Marketing budget rules of thumb for UK trades
Ask how much a trade should spend on marketing and you will hear a percentage of turnover, usually between five and ten. That rule was written for companies with a sales team and a product on a shelf. For a tradesperson whose constraint is hours in the week, the better starting point is capacity. This guide works from there.
Why percentage of turnover misleads trades
A roofing firm turning over £400,000 would, at seven per cent, spend £28,000 a year on marketing. But if the owner and two staff are booked three months ahead, that money buys enquiries they cannot serve. Conversely, a new electrician turning over £40,000 would be told to spend £2,800, which is nowhere near enough to get established.
Turnover measures what you did. Capacity measures what you could do. Marketing's job is to fill the gap between them, so the gap is what should set the budget.
Start with the gap
Work out three numbers. How many jobs a month can you deliver at full stretch? How many do you deliver now? And what is an average job worth in gross profit, not revenue?
The difference between the first two is your capacity gap. Multiply it by profit per job and you have the monthly value of filling it. Spending a quarter to a third of that value on marketing is a reasonable upper limit; if you cannot fill the gap for that, the problem is probably not budget.
A plasterer who could do 12 jobs a month, does 8, and makes £450 gross profit per job has a gap worth £1,800 a month. A budget of £450 to £600 to close it is proportionate. A budget of £1,500 would need to deliver a lot of plastering to pay for itself.
Three budget bands and what each buys
UK trades marketing falls roughly into three spending bands. These are illustrative ranges built from published prices in the market, not recommendations for any individual business.
The foundations band, around £150 to £500 a month, covers the things every trade needs regardless of growth plans: a website with service and location pages, a well-managed Google Business Profile, a review process, and a way not to miss calls. Several agencies now sell this as a packaged fixed-fee system at the lower end of the band.
The growth band, roughly £500 to £1,500 a month, adds paid traffic or a local SEO retainer on top of foundations. This is where a business with a real capacity gap starts to see enquiries it would not otherwise have had.
The scale band, above £1,500 a month, is for multi-van firms and businesses with showrooms or a sales team. It funds serious paid search, video, and often an agency with dedicated specialists.
| Band | Monthly range | Typical contents | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundations | £150 to £500 | Website, Google profile, reviews, missed call cover | Sole traders and small firms |
| Growth | £500 to £1,500 | Foundations plus ads or local SEO retainer | Firms with a clear capacity gap |
| Scale | £1,500 and up | Multi-channel paid, video, specialist agency | Multi-van and showroom businesses |
Fees versus ad spend
Whatever the band, separate the two halves of the budget. Fees pay for people and systems. Ad spend pays Google and Meta for clicks. Mixing them hides where the money goes.
A common healthy shape in the growth band is fees at a third to a half and ad spend making up the rest. If fees are consuming 80 per cent of a growth-band budget, there is not enough fuel in the ads to produce results, and the agency will struggle to show value. If fees are 10 per cent, nobody is managing the spend properly.
Pay ad spend directly to the platform from your own card. The guide to how trades agencies price their work explains why this matters for both transparency and ownership.
Seasonality: budget by month, not by year
Heating engineers are flooded in October and quiet in May. Landscapers are the reverse. Roofers spike after storms. A flat monthly budget ignores all of this.
The sensible approach is to hold foundations steady all year and flex the growth spend. A heating firm might run ads from September to February and spend the spring money on content, photography or a website refresh. The annual total is the same; the timing matches when customers are actually looking.
Agencies with a fixed monthly fee for foundations and separately priced ad management make this flexing straightforward. Those that bundle everything into one retainer make it harder, so ask before you sign.
A worked example: a two-van roofing firm
Take an illustrative roofing business in Leeds with two vans, an owner who prices jobs and four roofers. Full capacity is about 14 jobs a month across repairs and re-roofs. Current volume is 9. Average gross profit is roughly £900 per job, blending small repairs with larger re-roofs.
The gap is 5 jobs, worth about £4,500 a month in gross profit. A budget of £1,100 to £1,500 a month is proportionate to that gap.
A sensible split might be £200 to £300 on fixed-fee foundations, including review automation to lift a modest review count, and £800 to £1,200 on Google Ads targeting roof repairs and re-roofs across the Leeds postcodes the firm covers. If a roofing enquiry costs £40 to £70 and one in three becomes a job, the ads alone could produce 15 to 25 enquiries and 5 to 8 jobs a month, which is the gap filled.
Those enquiry costs and conversion rates are illustrative and vary by area and season. The point is the method: gap, value, proportionate budget, split between foundations and fuel.
Signs the budget is wrong
- You are turning away work and still spending on ads: cut growth spend, keep foundations
- You have an agency fee but no ad spend and no organic traffic yet: results will be slow, decide if you can wait
- Fees are more than half the growth budget: not enough fuel for the ads
- Spend is flat across the year in a seasonal trade: move it to the busy months
- You cannot say what an enquiry costs you: tracking is missing, fix that before spending more
Setting the number and reviewing it
Set the budget quarterly, not annually. Three months is long enough for ads to stabilise and short enough to react to a change in order book. Each quarter, compare enquiries and jobs won against spend and adjust the growth half up or down. The foundations half should barely change.
If you are about to approach agencies, give them the band rather than the exact figure, as the guide to what to send before a quote explains. And whatever band you land in, check that the agency's proposal is sized to your capacity rather than to your budget. The buyer's guide to trades marketing agencies covers what proportionate scope looks like at each level.
Frequently asked questions
How much should a UK tradesperson spend on marketing per month?
It depends on capacity. Foundations cost roughly £150 to £500 a month. Adding paid growth typically brings the total to £500 to £1,500. Multi-van firms spend more.
Is five to ten per cent of turnover a good marketing budget for a trade?
It is a poor fit. A fully booked firm would waste it and a new firm would under-spend. Work from the gap between current jobs and capacity instead.
How should I split fees and ad spend?
In a growth budget, fees at a third to a half and ad spend making up the rest is a healthy shape. Pay ad spend directly to the platform.
Should my marketing budget change through the year?
Yes, in a seasonal trade. Hold foundations steady and move growth spend into the months when customers are actually searching.