Worked back from what one customer is worth to you, then checked against the 5% to 10% of revenue band. Every Ziwi price on the result is the published one, and the only performance figures are published averages with their source printed beside them.
This card holds a monthly marketing budget worked back from what one customer is worth to you, split into published Ziwi lines, then checked against the 5% to 10% of revenue band and against published cost-per-lead averages. Nothing is guessed on your behalf and nothing is sent anywhere while you use it.
Every figure is either an answer you gave, a price published on the pricing page, or a published industry average with its source printed beside it.
Answer six questions. What kind of business it is, what a new customer pays you the first time, how many callers become customers, how many more you want a month, roughly what the business brings in, and what is already in place. One question a screen, nothing to pick from a price list, and any question can be skipped.
The budget prints, worked back from one customer. The card you just answered in turns into the receipt: one monthly figure built from what a customer is worth to you, then split into the published lines that fit it, with the ad spend that stays in your own account shown separately from the fee.
Check it, then email it to yourself. The result holds your budget against the 5% to 10% of revenue band and against published cost-per-lead averages, so the page says honestly what it should buy and where it falls short. The link carries your answers, so you can send it to a partner.
A percentage of revenue is borrowed from companies that look nothing like yours. These five are your own.
What a new customer pays you. The first sale, before repeat work. Question two on the card.
The profit left in that sale. What is left after the cost of doing the job. We use the published figure for your trade and say so in words on the result.
How many leads it takes to win one. One divided by your close rate. Winning 2 of every 10 callers means 5 leads per customer.
The most you will spend to win one. A quarter of that profit, which is where most owners settle for a first job. This is the number a marketer has to beat.
How many more you want a month. The growth target everything else multiplies against. It is what turns a per-customer ceiling into a monthly budget.
Anything the budget does not answer gets answered on the call, not after the invoice.
Use 5% to 10% of revenue as a sanity check, not as a budget. Gartner's 2026 CMO Spend Survey puts marketing at 7.8% of revenue for large companies, and Digital Applied's April 2026 guide recommends 12% to 20% for companies under $1 million. Two credible sources, a gap of more than double, which is exactly why the percentage cannot be the starting point. The method behind this calculator is written out in what a small business should spend on marketing.
It works back from one customer. What a new customer pays you the first time, minus the cost of doing the job, gives the profit in that sale. A quarter of that profit is the most you would sensibly spend to win one, which is your ceiling per customer. Multiply that by how many more customers you want each month and you have a budget that pays for itself at your own numbers, not at an average.
Because a fee without spend buys nothing, and a budget that only counts the fee is the oldest way to make marketing look cheap. Ads management is $297 a month with ad spend up to $1,500, $497 with $1,500 to $3,500 in spend and $797 above $3,500, and the spend itself is paid straight to Google or Meta on your own card. It stays in your account and so does the data. The fee is explained line by line in what Google Ads management costs.
They are published industry averages, never Ziwi results. Google figures come from WordStream and LocaliQ, Google Ads Benchmarks 2026, and Meta figures from LocaliQ, Facebook Advertising Benchmarks, October 2025. Both print on the result beside the number they produced, with the trade they belong to. What a lead costs in your own market moves with your offer, your season and your competition, which is why the result says a range and says what varies. The Meta side is broken down in what Facebook ads management costs.
Then the page says so. Under about $500 a month the honest answer is one channel done properly rather than ads that never get enough spend to learn: Local SEO Essentials at $297 a month per location, with reviews at $197 a month when the budget carries it. And if the ceiling per lead lands under the published averages, the fix is the close rate or what a first sale is worth, not a bigger budget. The rungs above Essentials are priced in what local SEO costs.
Every Ziwi figure on the result is the published price off the pricing page. A discovery call confirms what to run first, it does not reprice the work, and there is no calculator-only discount hiding in here. Everything is month to month with 30-day cancellation.
Then the result prints it as a one-time line, outside the monthly figure: the build is $0 when you start an ongoing plan and keep it 12 months, against a published $1,000 for a designed template. Google Business Profile setup is $450 once. The website side has its own tool: the website cost calculator.
No. The figure, every line, the sources and the sanity check print on this page for free. The email form is only there if you want the budget in writing to forward to a partner or a bookkeeper.