Marketing Cost Per Day Calculator
Enter your monthly or yearly marketing spend and working days per week — get the dollar amount to bake into every day rate so marketing pays for itself.
Recover Your Marketing Spend Across Working Days
Enter your marketing spend (monthly or yearly) and the number of days you work per week — get the dollar amount to bake into every day rate. As long as you work every day, you cover your marketing budget. It's a rough rule of thumb, not exact accounting — but it's the simplest way to make sure marketing isn't silently eating your profit.
Marketing Spend
Total across all marketing channels — Google Ads, SEO, social, print, anything that drives leads.
Your Business Volume
Drives the per-day, per-job, and per-area outputs. Set the ones that matter for how you price; leave the rest at their defaults.
Enter your marketing spend above to see what to add per day, per job, and per ft².
This is a rule-of-thumb amount to bake into pricing — not exact accounting. Assumes 52 working weeks per year and that you actually work the days you said you would. Pair it with the Marketing ROI Calculator to decide how much you should be spending in the first place.
How the Marketing Cost Per Day Calculator Works
- Pick whether you're entering Monthly or Yearly marketing cost — the toggle switches the input.
- Enter the spend amount across all marketing channels (Google Ads, SEO, print, social, anything that drives leads).
- Enter how many days a week you typically work — most contractors are 5, some are 5.5 or 6.
- Read the headline: Marketing Cost Per Working Day. Add this to your day rate (or quote line) and you'll recover your spend.
- Use the supplementary per-week, per-month, per-year figures as a sanity check or for higher-level pricing.
Examples
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this calculator work?
It's simple: total annual marketing spend ÷ total working days per year. Working days per year = days per week × 52. So $2,000/month × 12 = $24,000/year. At 5 days/week that's 260 working days, and $24,000 ÷ 260 = $92.31 per day.
Why not divide by months or jobs instead?
You can — but most contractors quote in days or hours, so per-day is the most useful unit for pricing. If you quote per job or per m²/sqft, divide the headline figure by your average job size to get a per-unit recovery rate.
What if I don't work every day?
The calculator assumes you DO work every day you set as "working days per week." If you actually work 4 out of 5 days, you'll need to recover more per day than the calculator shows — increase your figure by ~25% (5/4 = 1.25) to compensate. Or just enter your actual realistic working days per week (e.g. 4 instead of 5).
Does this include weeks I take off?
No — it assumes 52 weeks of work. If you take 4 weeks off per year, your effective working days are closer to 240 (5 × 48), so the per-day figure should be ~8% higher. For most contractors the difference is small enough that the 52-week approximation is fine.
How does this relate to the Marketing ROI Calculator?
The ROI calculator tells you whether your marketing spend is profitable (revenue from leads ≥ spend). This calculator tells you how to bake the spend into your quoting so you don't bleed cash while the leads come in. Use them together — ROI to set the budget, this calc to recover it.
Should I add this to every quote line as a "marketing fee"?
No — keep it hidden in your day rate or overall pricing. Customers don't want to see "marketing fee $92" on a quote. Roll it into your overhead allocation alongside insurance, vehicle, etc.
Important Notes
- The result is the per-day amount to recover marketing spend — add it to your standard day rate or overhead allocation.
- Treat this as a rule of thumb, not exact accounting. It assumes 52 working weeks per year and consistent daily work.
- For contractors who quote per m² or per job, divide the per-day figure by your average job's daily area or duration.
- Update the number whenever your marketing spend changes — increasing spend without lifting your day rate eats directly into profit.
- Pair with the Marketing ROI Calculator to decide how much you SHOULD be spending, then use this to recover it.