What should a contractor spend on marketing?
Hiring & Budget — answered straight, by an operator who builds these systems rather than an agency selling them.
Commonly cited ranges for established service businesses fall between 5% and 10% of revenue, with newer businesses or those entering a new market spending more. The useful version is bottom-up: cost per booked job times the jobs you need.
The longer version
Percentage rules break down at the edges. A business at capacity with a two-month backlog should be spending less and raising prices; a business with idle crews should be spending more than any percentage suggests, because idle capacity is the most expensive thing on the books.
Split the budget between channels that produce now and channels that compound. Ads and LSAs deliver this month. Website, SEO, reviews, and the customer database deliver for years. Funding only the first means the cost per lead never comes down.
More on hiring & budget
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