Calculating Your Marketing Budgets: A Plumber’s Guide to Smarter Growth

Hey, Tyler Williams here—founder of Mammoth Marketing for Plumbers, where we help plumbing companies get their phones ringing and their calendars packed. Today, I want to have a real conversation about something most businesses struggle with: calculating your marketing budgets.

I’ve seen folks crash and burn because they went too hard, too fast. And others? They never got off the ground because they never put enough fuel in the tank. So, I’m going to walk you through some simple formulas, real-life examples, and a whole lot of practical advice that’ll help you make sense of it all.

Let’s dive in.

Why Marketing Budgets Matter (And How to Avoid Going Broke)

Look, taking your revenue and investing it into marketing is an awesome move... unless you do it wrong.

Too many companies go all-in—blowing 50% of their revenue on marketing in the first month—thinking they’ll double it next month. Spoiler alert: that’s not how marketing works. This isn’t a casino. It takes time to build trust, momentum, and a real presence in your market.

The truth is, marketing is a long game. You need strategy, sustainability, and just a dash of patience. Think of it like plumbing: you wouldn’t try to blast a pipe open with a firehose if a wrench would’ve done the trick. Let’s find that wrench.

The Golden Rule: Marketing Budgets Come From Revenue

This might sound obvious, but let’s spell it out. Your marketing budget should be a percentage of your revenue. That means it’s not just about Google ads or social media. It includes:

• Agency fees

• Van wraps

• Business cards

• Uniforms

• SEO

• Basically anything that helps get and keep customers
  

But here’s the tricky part: don’t go dumping half your revenue into marketing thinking it’ll magically double next month. Your community has to get to know you first. People don’t trust strangers with wrenches.

Recommended Marketing Budget Percentages for Plumbers

Let’s talk real numbers. Here are the budget ranges I recommend:

• 5% of revenue: This is your maintenance mode. Great if you’re not looking to grow much.
  

• 10% of revenue: This is your growth budget. It's where I like to hang out.
  

• 15%+ of revenue: Possible, but risky. Most companies struggle to go this high without hurting day-to-day operations.
  

Now, if you’re young, scrappy, and don’t have a family relying on your income yet—you might be able to go higher. Just don’t forget to eat and pay the electric bill, alright?

Your Pricing Impacts Your Budget Success

Here’s a dirty little truth no one talks about: low average tickets kill your marketing budget.

If you’re charging too little for each job, you won’t have enough margin to reinvest into marketing. That’s when the company starts drying up. And no, duct tape won’t fix that leak.

Higher average tickets mean more room for marketing, which means more customers, which means… you guessed it—more money. Circle of life, plumbing edition.

Budgeting Based on Your Business Stage

Let’s say you’re a year in and made $500K last year. You’ve got data now. Use it.

At a 10% budget, that’s $50,000 a year, or around $4,160 per month.

• That might sound like a lot if you’re brand new.
  

• It might sound like chump change if you’ve been around.
  

But marketing is like feeding a machine. It needs fuel. Eventually, your monthly budget will be in the tens of thousands just to sustain growth. That’s not crazy—it’s normal.

Avoid the Agency Fee Trap

Oh man, this one gets me fired up.

Too many plumbing businesses get sucked into bloated agency packages. You know the ones—big promises, tiny results. Suddenly, 50% of your marketing budget is going to "management fees" and there’s barely anything left for actual advertising.

Here’s the rule of thumb:

• Don’t spend more than 40% of your marketing budget on agency fees.
  

• The rest should go to actual platform spends—Google, Facebook, mailers, etc.
  

• If you’re doing SEO or website hosting, that’s a bit different, but the principle still stands: be smart and ask questions.
  

At Mammoth, we pride ourselves on being stewards of your budget. We’ll even tell you when you’re not ready for our full services. No shame in starting small and growing smart.

Set Goals and Spend Toward the Future

Here’s the thing: too many people budget for what they did, not what they want to do.

Let’s say you want to grow from $500K to $750K this year. That means you can’t keep marketing like a $500K company. You need to act like a $750K company.

That might mean upping your marketing to $6,250/month (that’s 10% of $750K). Spend into the future you want to build—not the past you’ve already survived.

Pro tip: review your budget every few months. If you’re killing it, raise it. If you’re bleeding, pull it back a bit. Simple.

Think Monthly: The Reality of Ad Budget Planning

Marketers—like me—work in months. We need consistency to do our best work. Why?

Because platforms like Google and Facebook reward frequency. You need to be seen again and again for people to even remember you, let alone call you.

That means if your annual budget is $50,000, break it into $4,160/month. Consistency beats chaos every time.

Advertising vs. Trust: The Hidden Climb

This part is huge. When you advertise, you’re not just selling plumbing—you’re selling trust.

And trust doesn’t happen overnight. Word-of-mouth customers come with trust already installed. But cold traffic? They don’t know if you’re the cleanest plumber in town or a guy with a wrench and a five-o’clock shadow who may or may not show up on time.

That’s why I tell clients to give a platform 3–6 months. That’s how long it takes for people to see you enough times to feel like, “Hey, I think I’ve seen this company before—they must be legit.”

Budget Planning Timeline: Give It 6 Months

The best thing you can do is plan your budget across 6 months. Why?

• It gives you breathing room
  

• It lets your ads build momentum
  

• It gives your agency (hopefully us!) time to optimize
  

Even if you're just starting out, don’t blow everything in 30 days. Marketing is not an espresso shot—it’s a slow drip.

Real Talk: Want Our Help?

If all this feels like a lot, it’s because it is. Budgeting is one of the trickiest, most misunderstood parts of business growth. But you don’t have to go it alone.

If you want the Tyler Williams crew to take a look at your business and tell you what you should be focusing on—head over to tylerwilliams.net and book a free consultation. We only work with plumbers, so if you’re a fence painter, we’re gonna kindly wave you off like a polite bouncer at a black-tie event.

Thanks for hanging out! I hope this article gave you clarity, a few laughs, and a whole lot of value.

Need help calculating your marketing budgets or planning your growth strategy?
👉 Schedule a consultation with me at TylerWilliams.net. Let’s get your marketing working for you—not against you.