Marketing budget benchmarks by trade

The benchmark

Business Development Resources places healthy growth-phase home-service companies at 8 to 12% of total revenue on marketing, with the share varying by size: under $1M revenue at 10 to 15%, $1M to $3M at 8 to 12%, established $3M+ at 5 to 8%.

Smaller companies spend a higher share because they are buying awareness they do not yet have. Established companies spend less because reputation and repeat work carry part of the load.

Do the arithmetic on your own number

Take last year's revenue. Apply the band for your size. That is your annual marketing budget, and dividing by twelve gives the monthly figure you should be comparing quotes against.

A $2M contractor at 10% is $200,000 a year, or roughly $16,600 a month across every channel.

What counts inside the number

Agency fees, ad spend, your website, vehicle wraps, print, sponsorships, review tools, CRM if you bought it for marketing, and the salary share of anyone in-house doing it.

Owners routinely count the agency fee and forget the rest, then conclude they are spending 3% when they are spending 9%. Count it all before deciding you are under-invested.

Where the bands mislead

A company in a growth push, entering a new market, or recovering from a reputation problem will exceed the band deliberately, and should.

A company at capacity should be under it. Spending to generate work you cannot deliver is the most expensive mistake in this list, and it also damages the reviews you spent years building.

The uncomfortable version

If the band says $16,600 a month and you are spending $2,000, the honest advice is not to hire us. It is to work out whether the business can carry the investment before adding a retainer to it.

“Spending to generate work you cannot deliver is the most expensive mistake on this page.”