Ad Budget Calculator
Most businesses get the total right and the allocation wrong. Enter your monthly budget below and see how it should be split — with the channels it can't properly fund cut out rather than starved.
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Split your ad budget
Set a monthly budget, pick what you're trying to achieve, and tick the channels you're considering. The calculator scores each one, weights the split toward the strongest, and cuts anything that would land below the spend it needs to work.
Suggested split
2 channels, each above its minimum viable spend — so each one can actually get out of the learning phase.
Cut from the plan
- Google Display & Demand Gen — Display's floor is low because impressions are cheap, but under it you can't even keep a retargeting pool warm — which is the one thing display is reliably good at.
- TikTok — TikTok burns through creative faster than any other platform. The budget has to cover several concepts at once, not one ad shown repeatedly.
This is the framework above, applied. It weighs objective fit, audience, and minimum viable spend — the planner inside PromoGoat also weighs your industry, existing platform presence, creative assets, and live cost data, and returns the campaign structure to go with the split.
The Real Budget Problem
When most people ask “how much should I spend on ads?”, they're asking the wrong question. The amount matters — but HOW you split it matters more.
A $1,000 monthly budget spread equally across 5 platforms gives each channel $200. On most platforms, that's not enough to generate meaningful data, optimise campaigns, or see real results. You end up spending $1,000 and learning nothing.
The real question isn't how much — it's how to allocate it so every channel in your plan has enough budget to actually succeed.
Want to see how your budget should be split? →Why Budget Dilution Kills Campaigns
Every advertising platform needs a minimum level of spend to:
Generate enough impressions to reach your audience
Collect enough data to optimise targeting and creative
Exit the learning phase where the platform is still figuring out who to show your ads to
When you spread budget too thin across too many channels, none of them get past this threshold. You don't get bad results — you get no results. And then you conclude that digital advertising doesn't work, when the real problem was allocation.
This is why professional media planners never just pick channels — they score them, rank them, and ensure every channel in the plan has enough budget to deliver. If a channel can't justify its minimum spend, it gets cut. Better to do 2 channels well than 5 channels badly.
What Each Platform Actually Needs
These are working floors, not official platform minimums — the point below which a channel stops producing anything you can learn from. They are the numbers the calculator above enforces.
| Channel | Minimum / month | Why that floor |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search | $500 | Search needs enough clicks per month to find which keywords convert. Under a few hundred dollars you buy traffic but never enough data to cut the losing terms. |
| Meta (Facebook & Instagram) | $400 | Meta's delivery system needs roughly 50 conversions per ad set per week to leave the learning phase. Thin budgets keep every campaign permanently learning. |
| TikTok | $500 | TikTok burns through creative faster than any other platform. The budget has to cover several concepts at once, not one ad shown repeatedly. |
| YouTube | $750 | Video reach is bought in volume. A small YouTube budget produces a handful of skipped impressions and no measurable lift. |
| $1,000 | LinkedIn CPCs run 3–5× other platforms. A budget that would buy 500 clicks on Meta buys barely 100 here — not enough to judge anything. | |
| Google Display & Demand Gen | $300 | Display's floor is low because impressions are cheap, but under it you can't even keep a retargeting pool warm — which is the one thing display is reliably good at. |
| Programmatic | $2,000 | Quality programmatic inventory sits behind platform and publisher minimums. Below them you are buying remnant placements at premium prices. |
If your total budget is smaller than the floor of every channel you were considering, that is useful information — it means the plan is one channel, not four. Deciding which one is what the platform comparison is for.
The Smart Way to Allocate Budget
Here's how experienced planners approach budget allocation:
Step 1: Score each channel against your objectives
Not all channels serve all goals equally. A channel that's great for awareness might be poor for direct response. Each channel gets scored based on how well it fits what you're trying to achieve.
Step 2: Factor in your specific context
Your industry, your audience demographics, the platforms you already have a presence on, and the type of creative you can produce all affect which channels will work hardest for you.
Step 3: Allocate budget proportionally by score
The channels that score highest get the largest share. But not linearly — the allocation uses weighted scoring so that strong channels get more, but mid-tier channels still get a fair allocation if they make the cut.
Step 4: Enforce minimum viable spend
Any channel that can't justify a minimum allocation gets removed from the plan. The budget is redistributed to the channels that remain. This is the critical step most people skip — and it's why their campaigns underperform.
This isn't guesswork. It's a scoring model. And it's exactly what PromoGoat automates.
Three Budgets, Three Different Answers
The framework produces genuinely different shapes at different budget levels. Not the same plan scaled up — a different plan.
$500 / month
Local service business, wants enquiries
Google Search — 100%
At this level a split is the mistake. $500 on search buys a few hundred clicks against high-intent keywords, which is enough to learn which terms produce enquiries. The same $500 across search, Meta and TikTok buys nothing conclusive anywhere.
$2,500 / month
Consumer ecommerce brand, wants sales
Meta — 55% · Google Search — 35% · Display retargeting — 10%
Two working channels plus a cheap retargeting layer. Meta creates the demand and does the prospecting, search catches the people it sent looking, and a small display budget keeps the retargeting pool warm. Everything here clears its floor.
$10,000 / month
B2B software company, wants qualified leads
LinkedIn — 40% · Google Search — 35% · YouTube — 15% · Display retargeting — 10%
Only at this level does LinkedIn's premium CPC make sense, and only here is there room for a consideration channel like YouTube alongside the two channels doing the direct work. Below roughly $4,000 the same plan would spread LinkedIn too thin to judge.
Five Ways Budget Allocation Goes Wrong
Almost every underperforming plan we see makes at least one of these.
Splitting evenly across channels
An equal split assumes every channel contributes equally, which is never true. The channel that best fits your objective should take a disproportionate share — not an equal one.
Adding a channel because a competitor is on it
You are seeing their channel choice, not their results or their budget. A competitor spending $50,000 on YouTube tells you nothing about whether $800 of YouTube works for you.
Ignoring the cost of creative
Video-first channels need a stream of new creative, not one asset. If the budget covers the media but not the production, the channel stalls after two weeks.
Treating the split as permanent
The first allocation is a hypothesis. After 4–6 weeks you have real cost-per-result data, and the budget should move toward whatever is working — while still respecting each channel's floor.
Cutting a channel before it left the learning phase
Judging a channel after ten conversions is judging noise. Either fund it past its minimum for long enough to read the result, or don't start it.
How PromoGoat's Planning Algorithm Does This
You can apply this framework manually — or you can let PromoGoat do it in minutes.
Tell us about your campaign
Objectives, industry, audience, total budget, and which platforms you already use.
The planning algorithm scores every viable channel
Weighing objective fit, audience penetration, creative requirements, and your existing platform presence.
Channels that don't score high enough get cut
Budget concentrates on what works.
The algorithm splits your budget
Ensuring every channel has enough to deliver results. No dilution. No wasted spend.
You get a full plan
Channels, exact budget per channel, creative specs, and timing.
It's the same logic an experienced media planner uses — but systematised, consistent, and available in 3 minutes for €29/month. See how it works →
Frequently Asked Questions
Next: turn the split into a campaign
Stop splitting your budget by gut feel.
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