Free calculator
Marketing Budget Calculator
Plan your marketing budget from the outcome you want: the new customers you are after and what each one costs you to acquire. Add a spending limit to see how many customers it can buy and the gap, if any.
How much do I need to spend to win the customers I want?
Your CAC — from past campaigns, or a stated assumption
Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
Result
Enter your numbers
The formula
Budget needed = new customers wanted × cost to acquire eachCustomers a limit can buy = spending limit ÷ cost to acquire eachWorked example
You want 20 new customers this month and each costs about $150 to win. The goal needs $3,000. With a $2,000 limit you can expect about 13 customers, leaving a $1,000 funding gap.
What the result means — and what it does not
- It applies your own cost assumption; it is not a recommendation of how much to spend.
- Check that a customer is worth more than they cost to win before scaling the budget — see the Customer Lifetime Value calculator.
Common questions
Why not just spend a percentage of revenue?
Percentage-of-revenue rules describe what some businesses happen to spend, not what your goals need. Starting from the customers you want and what each one costs ties the budget to an outcome you can check.
Where does the cost per customer come from?
From your own history: marketing spend in a period divided by the new customers it brought (the CAC calculator does this). Without history, run a small test and use its result rather than an industry figure.
What if the budget is more than I can afford?
Either aim for fewer customers this month, or lower the cost per customer — usually by improving how many enquiries you convert — before spending more.