How much should a small business spend on marketing? A UK guide for your 2027 budget

Somewhere on the internet right now, an article is telling you to spend 7 to 10 per cent of revenue on marketing. Here's what that article won't tell you: the number comes from surveys of enormous companies. Gartner's 2026 CMO survey put average marketing spend at 7.8 per cent of revenue, and the CMO Survey puts it at 9 per cent, and both mostly asked businesses with marketing departments bigger than your entire company. Quoting those numbers at a Wirral joinery firm or a three-person consultancy is somewhere between unhelpful and daft.

So let's do the honest version. What the benchmarks actually say, why they mostly don't apply to you, and how to set a 2027 marketing budget you'll actually stick to, which matters right now because Q4 is when next year's number gets decided, whether you decide it deliberately or not.

What the official numbers say (and who they're really about)

For the record, because you'll meet these figures everywhere: Gartner says 7.8 per cent of revenue, the CMO Survey says around 9 per cent, and the US Small Business Administration suggests 7 to 8 per cent for smaller firms. UK ad spend passed £50 billion this year, so somebody's certainly spending.

Now the caveat nobody prints in bold: there is no published benchmark specifically for UK small business marketing spend. None. Every percentage you've ever been quoted traces back to surveys dominated by big companies, then gets passed down the food chain as if a £400k trades business and a FTSE retailer should budget the same way. They shouldn't, and here's why: at big-company scale, marketing budgets fund departments, agencies and brand campaigns. At your scale, the same percentage might not cover one decent freelancer. Percentages are a starting point for a conversation, not an answer.

The question before the number

Before any percentage means anything, answer this: what does your marketing need to do next year? Not "more". A number. If the business needs eight new clients in 2027 and your average client is worth £6,000 a year, marketing's job is £48,000 of new revenue. Suddenly the budget conversation has an anchor: what would you sensibly spend to make £48,000? Ten grand sounds different when it's framed as the cost of eight clients rather than a scary lump of money leaving the account.

This is the step almost every small business skips, and it's why so many budgets are set by vibes: last year's number plus a bit, or whatever's left after everything else, or whatever the pushiest salesperson extracted. Work the goal out first and the percentage debates mostly evaporate. (If working out that goal is itself the problem, that's a planning conversation, and it's precisely what The Rip-Up, our full strategy day, exists for.)

A rough guide that respects reality

With the goal set, these bands are a more honest starting point than any single percentage. Growing businesses that need marketing to actively win new customers generally need somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of revenue, weighted to the top end if you're in a crowded market or starting from invisible. Established businesses maintaining a healthy pipeline can often sit at 3 to 5 per cent. Brand new businesses hunting their first customers often spend more than 10 per cent for a while, because everything (website, brand, first campaigns) is a set-up cost, not a running cost.

But apply the small-print rule: your first thousand pounds matters more than your percentage. A £300k business at 5 per cent has £15,000 for the year, £1,250 a month. Spent deliberately, that's a real marketing operation. Sprayed across six channels because a percentage said so, it's nothing at all, six times over.

Where the money actually goes wrong

Having sat on both sides of this for years, the same three budget killers turn up everywhere.

Paying for delivery with no direction. An agency retainer with no strategy behind it is the single biggest waster of small business marketing money in Britain. The reports look great. The needle doesn't move. If any part of your 2027 budget goes to an agency, spend a fraction of it first making sure they're pointed somewhere worth going.

Spreading instead of concentrating. Six channels at £200 a month each does roughly nothing. Two channels at £600 each, chosen because that's genuinely where your customers are, compounds. Budgets should be boring and concentrated, not exciting and thin.

Forgetting the follow-up. Businesses budget to generate enquiries and spend nothing on what happens next. If leads go cold because nobody chases them properly, every marketing pound upstream is leaking. Sales and marketing share one pipeline, so budget for it as one machine. (We bang this drum a lot. It's the whole reason Qrios does both.)

How to actually set the 2027 number this autumn

Here's the Q4 routine, and it takes an afternoon, not a management away-day.

Start with this year's receipts: everything you actually spent on marketing in 2026, including the sneaky bits like subscriptions, that directory listing, sponsorships, and your own time if you're the marketing department. Most owners have never seen this total and it's usually a surprise in one direction or the other.

Then mark each item keep, kill or double. Keep what demonstrably brought customers. Kill what you can't connect to a single sale after twelve months (be brutal, the sunk cost isn't coming back). Double the thing that worked best, because the biggest returns usually come from doing more of a proven thing rather than adding a new one.

Then set the number against your goal, using the bands above as a sense check, and split it roughly: most of it into the proven channels, a slice into fixing the leaks between enquiry and sale, and a small pot (10 per cent or so) for experiments, so new ideas have a home that isn't the main budget.

Write it down, and give it a review date in March. A budget you look at quarterly is a plan; a budget you set in December and rediscover in August is an archaeology project.

What a real budget looks like in practice

Percentages are abstract, so here's the shape of an actual plan. Picture a £300k service business that decides on £15,000 for 2027, which is 5 per cent, sitting sensibly inside the growth band.

The wrong way to spend it is evenly: £1,250 a month drizzled across socials, a bit of boosting, the odd flyer, renewal of every subscription that auto-renewed last year. Twelve months later there's nothing to show but receipts, because nothing got enough fuel to work.

The concentrated version looks different. Around £2,000 goes early on direction, a proper strategy piece in January so the other £13,000 is spent on purpose rather than habit. The biggest slice, £8,000 or so, funds the one or two proven channels properly and consistently all year, whether that's search, a serious referral programme, or being genuinely everywhere your local market looks. Perhaps £2,000 fixes the join between enquiry and sale, the follow-up rhythm and the pipeline habits that stop leads leaking (more on why that matters below). A £1,500 experiments pot tries two new things properly instead of six things timidly. And the last £1,500 stays unallocated until summer, because the year always brings one opportunity nobody predicted in December, and businesses with a little dry powder get to say yes to it.

Your split will differ. The principle won't: direction first, concentration second, follow-through funded, and a little kept loose. That's a budget behaving like an investment rather than a series of hopeful donations.

If the honest answer is "there's barely any budget"

Then don't burn what little there is on delivery. A tight budget needs direction more than anyone, because you can't afford a single wasted pound. That's exactly the audience we built the cheap end of our ladder for: Qrios Minds at £59 a month keeps a marketing brain on tap all year for less than most businesses waste on one forgotten subscription, and our full guide to marketing support when you can't afford an agency walks the whole ladder. For what fuller support costs, the numbers are all published in our guide to marketing consultant costs in the UK, our own prices included.

The bit to remember

There's no magic percentage, and anyone quoting one with a straight face hasn't asked enough about your business. Set the goal, count what you spent this year, keep-kill-double, concentrate the money, and budget for the sales follow-through as well as the noise. Do it in the next few weeks, while 2027 is still a blank page rather than a fire that's already burning.

And if you'd like a senior head across the plan before the number gets locked in, get in touch. The first half hour is a free consultation to see if we can work together, and bringing your actual numbers is encouraged. We're nosy. It's a core value.