Small Business Marketing Budget Statistics 2026: 75+ Data-Backed Benchmarks

Quick answer: Small business marketing budgets average 8.96% of revenue, or about $78,000 a year for U.S. advertisers, though most small businesses spend under $200 a month.

Key stats: $78,000 average ad budget; 8.96% of revenue; 90.5% spend under $200/month.

Small Business Marketing Budget Statistics: How Much Do Businesses Spend in 2026?

1. The average small business advertising budget is estimated at $78,000 for 2025, based on a survey of 1,006 business owners and marketing leaders commissioned by Intuit SMB MediaLabs in March 2025, according to Statista (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
2. Scaling that figure using U.S. Census Bureau receipts data, Intuit estimates small businesses could collectively spend as much as $640 billion on advertising in 2025 (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
3. Small business owners surveyed allocate an average of 37% of their total marketing budget specifically to advertising, with the rest covering costs such as website production, agency fees, and software subscriptions (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
4. 51% of small businesses planned to increase their advertising spending in 2025, while another 41% planned to hold spending steady (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
5. Just 8% of small businesses surveyed planned to cut advertising spending in 2025, most citing rising operating costs (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
6. Newly registered businesses plan to spend far less than headline averages suggest: 26.1% of 7,413 businesses signing up with UENI in 2026 said they plan to spend $0 a month on marketing (UENI, 10 August 2026).
7. A further 64.3% of these new businesses plan to spend between $1 and $200 a month, meaning 90.5% plan to spend under $200 monthly (UENI, 2026).
8. Only 3.8% of these newly registered businesses plan to spend $500 or more a month on marketing (UENI, 2026).

What Percentage of Revenue Should a Small Business Marketing Budget Be?

9. Companies overall report a mean of 8.96% of revenue spent on marketing, though the median is just 5%, reflecting a small number of high-spending outliers pulling the mean upward (The CMO Survey, Duke University/Deloitte/American Marketing Association, January 2026).
10. The same survey found marketing expenses account for a mean of 9.64% of a company's overall budget, with a median of 7% (The CMO Survey, 2026).
11. Gartner's 2026 CMO Spend Survey put marketing budgets at 7.8% of company revenue in 2026, up slightly from 7.7% in 2025, as reported by Forbes, though Gartner's 401 respondents mostly represent companies with revenue above $1 billion, not small businesses (Gartner, 11 May 2026).
12. Forrester's B2B Marketing Budget Benchmarks put the average B2B firm's marketing investment at 8% of annual revenue, based on a sample of nearly 500 organizations (Forrester, 2024).
13. Marketing investment holds roughly stable at 7% to 8% of revenue regardless of a B2B company's size; it is sales expense, not marketing spend, that climbs as revenue grows (Forrester's B2B Sales Survey and Marketing Budgets Survey, 12 March 2025).
14. European B2B marketers report investing an average of 9% of revenue in marketing, according to Forrester's Budget Planning Survey (Forrester, 2025).

Source	Metric reported	Figure	Scope or method note
The CMO Survey (Duke/Deloitte/AMA)	Marketing expense as % of revenue, mean	8.96%	154 valid responses across company sizes, Jan. 2026
Gartner CMO Spend Survey	Marketing budget as % of revenue	7.8%	401 CMOs, mostly $1B+ revenue companies
Forrester B2B Marketing Budget Benchmarks	B2B marketing investment as % of revenue	8%	~500 B2B organizations, all sizes

Source: The CMO Survey (2026), Gartner (2026), Forrester (2024)

These three benchmarks cluster near 8% of revenue, but they are not directly comparable: Gartner's sample skews toward large enterprises, while The CMO Survey and Forrester include a broader range of company sizes.

None of the three surveys isolates small businesses specifically, which is one reason small business figures reported elsewhere on this page, often well under 8% of revenue in dollar terms, look so different from the enterprise-weighted averages.

How Much Do Small Businesses Spend on Marketing Each Month?

15. 2,918 of the 7,413 newly registered businesses in the UENI sample (39.4%) planned to spend $1 to $50 a month on marketing (UENI, 2026).
16. 1,849 businesses (24.9%) planned to spend $51 to $200 a month (UENI, 2026).
17. 426 businesses (5.7%) planned to spend $201 to $500 a month, and 282 (3.8%) planned to spend $500 or more (UENI, 2026).
18. Among more established small businesses surveyed by Taradel in its 2025 Small Business Marketing Survey, 41% reported spending less than $500 a month on advertising (Taradel, 2025).
19. 52% of small businesses surveyed by Taradel reported monthly marketing budgets under $1,000 (Taradel, 2025).

