acquisition cost, payback period, and LTV to CAC ratio from numbers you already know. Marketing readiness scorecard Answer 12 quick questions and get a 0 to 100 score plus a prioritised list of what to fix first. SWOT analysis tool Guided strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis with prioritised actions and a copyable summary. PESTLE analysis tool Score political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental forces and surface the threats and opportunities each one creates. 7Ps marketing mix audit Audit product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence with scoring and specific recommendations. Competitive market analysis Score the five competitive forces shaping your market and get a verdict on attractiveness with specific moves to make. Hashtag generator Get a curated set of on-topic hashtags grouped by reach, with a suggested mix you can copy straight into a post. Keyword generator Expand a seed keyword into ideas grouped by search intent, with a clear order of what to target first.

Marketing budget calculator

More free tools

Bring your marketing in-house this week.