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Marketing Budget Calculator

Get a benchmarked budget recommendation by industry, stage, and goals, plus a suggested split across channels, so budget decisions stop being a guess.

Marketing Budget Calculator

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A benchmarked range rather than a single number, split into the categories a budget actually gets approved in, plus a check on whether your current spend matches your growth ambition.

Your business

Benchmark band: 15–45% of revenue.

Growth ambition

The single biggest driver of the number. Ambition without budget is a forecast, not a plan.

Your numbers
$
$

Include salaries, media, tools and agencies, the same scope as the recommendation.

How you operate
35%
Agency in the mix
Recommended annual
$2.3M
38.8% of revenue
Per month
$194k
recommended midpoint
Your current spend
$700k
11.7% of revenue
Gap to recommended
$1.6M
under-invested
You are spending below the band for aggressive growth
At 11.7% of revenue you sit under the 23% floor this model and ambition normally require. That is not automatically wrong, since underspending is the correct choice if you cannot yet deploy more effectively, but 30–60% growth is unlikely to arrive on this budget. Either fund the gap or revise the growth target to match what you are willing to spend.

The range

A single budget number implies a precision that does not exist. Work in a range and pick a point inside it deliberately.

Conservative floor$1.4M
Recommended midpoint$2.3M
Aggressive ceiling$4.2M
Your current spend$700k

The widest band of any model. Efficient, profitable SaaS runs near 15%; venture-funded companies buying share routinely run past 40% and treat the gap as an investment in future recurring revenue.

The stage where the benchmark is most reliable, and where discipline about channel proof matters more than the total number.

Recommended allocation
Where the recommended budget should go.
$194kper month
People & salaries35%
Paid media23%
Agency & contractors14%
Content & creative11%
Technology & data9%
Events & partnerships8%

What this budget buys

Portfolio-level allocation
At this scale the constraint moves from budget to execution capacity. Ring-fence 10–15% for experiments in channels you have not proven, or the mix will calcify around whatever worked two years ago.
Team capacity
A useful check: a budget of 194,063 per month typically needs 9 to 16 people to spend well. Below that, the money outruns the ability to deploy it and quality drops.

Line by line

Every category with the reasoning behind its share.

CategoryShareAnnualMonthly
People & salaries
Internal headcount, fully loaded. The largest single line in most marketing budgets, and the one that constrains how much of the rest you can actually execute.
35%$815k$67,922
Paid media
Search, social, display and retargeting. The only line that converts to pipeline the same month it is spent, and the first one cut when a quarter looks bad.
23%$543k$45,259
Agency & contractors
External delivery capacity. Judge this line on the capability it adds rather than on the hours it buys.
14%$333k$27,751
Content & creative
Production across written, video and design. Compounds rather than converts immediately, so it needs protecting from quarter-end reallocation.
11%$260k$21,646
Technology & data
CRM, automation, analytics, SEO and enrichment tools. Under-budgeting here shows up as an inability to prove anything else worked.
9%$201k$16,726
Events & partnerships
Conferences, webinars, sponsorships and co-marketing. Expensive per lead, highest close rate of anything in the mix for considered purchases.
8%$177k$14,758

Reference points

B2B SaaS benchmark band
Before adjusting for your stage and growth ambition
15–45% of revenue
Your adjusted band
After stage and ambition modifiers
23.3–69.9% of revenue
Where you sit today
Below the floor
11.7%