If you need one rough number to start planning with in 2026, 8% of annual revenue is a useful reference point, not a target.
Two current marketing-leader surveys land close to that level. The CMO Survey's 2026 Topline Report reports marketing expenses averaging 8.96% of company revenue among 154 valid responses to that question. Gartner's 2026 CMO Spend Survey reports average marketing budgets of 7.8% of company revenue. Together, they make roughly 8% a reasonable planning anchor when you need a number to work from.
That does not mean every small business should spend 8%. Neither survey is a Canadian small-business recommendation. Gartner says the vast majority of its 401 respondents worked at companies with more than US$1 billion in annual revenue, and The CMO Survey covers marketing leaders at for-profit U.S. companies. The value of the 8% number is orientation: it gives you a current reference point to compare with your own situation.
For Canadian context, BDC gives a broader rule of thumb of 2-5% of revenue for B2B businesses and 5-10% for B2C businesses, while also stressing that there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
Here is what a few common percentages mean in dollars:
Annual revenue | 5% of revenue | 8% of revenue | 10% of revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
C$100,000 | C$5,000/year | C$8,000/year | C$10,000/year |
C$250,000 | C$12,500/year | C$20,000/year | C$25,000/year |
C$500,000 | C$25,000/year | C$40,000/year | C$50,000/year |
C$1,000,000 | C$50,000/year | C$80,000/year | C$100,000/year |
C$2,000,000 | C$100,000/year | C$160,000/year | C$200,000/year |
Those figures are arithmetic, not recommendations. The next step is to figure out which part of the benchmark evidence is relevant to your business and what your real all-in spend already is.
Because a benchmark can be useful without being a rule. The current evidence does not converge on one perfect percentage. It gives several reference points from different populations.
Source | 2026 / current reference | What to keep in mind |
|---|---|---|
The CMO Survey | 8.96% mean of company revenue | The same 2026 report shows a 5% median, so the average is not the same thing as a typical company. |
Gartner CMO Spend Survey | 7.8% of company revenue | Gartner's 2026 sample was 401 CMOs and marketing leaders, with the vast majority at companies above US$1B in annual revenue. |
BDC | 2-5% B2B; 5-10% B2C | Canadian business guidance and a useful broad rule of thumb, not a prescribed budget. |
The CMO Survey is especially useful for showing why a single average can mislead. Its 2026 revenue-share question had a mean of 8.96% and a median of 5%. The same report shows responses ranging from 0% to 42.99%. In other words, companies with very different spending patterns are being compressed into one average.
That is why 8% works better as a planning anchor than as a verdict. It gives you a number to model. The BDC ranges give you Canadian business context. Your own economics and operating situation determine whether the range you eventually choose should sit below, around, or above those reference points.
Before comparing your business with any percentage, make sure you are counting the same kind of thing. A marketing budget is more than media spend. It can include four broad buckets:
Website work, brand and identity assets, photography, service pages, customer research, local listings, measurement setup, and other one-time or durable marketing assets.
Writing, design, video, social content, email production, website updates, search work, campaign management, reporting, strategy, freelancers, specialists, agencies, and relevant internal staff time.
Paid search, paid social, sponsorships, print, direct mail, events, marketplace fees, and other costs of putting marketing in front of people.
Email software, hosting, CRM and scheduling tools, analytics software, printing, photography or video production, locations, talent, and other third-party costs required to keep the work running.
This matters because two businesses can both say they spend C$40,000 on marketing while counting completely different things. One may mean media only. Another may be including its website, agency, software, production, and the time of an internal marketing employee.
If you are comparing your spend with a revenue percentage, use the closest thing you can get to the all-in annual marketing cost. If some costs are unknown, mark them as unknown instead of treating them as zero.
If outside help is a significant part of that total, provider fees, project costs, retainers, and what may sit outside a quoted fee are a different question from the total budget this article is answering.
Marketing help can range from a small one-time expense to several thousand dollars a month. Compare the scope, responsibilities, separate costs, and ownership before comparing the price.
Start with two numbers you probably already know or can estimate: approximate annual revenue and approximate annual marketing spend, including the categories above.
Current marketing-spend percentage = annual marketing spend / annual revenue x 100
For example, C$30,000 of annual marketing spend on C$500,000 of revenue is 6%. C$50,000 on the same revenue is 10%. Now compare your percentage with the reference points, but do not turn the comparison into an automatic recommendation.
There may be room to invest more, but that does not mean you should. A referral-driven business with enough demand, a business at capacity, or a company with weak customer economics may have good reasons to sit below a benchmark. The useful question is whether there is a worthwhile opportunity that additional marketing could fund.
