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Marketing Budget Calculator

Making marketing spend decisions can be challenging. Upwork's Free Marketing Cost Calculator gives you a fast and easy way to calculate the spend for various marketing channels - Digital, Social and Search Marketing.

Enter the startup expenses that apply to your business.

We have pre-filled the calculator with starting prices from Project Catalog for tasks below, but you can enter a number that is suitable for your project.

Digital Marketing & PR

Video Marketing
Lead Generation
Music Promotion
Podcast Marketing
Email Marketing
Content Marketing
Total

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Management
Social Media Advertising
Influencer Marketing
Total

Search Marketing

SEO
SEM
Local SEO
Total

Explore projects that fit your budget

Analytics & Strategy

Market Research
Marketing Strategy
Total

Explore projects that fit your budget

Total:
$0
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Cost Breakdown
Digital Marketing & PR
$0
Social Media Marketing
$0
Search Marketing
$0
Analytics & Strategy
$0
Total
$0

How it works?

Calculating your marketing budget can be a challenge, especially if you have a more complex marketing strategy that involves many activities. The marketing budget calculator can simplify this process, saving you time. 

With the marketing budget calculator, all you need to do is determine and enter the costs of the activities that you want to include. The calculator guides you through the whole process and automatically adds those costs, ensuring your results are accurate. The calculator includes suggested items that you might want to include, like social media marketing and digital marketing activities, so you don’t forget any important items. 

The calculator is ideal whether you’ve done lots of marketing or are just starting to work on your first marketing strategy. It simplifies the process of thinking about your marketing spend simpler, so it’s less overwhelming. 

Once you know the costs of your planned marketing activities, you might decide to add in or remove activities like marketing campaigns, so your marketing costs are affordable for your business. Alternatively, you might want to allocate different amounts to certain activities, like an important social media campaign or ads that will drive new customers to your site. You can also use your budget to determine if you need to allocate more of your overall business budget to marketing. 

After you figure out your costs, explore all the marketing services and professionals you can hire on Upwork. You can find the right talent for the job and prepare to launch your marketing campaigns.

Frequently asked questions

What are typical marketing costs?

Depending on the type and volume of marketing that you do, you may need to budget for some common marketing costs: 

  • Marketing research
  • Search engine optimization and marketing (SEO/SEM)
  • Public relations
  • Email marketing platform subscriptions
  • Blog post creation
  • Social media marketing, including boosted posts, pay per click (PPC) and paid digital ad spend
  • Marketing agency and marketing team salaries
  • Landing page web design
  • Subscriptions to marketing software, like HubSpot
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How do you calculate marketing budget?

When calculating your marketing budget, you can set aside a percentage of your annual revenue and then identify marketing activities that fit within that plan. For example, if you want to spend 15% of your gross income on marketing, you’d multiply your income by 0.15 and use the resulting figure as your total marketing budget for the year. You can divide that figure by 12 to determine your monthly budget.

That type of approach can be restrictive, especially if you’ve already identified specific marketing tactics to meet your business goals. To calculate how much it would take to implement a marketing plan, you’ll need to add up the costs of each activity. The marketing budget calculator can make that process easy.

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What are the most common factors that determine marketing budget?

Your ideal marketing budget will partially depend on how established your business is, as well as your gross revenue. It’s also important to consider whether you’re rebranding or launching a new product or service that will require extra marketing spend. 

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How much should I budget for marketing?

You can partially base your marketing budget on your gross revenue, but it’s also important to consider your business’ marketing needs for the coming year. When you’re starting a new business, you’ll need to invest more in marketing to establish the business and bring in new customers; plan to invest between 12% and 20% of your gross revenue in marketing a startup. Established companies can invest less, with 6% to 12% of gross revenue often being sufficient. 

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