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Marketing Budget Calculator

Put the assumptions
before the budget.

Start with five inputs. See the acquisition marketing budget your target requires.

Hypothetical example prefilled—not a benchmark, forecast or recommendation. Results are ungated. Financial inputs stay in this page’s memory, are not sent to analytics, and clear when you leave or refresh.

Your expected acquisition plan

All amounts are USD. Use costs and capacity for the same acquisition cohort and planning period, allowing for its full sales cycle. Annual contract value is not cash collected.

New acquisition only, after existing customers, churn, expansion and existing pipeline.

Recurring annual contract value, excluding one-time fees.

Customers won ÷ qualified opportunities from comparable mature CRM cohorts.

Program spend per qualified opportunity. Exclude fixed marketing and sales costs.

People, tools, agency and production allocated to this acquisition cohort.

Avoid double-counting: separate variable program spend, fixed acquisition marketing and sales costs. This is not your entire company marketing budget; retention, expansion and broader brand work are separate.

Optional checks

Leave unknown inputs blank. Missing information is not evaluated and never treated as zero.

Compare conservative and aggressive scenarios

Enter five independent assumptions for each scenario. No automatic multipliers. Close this group to exclude comparisons; their costs may appear in any order.

Conservative

New acquisition only, after existing customers, churn, expansion and existing pipeline.

Recurring annual contract value, excluding one-time fees.

Customers won ÷ qualified opportunities from comparable mature CRM cohorts.

Program spend per qualified opportunity. Exclude fixed marketing and sales costs.

People, tools, agency and production allocated to this acquisition cohort.

Aggressive

New acquisition only, after existing customers, churn, expansion and existing pipeline.

Recurring annual contract value, excluding one-time fees.

Customers won ÷ qualified opportunities from comparable mature CRM cohorts.

Program spend per qualified opportunity. Exclude fixed marketing and sales costs.

People, tools, agency and production allocated to this acquisition cohort.

Sales costs, CAC and payback

Sales costs unlock combined acquisition budget and CAC. Gross margin also unlocks static payback. These checks apply to Expected only.

Sales salaries, commissions and tools; no overlap with marketing. Enter zero only if none.

Revenue less direct delivery costs, divided by revenue.

Cash and capacity feasibility

Cash requires allocated sales costs, including an explicit zero if none. Each capacity check works independently. Expected scenario only.

Available after protected obligations and reserves; not a monthly forecast.

Qualified opportunities sales can work for this cohort. Zero means none.

Customers delivery can onboard for this cohort. Zero means none.

Estimate inquiries

Add your qualification rate to estimate required inquiries for Expected. Newsletter signups are not automatically inquiries.

Qualified opportunities ÷ relevant inquiries from comparable sources.

Calculate to see your expected marketing budget, customers and opportunities. Editing any input clears outdated results.

Educational planning only. Contract value is not recognized revenue or cash collected; review a separate cash forecast with finance.

Full methodology and limitations
  • Customers = target annual contract value ÷ annual value per customer, rounded up. Opportunities = customers ÷ win rate, rounded up. Inquiries = opportunities ÷ qualification rate, rounded up. Rounding may exceed the target.
  • Marketing = opportunities × variable cost + fixed acquisition marketing. Combined acquisition = marketing + allocated sales. CAC = combined acquisition ÷ customers.
  • Static payback = CAC ÷ (annual value ÷ 12 × gross margin). It assumes steady monthly contribution after service starts, excluding churn, campaign, sales-cycle and onboarding delays and collection timing.
  • Cash and capacity checks cover totals, not weekly workload or time-phased cash. Annual prepayments carry future delivery obligations. Spending more may change opportunity cost and channel availability.
  • Optional checks use only values you provide. Conservative and aggressive comparisons use independent core inputs; optional checks apply only to Expected. Closing the comparison excludes it; other optional values remain active until cleared or reset.

Not personalized financial advice. Have finance or a qualified accountant review assumptions before committing spend.

Read about CAC, LTV and payback

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