Your total spend is not obviously unusual. That still tells you almost nothing about whether the money is going to the right things. A reasonable total can be badly allocated, and a strong existing setup may deserve to stay exactly where it is.
Investigate the reason before calling it waste. A new market, location launch, major website or rebrand project, unusually strong customer lifetime value, aggressive growth plan, or temporary campaign can all push a year above a benchmark. The question is what should be preserved, reduced, redirected, or allowed to return to a lower level later.
That is useful information too. Before deciding whether the business spends too much or too little, get visibility into the costs spread across media accounts, software, vendors, production, internal labour, and one-time projects. The percentage is a diagnostic starting point. It is not the diagnosis.
Benchmarks become more useful when you know what can legitimately move you away from them.
Capacity can lower the sensible budget. If calls go unanswered, appointments are full, quotes take too long, or the team cannot serve additional demand, more promotion can make the customer experience worse. Holding spend steady while fixing a sales or operational bottleneck may be the better move.
If the business is not winning enough new customers, “we need more marketing” is an easy conclusion to reach. It is not always the right one.
A growth event can raise the budget temporarily. Entering a new market, opening a location, launching a new offer, or rebuilding a major marketing asset may justify a year that sits above the normal range.
Customer economics change what the business can support. A repeat customer with high lifetime value can support a different acquisition investment from a one-time, low-margin sale.
Referral strength can reduce the amount of paid demand generation you need. If the business already receives enough profitable demand from referrals or existing relationships, spending more simply to match an average would be poor budgeting.
Seasonality can make the annual percentage look smooth when the real spending pattern is not. Some businesses need concentrated investment around a selling season, launch window, or event cycle.
B2B and B2C labels are only approximations. Mixed businesses do not fit cleanly into one BDC range, and even businesses within the same category can have very different sales cycles, margins, and marketing requirements.
Missing costs distort the comparison. A business that excludes internal staff time, software, production, or agency fees from its marketing budget may look lean only because the accounting boundary is different.
A benchmark is most useful when it makes you ask why your number is where it is.
Take two companies with the same C$500,000 in annual revenue. An 8% planning anchor gives both of them the same arithmetic starting point: C$40,000 per year, or about C$3,333 per month.
A commercial cleaning company that mainly sells to other businesses can compare that C$40,000 figure with BDC's 2-5% B2B reference, which works out to C$10,000-C$25,000 per year. The 8% anchor is therefore not evidence that this company should spend C$40,000. It is a prompt to explain why a higher or lower envelope would make sense for its growth goals, margins, current demand, and capacity.
A retailer with the same revenue can compare the C$40,000 figure with BDC's 5-10% B2C reference, or C$25,000-C$50,000 per year. Here, 8% falls inside the broad BDC range, but that still does not make C$40,000 automatically correct.
Same revenue. Same 8% arithmetic. Different planning context. The percentage gets you to a budget envelope. It does not decide what belongs inside the envelope.
You do not need to choose one benchmark and obey it. Build a range you can explain.
The result is not a "correct" marketing percentage. It is a defensible planning range based on current benchmarks and the realities of your business.
Once spending starts, the next question becomes whether the investment is producing useful business signals.
If you are putting time or money into marketing, the useful question is whether more of the right people are finding you, contacting you, and becoming customers—and where that path starts to break down.
This article should leave you with three things: your current marketing-spend percentage, a set of credible external reference points, and a working lower-to-upper budget range you can explain.
It should not tell every business to spend more. It should not tell a business above 8% that it is wasting money. It should not tell a business below 8% that it is underinvesting. And it should not tell you to replace marketing that is already doing its job.
The unresolved question is different: given the budget available and what the business already has in place, what should be funded first, what can stay DIY, what should be kept, and what may be premature?
That is an allocation and order-of-operations question, not a percentage question.
Take the working budget range you established here and use the Marketing Spend Checklist to map the next decision: what should already exist, what can be done for free or in-house, what may deserve paid support next, what should remain in place, and what can wait.
If an article helped you identify the problem but the next step is still fuzzy, tell us what you are working through and we can start there.
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If you are putting time or money into marketing, the useful question is whether more of the right people are finding you, contacting you, and becoming customers—and where that path starts to break down.
If the business is not winning enough new customers, “we need more marketing” is an easy conclusion to reach. It is not always the right one.
Marketing help can range from a small one-time expense to several thousand dollars a month. Compare the scope, responsibilities, separate costs, and ownership before comparing the price.