Marketing budget calculator

Enter last year’s revenue and see what a sourced benchmark says your total marketing budget should be. No email, no signup, no data leaves your browser.

Everything is calculated in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is stored, and there is no form to fill in first.

What percentage of revenue should a home-service company spend on marketing?

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%, and established $3M+ at 5 to 8%.

What we read from that, and this part is our judgement rather than anything the sources state: 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. That is the whole reason the calculator asks for revenue before it shows you anything.

The calculator uses those three bands directly. The posture selector on top of them is a Mindflow adjustment and not something Business Development Resources publishes: a growth push moves the figure into the upper half of the band, and a business at capacity is shown a figure below it.

What counts as marketing spend?

A marketing budget is everything the business spends to create demand, not the agency invoice on its own. 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 the work.

Owners routinely count the agency fee, forget the rest, and conclude they are spending 3% when the real figure is 9%. Add up all of it before deciding you are under-invested.

When is the benchmark band the wrong answer?

Three situations put the right figure outside the band. A company pushing for growth belongs above it for a defined period, a company at capacity belongs below it, and a company small enough that the band competes with payroll belongs somewhere else entirely. This part is our judgement, not a published finding.

A growth push. Entering a new market or recovering from a reputation problem means exceeding the band deliberately, and for a defined period.

A business at capacity. The right figure is under the band. Generating work you cannot deliver is the most expensive mistake on this page, and the reviews take the damage.

A small business. Below roughly $400,000 in revenue the band produces a number that competes with payroll. Free fundamentals will move more than a retainer at that stage, and we will tell you so.

Questions owners ask

See what your budget is currently buying

A free Visibility Check runs twelve real buying questions and shows where you stand. You keep the findings.