How much should you spend on marketing, and where?
Get a benchmarked budget recommendation by industry, stage, and goals — plus a suggested split across channels, so budget decisions stop being a guess.
Your current spend is 70% paid, 30% organic — for your stage and stated goals, shifting toward a 50/50 split typically improves long-term efficiency as paid costs rise.
Why this tool exists
"How much should we spend on marketing?" is one of the most common questions founders and marketers ask, and most answers are either a vague industry rule of thumb or a guess based on what feels affordable this month.
Generic percentage-of-revenue rules ignore business stage, category, and goals — a pre-revenue startup and a scaling e-commerce brand shouldn't use the same rule, and a single number says nothing about how to split it across channels.
This calculator factors in your industry, stage, and goals together, benchmarks against realistic ranges for businesses like yours, and recommends a specific channel split — not just a single number pulled from a generic formula.
- A defensible budget number benchmarked against your industry and stage
- A recommended split across channels, not just a total figure
- A core/explore allocation that protects proven channels while testing new ones
- A number you can bring into a leadership or investor conversation
Who it's for
Built for anyone who has to defend a marketing budget number to someone else.
Need a credible number for their first marketing budget.
Need a benchmarked figure to request from finance.
Need to sanity-check current spend against a real benchmark.
Need a quick benchmark to guide a new client's budget conversation.
Need to know if current spend is too low, too high, or about right.
Need an external benchmark to evaluate a marketing budget request.
Need a split that accounts for both acquisition and retention spend.
Need a split matched to a purchase-driven, often paid-heavy funnel.
How it works
From a few inputs to a benchmarked, channel-split budget recommendation.
Industry, stage, revenue range, and goals
Current spend and any hard budget limits
Your inputs are compared against realistic ranges
A recommended channel split is calculated
A clear number and split, ready to use
Industry, stage, revenue range, and goals
Current spend and any hard budget limits
Your inputs are compared against realistic ranges
A recommended channel split is calculated
A clear number and split, ready to use
Features
A calculator that accounts for context, not a flat percentage-of-revenue rule.
Industry benchmarking
Compares your inputs against realistic ranges for your category.
Channel split recommendation
Not just a total — a suggested allocation across channels.
Core/explore modeling
Protects proven channels while allocating room to test new ones.
Stage-aware logic
Recommendations shift with business stage, not a fixed formula.
Exportable summary
Take the recommendation into a budget conversation or deck.
Re-runnable
Update your inputs as the business changes and get a fresh number.
What you'll get
A specific number and a plan for spending it, not just a percentage.
A specific figure benchmarked to your industry and stage.
Where your recommendation sits relative to comparable businesses.
A recommended split across SEO, paid, email, social, and tools.
How much to protect for proven channels vs. testing new ones.
The reasoning behind the number, so it's defensible, not a black box.
See it in action
PreviewA preview of the kind of budget recommendation the calculator generates — your results will reflect your actual inputs.
Your current spend is 70% paid, 30% organic — for your stage and stated goals, shifting toward a 50/50 split typically improves long-term efficiency as paid costs rise.
Key benefits
Replace a gut-feel number with a benchmarked recommendation.
Bring a specific, reasoned number into a leadership conversation.
Skip hunting for industry benchmarks across scattered sources.
Know where the budget should go, not just how much there is.
A number that fits where the business actually is today.
No gated report — a usable number in minutes.
Use cases
The same calculator, applied to different budget conversations.
Has no idea what a reasonable first marketing budget even looks like.
Benchmarks a recommendation against comparable early-stage businesses.
A credible number to bring into the first budget-setting conversation.
Suspects current spend is misallocated across channels.
Compares current split against a recommended core/explore allocation.
A specific reallocation to test instead of an intuition-based guess.
Needs a fast, credible starting point for a new client's budget.
Generates a benchmarked recommendation in minutes during a discovery call.
A stronger, evidence-backed opening budget conversation.
Needs to validate a large existing budget against an external benchmark.
Compares current spend and split against realistic ranges for the category.
Confidence the budget is appropriately sized, or evidence it isn't.
Unsure how much of the budget should go to paid vs. organic.
Models a split matched to a purchase-driven funnel and current stage.
A defensible split instead of defaulting to whatever paid platforms suggest.
The AI behind the tool
The calculator analyzes your inputs — industry, stage, revenue range, and goals — against realistic budget ranges and channel-split patterns documented in StrateQX's planning frameworks.
Recommendations account for how budget priorities shift by stage: an early-stage business needs a different split than a scaling one, and the calculator adjusts its recommendation accordingly rather than applying one fixed formula.
The output includes the reasoning behind the number specifically so it's usable in a real conversation, not just a figure to accept on faith.
Your industry, business stage, revenue range, and stated goals.
By benchmarking against realistic ranges and stage-specific split patterns.
The recommendation and split shift based on your specific context.
Frequently asked questions
Related resources
Go deeper on the planning frameworks behind the recommendation.
Ready to stop guessing at your marketing budget?
Be first to know when the Marketing Budget Calculator launches — or get a full strategic plan today with the AI Growth Blueprint Generator.