How much should an accounting firm spend on marketing? A budget you can set this month

The short answer

A sensible starting point for a small UK accountancy firm that wants to grow is to set aside around 2% to 5% of fee income for marketing, counting both cash and the value of the time you put in. A firm that is happy with its size and only wants to stay visible can sit at the bottom of that range. A firm with a clear growth target, a new office or a new niche should sit at the top.

That range is a rule of thumb, not a standard. There is no published UK benchmark for accountancy firms. The figures that do exist come from surveys of larger firms, and they change a lot depending on whether staff salaries are counted. The rest of this guide shows where the range comes from, what to count, and how to turn a percentage into a monthly number you can actually spend.

What the published figures say

The best-known studies of accounting firm marketing spend come from the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM) and the Hinge Research Institute. They survey firms far larger than a typical UK high-street practice, and report in dollars, so treat them as a guide to proportions rather than a target.

• 2025-26 study, excluding salaries. The 2025-26 AAM Marketing Budget Benchmark Study covered 87 firms with more than $16bn in combined annual revenue. The fastest-growing quarter of firms spent 2.1% of revenue on marketing, excluding compensation. That was double the 1% spent by the other firms in the sample.
• 2017 study, including salaries. The 2017 AAM and Hinge study of 84 accounting firms found average marketing spending of 4.58% of firm revenue when the pay of marketing staff was included.

Put together, those two studies explain the 2% to 5% range. A firm without marketing staff spends little cash, so its spend looks like the first figure. Once you add the hours partners and staff spend on marketing, it looks more like the second. The point to take from the 2025-26 study is the gap: the faster-growing firms spent twice as much of their revenue on marketing as the rest. The study does not show that the extra spend caused the growth, but it is a fair sign that growing firms treat marketing as a fixed cost, not an afterthought.

What counts as marketing spend

Marketing spend is everything you pay, in money or time, to be found, chosen and remembered by people who are not yet clients. Most firms undercount it because the costs sit in different places in the accounts.

• Website: hosting, domain, design work, and any changes you pay a developer to make.
• Software: email tools, social media tools, a CRM or proposal tool if you use it to win new work.
• Paid adverts: Google, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram adverts, directory listings and local press.
• Outside help: agency retainers, freelance writers, designers and photographers.
• Events and sponsorship: tickets, stands, sponsorship of local clubs, and the cost of running a seminar.
• Time: the hours partners and staff spend writing posts, attending networking events and meeting referrers. Value them at what that time would otherwise earn.

Leave out the cost of serving existing clients, such as your engagement letter software or practice management system. Those are running costs, not marketing, even when they make clients happier.

Starter budgets: sole practitioner and small firm

The quickest way to set a budget is to multiply your fee income by a percentage, then split the result into cash and time. The two examples below use 3%, the middle of the range. They are worked examples, not benchmarks: change the inputs to your own figures.

Write the number down and give it its own line in the management accounts. A budget that lives only in a partner's head gets spent on whatever arrives first, such as a directory salesperson's call, and the channels that work get nothing.

How to split the budget across channels

Spend on the channels in the order they usually pay back for an accountancy firm: the cheap ones that work on trust first, and paid reach last. Here is what each one realistically costs.

Referrals and relationships

Referrals from clients and other professionals cost almost nothing in cash and often bring a small firm its best clients, so they come first. The cost is time: coffee with a solicitor or a mortgage broker, a thank-you note, a lunch now and then. Budget a few hours a month and a small amount for hospitality.

Website and search

Your website is where referrals and searchers check you out, so it is the main cash cost for most firms. Budget for keeping it current: a page for each main service and niche, and a yearly refresh of the text. A full rebuild is a one-off cost every few years, so spread it across the years it will last. A complete Google Business Profile is free and belongs in this line too.

Social media

Posting on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram is free; what you pay for is the writing and the consistency. The cost ranges from your own time, through a monthly tool, to a full agency retainer. Our guide to what social media management costs compares the price of each route, so we do not repeat the figures here.

Email

A monthly email to clients, past clients and past enquirers costs little for the number of people it reaches. The cash cost is a basic email tool; the time cost is two to three hours a month to write and send it.

Paid adverts

Adverts are the only channel where spend can rise without limit, so they come last and get a fixed test budget with an end date. Set a monthly limit before you start, keep it small, and measure enquiries, not clicks. Our guide to advertising accounting services covers which platform suits which clients and the rules on what an advert can say.

Doing it yourself, using a tool, or hiring an agency

For the routine work, mainly social posts and email, every firm has three routes. Each one moves the cost between cash and time.

• Do it yourself. No cash cost, but it uses the hours that are scarcest in January and at every VAT quarter end. It suits a firm with a partner who enjoys writing and protects the time.
• Use a tool.A small monthly fee buys back most of the writing time. You still approve what goes out, so it stays in your voice and inside your professional body's rules.
• Hire an agency. The highest cash cost and the least partner time once it is running. Budget for the hours to brief it and check its work, and agree in writing what it will report each month.

Pillr sits in the middle route, built for accountants: it reads your firm's website, drafts posts in your voice, and schedules each one to LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram once you have approved it. There is a free plan with 3 posts a month, Basic at £20 a month for 8 posts, and Professional at £69 a month for 15 posts. If you would rather hand it over completely, the Managed plan is £499 a month and a specialist writes, posts and reports for you. The full list is on the pricing page.

Spending to grow or to stay visible

Your budget should follow what you want the next year to look like, so decide that first.

• Staying the same size. If you have the clients you want and mainly need to replace the ones who leave, aim for the bottom of the range. Keep the website and Google profile current, ask for reviews and referrals, and post steadily.
• Growing or changing direction. If you want more clients, a new niche or a new service line such as payroll or advisory, aim for the top. Add a channel that reaches people who do not know you yet, such as new website pages for the niche or a small advert test.
• A new practice. In the first year or two you have little fee income to take a percentage of, so set a fixed cash amount you can afford instead, and put in more time than an established firm would.

A useful check is to work backwards from the target. Decide how many new clients you want next year, estimate their average annual fee, and ask whether your planned spend is a sensible share of the new fees. If one new monthly client covers a year of your tool costs, the budget is not the thing holding you back.

Review the budget every quarter

Set the budget once a year and review it every quarter. A quarter is long enough for slower channels to show a result, and short enough to stop paying for one that is not working. October and November are a good time to set next year's number, before the January rush leaves no time to think about it.

• Ask every new client how they found you. Add the question to your enquiry form and your first call, and record the answer.
• Compare spend with enquiries by channel. Look at enquiries and new clients, not likes, followers or clicks.
• Move money, do not just cut it. Take budget from a channel that has brought nothing for two quarters and give it to the one that is working.
• Check the time as well as the cash. If the planned hours did not happen, the fix is a tool or outside help, not a bigger budget.

If you want to see what a steady month of posts for your firm would look like before you set aside budget for it, paste your website address on the home page and Pillr will draft some from it.

This guide is general information, not advice on your own circumstances. The studies quoted cover larger firms than most UK practices, so use them as a guide to proportions, not a target.

Questions accountants ask about marketing budgets