What is a good marketing budget for a service business?
Work backward from jobs, not forward from a percentage. Know what an average job is worth and what a customer brings over years. Then ask what you would pay to win one more booked job, and how many more you want. A budget built that way is a business decision. A percentage is a guess.
By the Lumen Local team. Updated August 2026.
The percentage rules you see online ignore what matters: your job values, your growth goal, and whether you are building or maintaining. A remodeling contractor and a mosquito-plan company should not budget alike.
Split building from renting in your head. Owned assets, the site, profile, reviews, and content, are mostly one-time or maintenance costs that compound. Rented visibility, ads and lead fees, recurs forever. Weight early money toward what compounds.
Then hold the budget to one number: cost per booked job, by channel. Whatever produces jobs cheapest, owned or rented, earns next month's dollars. The budget follows the evidence.
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