Marketing Budget as a Percentage of Revenue: 2026 Data

The numbers in one table

Two annual surveys carry most of the evidence. Gartner asks large-company CMOs. The CMO Survey, run by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Deloitte and the American Marketing Association, asks US marketing leaders across all sizes.

What large companies spend, year by year

Gartner's figure fell from 11 percent in 2020 to 6.4 percent in 2021, recovered to 9.5 percent in 2022 and eased to 7.8 percent by 2026. Its respondents are mostly companies with more than $1 billion in revenue, so read it as a large-company number.

What a wider US survey says

The CMO Survey reaches smaller firms than Gartner does, and its average runs higher. The 2026 average of 8.96 percent has a standard deviation of 11.45 points, so companies differ a lot. These are means, not medians.

What share of revenue do smaller companies spend?

A larger share. The 2026 CMO Survey reports 13.34 percent under $10 million in revenue and 17.40 percent from $10 to $25 million. Those cells hold 20 and 15 responses, so treat them as direction, not a promise.

Gartner's 2021 survey saw the same pattern at a larger scale. Companies under $500 million spent 8.6 percent, and those over $2 billion spent 5.7 percent.

B2B, B2C and industry

Consumer product companies report more than business-to-business ones, with one exception. B2B services runs above B2C services in 2026.

These groups are small and they move. The same survey had B2C products at 15.5 percent in 2025, against 11.99 percent in 2026. Use them as a range, not a target.

Where the marketing money goes

Paid media is the biggest line and the only one that has grown its share for five years. Technology has shrunk to its lowest share in five years. People and agencies sit in between.

Before you add or cut tools, run a martech audit.

How budgets changed, and what gets cut

Budgets grow slowly, and marketing is where companies cut first. Fewer CMOs say they lack money than three years ago, but more than half still do.

Numbers you will see elsewhere, and the weight they deserve

The pages ranking for this topic repeat a few round numbers. Most carry no source or year, or they date from 2018. Here is how to read each one.

What it means for a business like yours

Start with your own number. Divide last year's marketing cost by last year's revenue. Count the four things Gartner counts: paid media, technology, people and agencies.

My read: the data supports 8 percent as the floor for a business that wants to hold its position. For a business under $25 million in revenue that wants to grow, 10 to 13 percent is where the survey data points. That is a judgment from the tables above. No survey reports it as a target. In a portfolio company, set it inside the 100-day plan after close.

Size moves the number more than industry does. A $5 million company and a $5 billion company should not copy the same percentage. At $100 million in revenue and above, the 2026 averages sit between 5.7 and 9.5 percent. The choice between an in-house team or an agency affects both cost and ownership. The fractional CMO statistics cover a third option.

Most budgets get set once a year. The cheapest time to fix the number is before it is approved. Before you move budget, test whether missing outcomes could reverse the winner. Spend, follow-up and measurement work best as one growth system.

What to check this week

Four checks, one hour. Ask whoever runs your books for the inputs.

1. Divide last year's total marketing cost by last year's revenue. Write the percentage down.
2. Split that cost into paid media, technology, people and agencies. Compare it with the 2026 split: paid media 31.4 percent, technology 19.4 percent, labor 24.5 percent.
3. Ask who owns the number, and what it returned in booked work, not clicks.
4. Pick one target for next year: hold, or step up. Name the person accountable.

How we picked these numbers

We opened every page linked here and wrote down the sample, the year and the exact figure. Primary sources come first. Gartner's press releases and the CMO Survey's own reports carry the argument. Trade press appears only where it reports a primary figure we could not read in the original.

We left out figures with no source, round numbers repeated from page to page, and anything we could not open at the source. That removed several widely quoted software and professional services benchmarks.

Definitions differ, so compare with care. Gartner and the CMO Survey measure total marketing against revenue. SaaS Capital uses recurring revenue. The Intuit survey asked about advertising and excluded labor. Pre-2020 studies appear only in the table above, marked and weighed. You may quote any number here with a link to this page.