Monthly marketing spend	Share of businesses	Source
$0	26.1%	UENI, 2026 (new business signups)
$1–$200	64.3% (cumulative 90.5%)	UENI, 2026
Under $500	41%	Taradel, 2025 (established businesses)
Under $1,000	52%	Taradel, 2025 (established businesses)
$500 or more	3.8%	UENI, 2026 (new business signups)

Source: UENI (2026), Taradel (2025)

The gap between the UENI and Taradel figures is a scope difference, not a contradiction: UENI's data comes from businesses at the moment of signup, many of them pre-revenue, while Taradel surveyed established small businesses already running marketing programs.

Marketing Budget by Industry and Company Size

20. Small businesses in the information industry, which includes media companies, software firms, and publishers, report the largest average advertising budgets, at $148,000 a year (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
21. The education industry follows with average advertising budgets of $139,000 a year (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
22. The finance and insurance industry averages $127,000 a year in small business advertising budgets (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
23. The $148,000 average budget in the information industry is nearly four times larger than the average for the "other services" industry, which includes salons and repair businesses (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
24. Larger, younger small businesses (over $2.5 million in annual revenue, founded within the last five years) allocate 45% of their total marketing budget to advertising, compared with just 28% for smaller, older businesses under $500,000 in annual revenue (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
25. Among larger, younger businesses, 80% plan to spend more on advertising in 2025, compared with 51% of small businesses overall (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
26. By employee count, the Intuit survey sample breaks down as 6% with no employees, 32% with 1–9 employees, 29% with 10–49 employees, 24% with 50–99 employees, and 10% with more than 100 employees (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
27. By annual revenue, 34% of small businesses surveyed report under $499,000, 34% report $500,000–$2.4 million, 26% report $2.5–$9.9 million, and 6% report $10 million or more (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).

Industry	Average annual advertising budget
Information (media, software, publishing)	$148,000
Education	$139,000
Finance and insurance	$127,000
Other services (salons, repair, household services)	roughly $37,000 (one-fourth of the information industry average)

Source: Intuit SMB MediaLabs (2025)

Business profile	Share of marketing budget spent on advertising	Plan to spend more on advertising in 2025
Larger, younger (over $2.5M revenue, founded within 5 years)	45%	80%
Smaller, older (under $500K revenue)	28%	51% (overall average)

Source: Intuit SMB MediaLabs (2025)

Small, young businesses chasing growth clearly spend more aggressively on advertising as a share of budget, and the effect compounds with company age and size, a pattern worth keeping in mind when comparing your own budget to a blended national average.

Where Small Business Marketing Budgets Go

28. Across companies of all sizes, the current share of the marketing budget spent on social media averages 14.25%, with a median of 10% (The CMO Survey, 2026).
29. Companies expect to spend 17.06% of their marketing budget on social media over the next 12 months, on average, up from 14.25% today (The CMO Survey, 2026).
30. Looking five years out, companies project social media will claim 23.06% of the marketing budget on average (The CMO Survey, 2026).
31. An average of 3.80% of marketing budgets go toward training and development, with a median of 3% (The CMO Survey, 2026).
32. Companies devote an average of 83.88% of their marketing budget to domestic markets, with a median of 95% (The CMO Survey, 2026).
33. An average of 33.59% of digital marketing activities are currently handled by external agencies, partners, and services rather than in-house teams (The CMO Survey, 2026).
34. That external-agency share is expected to rise only slightly, to 34.27%, over the next two years (The CMO Survey, 2026).
35. In 66.10% of companies, the customer-acquisition budget is larger than the customer-retention budget; the two budgets are roughly equal in 16.0% of companies (The CMO Survey, 2026).
36. Among businesses increasing advertising spend in 2025, 48% directed the extra money to social media, compared with 27% to search engine advertising and 14% specifically to paid search (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
37. 75% of small businesses say social media is an effective advertising channel: the highest-rated channel in the survey (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
38. Among social media advertisers, 85% advertise on Facebook and 74% on Instagram, compared with just 29% on Reddit (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
39. 78% of small businesses use video in their marketing, according to Constant Contact's global survey of 2,500 small business decision-makers (Constant Contact/Ascend2, September 2025).

Marketing Budget Trends and Forecasts for 2026 and Beyond

40. Overall marketing spending grew by a mean of just 1.74% over the prior 12 months, according to the January 2026 edition of The CMO Survey, a notably weak growth rate (The CMO Survey, 2026).
41. Digital marketing spending grew faster over the same 12-month period, by a mean of 8.20% (The CMO Survey, 2026).
42. Companies expect overall marketing spending to rise by a mean of 7.61% over the next 12 months (The CMO Survey, 2026).
43. Digital marketing spending is projected to grow by a mean of 10.40% over the next 12 months, the fastest-growing category tracked (The CMO Survey, 2026).
44. Traditional advertising spending is the only tracked category expected to shrink, by a mean of -1.50%, over the next 12 months (The CMO Survey, 2026).
45. Brand-building spending is projected to grow by a mean of 5.87% over the next 12 months (The CMO Survey, 2026).
46. New product introduction budgets are projected to grow by a mean of 5.85% over the next 12 months (The CMO Survey, 2026).
47. Customer relationship management spending is projected to grow by a mean of 3.50% over the next 12 months (The CMO Survey, 2026).
48. 56% of CMOs surveyed by Gartner in 2026 say their organization lacks the budget required to deliver its 2026 strategy, and 54% report insufficient resources overall (Gartner, 11 May 2026).
49. CMOs allocate an average of 15.3% of their marketing budgets to AI initiatives in 2026 (Gartner, 11 May 2026).
50. Among CMOs whose organizations report mature AI readiness, the AI share of budget rises to 21.3%, and those organizations report average marketing budgets of 8.9% of company revenue, above the 7.8% survey average (Gartner, 11 May 2026).
51. 83% of B2B marketing decision-makers expect their marketing investment to increase over the next 12 months, according to Forrester's Budget Planning Survey (Forrester, 2025).
52. Of those expecting an increase, 40% anticipate a boost of 5% or more, and 6% expect growth greater than 10% (Forrester, 2025).
53. The number of small businesses in the United States grew from 34.8 million in 2024 to 36.2 million in 2025 (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2024; SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025).
54. Small business marketing confidence fell even as budgets rose: only 18% of small businesses globally felt "very confident" in their marketing effectiveness in 2025, down from 27% in 2024 (Constant Contact/Ascend2, September 2025).
55. Despite that drop in confidence, 37% of small businesses globally increased their marketing spend in 2025 (Constant Contact/Ascend2, September 2025).
56. 44% of small businesses globally now say email is their most effective marketing channel, up sharply from 23% in 2024 (Constant Contact/Ascend2, September 2025).

Spending category	Change, prior 12 months	Expected change, next 12 months
Overall marketing spending	+1.74%	+7.61%
Digital marketing spending	+8.20%	+10.40%
Traditional advertising spending	not separately tracked	-1.50%
Brand building	not separately tracked	+5.87%
Customer relationship management	not separately tracked	+3.50%

Source: The CMO Survey (2026)

Marketing Budget Confidence, ROI, and Planning

57. 95% of small business advertisers say they can measure the return on investment on their advertising spending at least some of the time, including 25% who say they can always measure it (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
58. Only 1% of small business advertisers say they can never measure their advertising ROI (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
59. 98% of small business advertisers say they are confident they can reach their target audience, though 42% describe themselves as only "somewhat confident" (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
60. 81% of small businesses use marketing technology tools to check ROI on a regular basis, including 30% who check daily or even hourly (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
61. 37% of small business advertising and marketing decisions are driven directly by the business owner, while 54% have a dedicated team or team member managing strategy (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
62. Among the youngest, highest-revenue businesses surveyed, only 8% say the owner personally oversees marketing strategy. Most have delegated it to a team (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
63. 86% of small businesses surveyed say they are prioritizing business growth in 2025, including 18% seeking rapid expansion; only 14% say stability is the goal (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
64. 62% of small businesses report revenue increased over the past 12 months, while 11% report revenue declined (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
65. Businesses reporting revenue growth are 4 times more likely to report spending more on video advertising than those with declining revenue (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
66. Businesses with revenue growth are 5 times more likely to increase TV advertising spend than those with declining revenue: 15% of growing businesses raised TV spend in 2025, versus just 3% of declining businesses (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
67. Small businesses typically use three to four different advertising channels in 2025, and only 10% use six or more channels (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
68. Larger, younger businesses use far more video advertising than smaller, older ones: 63% versus just 9%, a 54-point gap (Intuit SMB MediaLabs, 2025).
69. 48% of small businesses globally use AI in their marketing, with writing copy for emails and social posts the top use case at 37% (Constant Contact/Ascend2, September 2025).
70. The top concerns about marketing AI globally are data privacy (35%), trust in the content it produces (31%), and inconsistency in brand voice (26%) (Constant Contact/Ascend2, September 2025).
71. 42% of small businesses globally have less than one hour per day to spend on marketing (Constant Contact/Ascend2, September 2025).
72. 22% of small businesses in the UK feel "very confident" about their marketing effectiveness, the highest of any country Constant Contact polled (Constant Contact/Ascend2, September 2025).

The Economic Backdrop: Small Businesses by the Numbers

73. Small businesses accounted for almost 46% of private-sector employment in the U.S. as of the Office of Advocacy's 2025 release (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025).
74. From March 2023 to March 2024, small businesses created approximately 9 out of every 10 net new jobs in the U.S. economy (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2025).
75. Small businesses contributed 43.5% of U.S. GDP and 39% of all private-sector payroll, per the Office of Advocacy's 2024 Frequently Asked Questions report (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2024).
76. California has the highest number of small businesses of any state, at 4.2 million as of 2024, followed by Texas and Florida (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2024).
77. R&D budgets are larger than marketing budgets at 52.6% of companies, while marketing budgets exceed R&D budgets at 39.1% of companies (The CMO Survey, 2026).
78. When cutting expenses during a downturn, marketing is the department cut an average of 45.42% of the time, more often than most other departments get cut first (The CMO Survey, 2026).
79. R&D budgets are larger than marketing budgets at more companies than the reverse, but the gap between the two functions is close: the average company's marketing budget runs just 6.28% smaller than its R&D budget (The CMO Survey, 2026).

Small Business Marketing Budget Statistics: Methodology and Sources

These figures come from primary survey publishers only: The CMO Survey (Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Deloitte, and the American Marketing Association), Gartner's CMO Spend Survey, Forrester's B2B budget research, Intuit SMB MediaLabs, Constant Contact's Small Business Now series with Ascend2 Research, UENI's onboarding data, Taradel's small business marketing survey, and the U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy.

No figure is sourced from a listicle, content-farm aggregator, or a page citing another aggregator. Every figure dates to 2024, 2025, or 2026 unless explicitly flagged otherwise in the sentence. Where sources disagreed on marketing spend as a share of revenue (Gartner, The CMO Survey, and Forrester), all three are shown side by side with their sample descriptions rather than averaged into one misleading number. This page will be reviewed and re-verified at least annually as new survey editions publish.

Conclusion

Small business marketing budgets vary widely, but averages cluster near 8-9% of revenue or roughly $78,000 a year. Confidence hasn't kept pace with spending, so measuring ROI matters more than matching any single benchmark.

FAQ

What Are the Most Important Small Business Marketing Budget Statistics for 2026?

The most cited figures are 8.96% of revenue (The CMO Survey, 2026), $78,000 average U.S. small business advertising budget (Intuit, 2025), and 90.5% of new businesses spending under $200 a month (UENI, 2026). Together they show wide variation behind any single average.

How Much Should a New Business Spend on Marketing?

New businesses spend far less than percentage-of-revenue rules suggest. UENI found 90.5% of new signups plan to spend under $200 a month, and 26.1% plan to spend nothing, leaning on organic and referral channels instead (UENI, 2026).

Is a Marketing Budget Set as a Percentage of Revenue or a Flat Dollar Amount?

Both are common. Gartner, The CMO Survey, and Forrester all benchmark spend as a percentage of revenue near 8%, while Intuit reports a flat average of $78,000 a year for U.S. small business advertisers (Intuit, 2025).

Does a Bigger Marketing Budget Guarantee Better Results?

Not automatically. Among businesses that increased spend, 88% reported stable or improved sales (Intuit, 2025), but industry-wide confidence still fell in 2025, so measurement matters as much as budget size (Constant Contact, 2025).

How Much Should Go to Digital vs. Traditional Channels?

Digital keeps gaining share. The CMO Survey's 2026 edition projects digital marketing spending growing 10.40% over the next year while traditional advertising shrinks 1.50%, and social media's budget share is projected to nearly double within five years.