How much should a small business spend on marketing?
Ask this question and the first answer is always "it depends" — which is true and completely useless to an owner trying to plan a year. There are real benchmarks, used by real institutions that lend small businesses money and help them survive. Start there. But the percentage is only half the answer, because owners rarely lose money by spending the wrong percentage. They lose it by spending in the wrong order.
What the benchmarks actually say
The U.S. Small Business Administration's guidance for businesses under $5 million in revenue with healthy margins is to spend 7 to 8 percent of gross revenue on marketing. Canada's Business Development Bank puts small business marketing budgets at 5 to 10 percent of revenue. Different countries, same neighborhood: somewhere between a twentieth and a tenth of what comes in, treated not as a luxury for good months but as a standing cost of being in business — the same category as rent, because being unknown is just as fatal as being closed.
So what does the percentage buy you, in practice? That depends entirely on the order you spend it in.
The order matters more than the amount
First: be findable. Before a dollar goes to anything that shouts, spend on being found when a customer goes looking — a website that answers what people search, a complete Google presence, reviews that grow. This is the spending that becomes an asset: it keeps working after the month you paid for it ends. A business that cannot be found is pouring every other marketing dollar into a bucket with no bottom.
Then: be convincing. The website those found customers land on has one job — turn a visit into a text, an email, a booking, a sale. Money spent driving people to a page that cannot do that job is not marketing. It is a donation to Google.
Only then: rent attention. Ads, promotions, campaigns — these buy speed, and speed has its moments. But rented attention on top of a business that is findable and convincing multiplies. Rented attention instead of those things evaporates, and the next month starts from zero again.
This is why two businesses can spend the same 7 percent and get opposite results. One bought an asset in the right order. The other bought noise in the wrong one.
What it costs here
Our end of that first, most important step is priced in the open:
- Websites from $500. One-page Website $500 · Business Website $800 — the findable, convincing home base everything else points to.
- Website Check-Up — $350. Already have a site? A full professional look at it first — and if you have us do the one-time fixes it itemizes within 3 days, the full $350 comes off that work; half of it, $175, comes off any new website.
- Full Presence Audit — $750. The whole picture: website, Google presence, listings, reviews. If you have us do the one-time fixes it itemizes within 7 days, the full $750 comes off that work; half of it, $375, comes off any new website.
That is the honest use of a first marketing dollar: find out exactly where you stand, then spend where the standing is weakest.
Want to know where your first marketing dollar would do the most work? Text or email us — we answer fast. Text: (774) 666-1728 · Email: design@goddessisacrownsecrets.com Tell us your business name and your website address, and we will tell you honestly where you stand before you spend on anything.