Content Marketing Budget: What It Covers, How Much to Spend & How to Build One
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Working out how much to spend on content can feel like guesswork, but it doesn't have to be. A content marketing budget is the money a business sets aside specifically for creating, distributing and measuring its content. This guide covers what a content marketing budget is, what it covers, how much to spend (with UK figures), how to build one, and how to measure the return.
A quick note on the figures below: budget benchmarks vary widely by source, company size and industry, so treat them as starting points, not rules. