Tool
Marketing budget calculator
A starting budget built from the revenue you want, split across the channels that actually produce it, with the cost per lead you would need to hit for the plan to work.
Your inputs
Budget from the revenue you want, not the revenue you have. The gap between the two is exactly what marketing is being asked to close.
Next twelve months, not last year's result.
For most local service businesses this sits between 20 and 40 percent.
Result
A starting budget you can defend
Monthly budget
$8,000
Annual budget
$96,000
Inquiries needed
889 / yr
267 customers at a 30% close rate.
Allowable cost per lead
$108
$360 per customer won.
Suggested monthly split
- Website and conversion$1,600
The page that receives every other channel. Underfunding it wastes everything upstream.
- SEO, GEO and content$2,400
Compounding demand. Slow to start, cheapest per lead once it runs.
- Paid advertising$2,400
Buys immediate volume and tells you which messages work before you commit to them organically.
- Local presence and reviews$800
Google Business Profile, review generation, directories and local citations.
- Retention and follow-up$800
Sequences to past customers and unclosed quotes. Consistently the cheapest revenue on the list.
This budget is affordable at your margin: acquisition costs less than half the gross profit on a sale.
Calculated in your browser · nothing is stored
Method
How the math works
The budget is a percentage of target revenue, set by where the business is. Establishing businesses reinvest around 12 percent because they are buying awareness they do not yet have. Growing businesses sit near 8 percent, with referrals carrying part of the pipeline. Established businesses run closer to 5 percent and shift spend toward retention and reputation.
The rest is arithmetic you can check. Revenue goal divided by average sale gives the customers you need. Divided by close rate, that gives qualified inquiries. Annual budget divided by inquiries gives the cost per lead the plan requires — the single most useful figure on the page, because it tells you immediately whether the channels you are considering can deliver at that price.
The channel split changes with stage rather than staying fixed. Early on, more goes to the website and paid visibility. Later, SEO and GEO take the largest share because compounding demand is cheaper than renting it, and retention grows because your customer base is finally big enough to be worth working.
Target revenue, not current
Budgeting from last year's revenue funds last year's result. The gap between current and target is precisely what the budget is being asked to close.
Everything is included
Media spend, agency or contractor fees, software and website work all sit inside the total. Splitting them out is how businesses accidentally spend double what they think.
Margin decides viability
Cost per customer is compared against gross profit per sale. Under half is healthy, up to full gross profit is tight, and above it only works if customers come back.
Next step
Turning the number into a plan
A budget is a hypothesis about what a lead should cost. These three steps are how you find out whether the hypothesis holds before committing a year to it.
- 01
Fix the destination first
The website receives every other channel. If it converts at 1 percent instead of 3, your cost per customer triples regardless of how well the campaigns run.
- 02
Buy data with paid, then compound with organic
Paid advertising tells you within weeks which messages and services convert. Feed those findings into SEO and GEO so the compounding work is aimed at proven demand.
- 03
Review against real cost per lead
After ninety days, compare actual cost per lead to the allowable figure. If it is above, the problem is usually conversion or targeting, not budget size.
Questions
Frequently asked
They reflect what small service businesses in competitive local markets actually sustain: roughly 12 percent of revenue while establishing demand, 8 percent while growing and 5 percent once the name is known. They are starting points to argue with, not rules.
Target revenue, which is why the calculator asks for the goal. Budgeting from current revenue keeps you at current revenue. The gap between the two is the growth you are trying to fund.
Yes. The total is everything marketing costs you: media spend, agency or contractor fees, software and the website work. Splitting them out tends to hide how much a channel really costs.
Because every other channel spends its money on the way to it. Sending paid traffic to a page that converts at 1 percent instead of 3 percent triples your cost per customer no matter how well the ads are run.
Then the revenue goal, the timeline or the margin assumption needs to move. A smaller goal properly funded beats an ambitious one funded at a third of what it needs, which is the most common way marketing budgets fail.
Paid advertising can produce inquiries in the first week. Local presence and review work usually shows in one to three months. SEO and GEO typically take three to six months to move meaningfully and keep compounding after that.
Next step
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