Marketing Budget Calculator
Industry-benchmarked monthly marketing spend across SEO, AEO, GEO, PPC, social, and CRM — tuned to your scale + growth target.
Your business
Recommended monthly budget
Channel allocation:
- SEO + AEO + GEO: $2,560
- PPC + Digital Ads: $1,920
- Social Media: $640
- Reputation + Reviews: $640
- CRM + Automation: $640
Right-size your marketing budget.
Industry-, geography-, and revenue-aware budget planner that recommends the marketing spend that actually moves your growth target — not a generic % of revenue.
Budget Calculator: end-to-end cadence.
A disciplined operating pattern — five clear phases, defined cadence, and one accountable team. No mystery, no excuses.
Specifications, not promises.
Every Budget Calculator engagement ships with measurable specifications — cadence, deliverables, reporting, tools, team, and clear targets.
Allocate your marketing budget — based on what actually works.
Free calculator that takes your revenue goals + current state + vertical + market — and recommends a channel allocation based on benchmarks from thousands of similar businesses.
Budget Calculator — the 5 things you get.
- →Input: annual revenue goal, current revenue, vertical, market.
- →Output: recommended channel allocation (SEO, paid, social, email, retention).
- →Phase-based — what to invest first vs. later.
- →Industry benchmarks from our client portfolio.
- →Free, no signup.
Right fit if you’re…
Business owners and CMOs planning next year’s marketing budget.
A free Marketing Budget Calculator that recommends the monthly marketing spend that actually moves your growth target.
Most “10% of revenue” budget rules of thumb are wrong for your business. The Frostbite Budget Calculator recommends a monthly marketing budget tuned to your industry, revenue range, geographic coverage, and growth target — using benchmark data from 200+ small and mid-market businesses across 12 verticals.
Your industry, scale, and growth target should drive the number.
The most common marketing budget rule of thumb — “spend 10% of revenue on marketing” — is wrong for most small and mid-market businesses. A $2M revenue HVAC business in a competitive metro doesn’t need the same marketing budget as a $2M revenue SaaS startup chasing series-A. A multi-location franchise doesn’t budget the same as a single-location dental practice.
The right marketing budget depends on five variables: your industry (which determines competitive intensity and cost-per-acquisition benchmarks), your revenue range (which sets the absolute floor and ceiling for what makes sense), the number and density of locations you serve, your growth target over the next 12-18 months, and the maturity stage of your existing marketing operation. The Frostbite Budget Calculator weights all five.
Five inputs, benchmarked math, channel-by-channel recommendation.
You pick your industry from a dropdown (12 verticals supported), your annual revenue range, the number of locations and approximate service-area density, your 12-month growth target (revenue or unit growth), and your current marketing-operation stage (starting from scratch, scaling existing, or rebuilding broken).
The calculator returns a recommended monthly marketing budget with a channel-by-channel split — how much should go to SEO, AEO/GEO, PPC, social, email, CRM, and reputation management given your specific inputs. The recommendation is grounded in benchmark data from 200+ businesses across the 12 verticals.
Every line is explained.
The recommendation is conservative by default — we’d rather under-recommend and over-deliver than the reverse. Every channel allocation is shown with the underlying reasoning (“SEO budget set at $4,500/mo because your vertical has a 24-week organic-to-revenue lag and your growth target of +30% requires keyword expansion into 4 new clusters”).
If you want to model aggressive scenarios — what would faster growth require? — the calculator outputs an aggressive variant alongside the conservative recommendation so you can see the spread.
Channel mix, expected outcomes, and timeline.
Beyond the dollar number, the calculator surfaces the expected outcomes that the recommended budget should produce — projected lead volume, organic traffic growth, AI search citation lift, and revenue contribution per channel. This is the kind of detail you need to defend the budget to a partner, CFO, or board.
A 60-day, 6-month, and 12-month timeline shows when each channel typically starts producing measurable results. Useful for setting expectations internally so the budget doesn’t get cut at month 4 because organic SEO hasn’t fully ramped.
Frequently asked about budget-calculator
Why not just spend 10% of revenue on marketing?
Generic budget rules ignore your industry, location count, growth target, and current operation maturity. A 10% rule under-funds aggressive growth and over-funds steady-state operations. The Frostbite calculator tunes the recommendation to your specifics.
How accurate are the budget recommendations?
The recommendations are benchmarked from quarterly research surveys of 200+ small and mid-market businesses across 12 verticals. Defaults are conservative; aggressive variants are also output.
What channels does the recommendation cover?
SEO, AEO + GEO, PPC, social media, email marketing, CRM, marketing automation, and reputation management. Channel allocations vary by industry and growth stage.
What if I’m in a vertical not in the dropdown?
Use the closest match. If your vertical isn’t represented, the calculator uses general small/mid-market business benchmarks. Email editorial if you want to suggest a new vertical for the next quarterly research wave.
Is the calculator free?
Yes — free, no signup, on-screen results in 90 seconds. The emailed PDF report (with detailed channel-by-channel breakdown) requires an email address.
How often are the benchmarks updated?
Quarterly, in sync with the Frostbite industry research surveys. Recommendation defaults shift as the underlying market data shifts.
See your recommended marketing budget
Free, 90 seconds, no signup. Channel-by-channel breakdown + 12-month timeline.
