How much should an accounting firm spend on marketing?
The right number falls out of two things: what a client is worth to you, and how well your firm turns enquiries into clients. Work back from those. A firm that keeps clients for a decade and converts one enquiry in three can spend far more, and far more safely, than a firm that loses clients in two years and never measures. Start with your own economics, not an average.
There is no magic percentage. Anyone who gives you one without asking about your firm is guessing.
What the benchmarks actually say #
You will see benchmarks quoted, so here are the real ones. The most-cited global figure is Gartner's: in 2026, companies spend an average of 7.8 per cent of revenue on marketing, barely moved from 7.7 per cent the year before. Worth knowing, and worth reading carefully. That average comes from large enterprises overseas, most turning over more than a billion dollars. It is not a target for a ten-partner firm in Perth.
The Australian picture is different. Small firms here typically spend far less, often only two to three per cent of revenue. Read that as a warning if you like, but not as a target either.
Here is the problem with all of these numbers. An average hides the two things that actually decide yours: what a client is worth to your firm, and how much of your marketing leaks before it becomes a client. Two firms the same size can rationally spend five times apart. Use the benchmarks as a sanity-check, then set your number from your own economics. This is the accounting-specific version of a general question; here is how much a professional services firm should spend on marketing.
Start with what a client is worth #
You already think this way about clients. Apply it to your own firm.
Take one client. What do they pay you a year, and for how many years do you keep them? A compliance client at four thousand a year for eight years is thirty-two thousand in fees. That is turnover, not profit, so take it to gross margin. If your margin is a third, that client is worth roughly eleven thousand in contribution.
That number is your ceiling. You can rationally spend a fraction of it to win one client and still come out well ahead. The firm that knows this number spends with confidence. The firm that does not spends with fear, or not at all.
Then look at what it costs you to win one #
Marketing spend only makes sense against a conversion rate.
Ask a plain question. Of the enquiries you got last month, how many became clients, and what did the marketing that produced them cost? Most firms cannot answer, because nobody built the tracking. That is the first thing to fix, and it costs nothing but attention.
Once you can answer it, the budget almost sets itself. If it costs you, say, one thousand dollars of spend to win a client worth eleven thousand in margin, spending more is not a risk. It is the obvious move.
A simple way to set a starting number #
Work forward, not from a percentage.
Decide how many new clients you want this quarter. Multiply by what it costs to win one today. That is your floor. If you do not yet know the cost to win one, start small, measure everything, and let the real number replace the guess within a month or two.
Then sense-check it against the ceiling from earlier. If the plan spends a comfortable slice of the margin those clients bring, it is sound. If it spends more than the clients are worth, the problem is rarely the budget. It is the conversion.
Why the budget is wasted if the firm leaks #
The most expensive mistake is spending more into a system that loses what it catches.
If enquiries sit unanswered until Monday, if there is no follow-up, if nobody knows which channel produced the client, then a bigger budget just buys more waste. Fix the leaks first, and the same spend produces more.
When a business owner asks AI for an accountant, is your firm named?
Where AI recommendation fits #
One more shift worth budgeting for. Buyers now ask AI who is good before they search, and being the named answer costs attention rather than media. It compounds over time rather than stopping when you stop paying. Paid ads bring clients now; AI visibility lowers what you need to spend later. Most firms should do a little of both. See how to get your accounting firm recommended by ChatGPT.
Questions accountants ask #
Isn't there a rule of thumb, like a percentage of revenue?
The most-cited global benchmark is about 7.8 per cent of revenue (Gartner, 2026), though that is a large-enterprise average. Australian small firms typically spend far less, often two to three per cent. Both are context, not targets. They ignore what a client is worth to you and how well you convert, which is what should actually set your number.
We have never tracked cost per client. Where do we start?
Tag every enquiry at the source and follow it through to a signed client. Once you can see cost per client by channel, every budget question gets easier. It is usually the highest-return first step.
Should we spend on ads or on being found by AI?
Both, in proportion. Ads produce enquiries now. AI visibility compounds and lowers your cost to acquire over time. One without the other is either expensive or slow.