Marketing Budget Calculator
Plug in your revenue, industry, and growth stage to get a recommended monthly marketing budget — plus a category-by-category split you can actually put to work.
How much should you spend on marketing?
The US Small Business Administration and the Deloitte CMO Survey 2024 put most B2C small businesses in the 5–12% of revenue range. Gartner's 2024 CMO Spend Survey shows B2B and SaaS companies clustering higher, typically 9–15% of revenue when they are actively investing in growth.
What's the right marketing budget percentage of revenue?
For steady-state operations, 6–10% of current revenue is a healthy baseline across most industries (SBA, Deloitte 2024). Companies that are deliberately scaling often push 15–25% of target revenue into marketing while the engine is still being built.
B2B vs B2C vs SaaS marketing budget benchmarks
Gartner and HubSpot's 2024 reports show B2B averaging 7–12% of revenue, B2C 6–11%, and SaaS 10–15% — SaaS skews higher because of longer payback windows and the compounding value of recurring revenue.
Recommended budget split: SEO, ads, content, tools
A balanced starting allocation is roughly 45% to ad spend, 8% to ads management, 18% to SEO, 14% to content and creative, 7% to analytics and tools, and 8% held in reserve for testing. The calculator below applies this split to your recommended tier automatically.
Industry
Growth stage
Conservative
$2,625
/month
if cash is tight
Recommended
$3,750
/month
industry benchmark
Aggressive
$5,250
/month
scale fast
Recommended tier split
How to allocate your $3,750/mo across categories.
| Category | Monthly | % of budget |
|---|---|---|
| Ad spend | $1,688 | 45% |
| Ads management | $300 | 8% |
| SEO | $675 | 18% |
| Content & creative | $525 | 14% |
| Analytics & tools | $263 | 7% |
| Reserve & testing | $300 | 8% |
Ad spend
45% of budget
$1,688
Ads management
8% of budget
$300
SEO
18% of budget
$675
Content & creative
14% of budget
$525
Analytics & tools
7% of budget
$263
Reserve & testing
8% of budget
$300
Sources
- Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2024
- Deloitte CMO Survey 2024
- HubSpot State of Marketing Report 2024
- BDC SMB Benchmark 2024
- US Small Business Administration — marketing budget guidance
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics — Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, March 2024
Benchmarks are industry averages. This calculator is a starting point, not financial advice.