How Much Should a UK Business Spend on Marketing?

There is no correct marketing budget, but there are ranges that most successful businesses fall inside, and knowing them stops you either starving growth or spending into a plan that cannot absorb it. This guide covers the benchmarks, what they include, and how to split the money once you have set the number.

The Percentage-of-Revenue Benchmarks

The standard approach is to set marketing spend as a share of revenue. Typical UK ranges:

Established B2B: 2% to 5% of revenue
Established B2C: 5% to 10% of revenue
E-commerce and direct-to-consumer: 10% to 20%, because paid acquisition is doing more of the work
Growth-stage or funded businesses: 15% to 30%, deliberately buying market share ahead of profitability
Professional services: often at the low end, 2% to 4%, because referral and reputation carry more of the load

Two adjustments matter more than the sector average. First, if you are launching something new, the number goes up, because you are buying awareness that does not exist yet. Second, if your market is consolidating or a well-funded competitor has arrived, holding at last year's percentage is a real-terms cut.

What the Percentage Should Include

Benchmarks are meaningless if everyone counts differently. Include agency fees, media spend, tools and software, content production, events, and any freelance support. Whether to include in-house salaries is a choice, but be consistent: most businesses quote the number excluding salaries and track headcount separately. Exclude sales commissions and discounting, which are frequently smuggled in to make the marketing line look healthier than it is.

Splitting the Budget

A reasonable starting allocation for an SME with an established proposition:

40% to acquisition channels that work today: usually paid search and paid social, the spend you can turn up or down this month
30% to compounding assets: SEO, content and digital PR, which cost now and pay later
15% to retention: email, lifecycle campaigns and customer marketing, almost always the cheapest revenue you will find
10% to infrastructure: website, tracking, conversion optimisation and tooling
5% to experiments: new channels, ring-fenced so they do not get cannibalised when a quarter goes badly

The most common mistake is putting everything in the first bucket. It produces respectable numbers for two years and then a business with no organic presence, no email list and complete dependence on ad platforms whose costs it does not control.

Budget by Growth Stage

Pre-revenue or very early: spend time rather than money. Free channels, direct outreach and a Google Business Profile do more than a small ad budget spread thin.
Under £250k revenue: pick one channel and fund it properly. Splitting £1,000 a month across four channels fails everywhere at once.
£250k to £2m: the range where an agency retainer starts making clear sense, typically £2,000 to £6,000 a month plus media.
£2m and up: multiple channels, likely a hybrid of in-house and agency, with formal measurement and attribution.

Our agency cost guide breaks down what those retainers actually buy, and the in-house versus agency comparison covers where the money is better spent.

Setting Your Own Number

The benchmark is a sanity check, not a plan. Work backwards instead: how many new customers do you need next year, what does one cost to acquire today, and what does that multiply out to? If the answer is wildly above your benchmark percentage, your acquisition cost is the problem, not your budget. Track it properly using our guide to measuring marketing ROI, then compare UK agencies that work at your budget level.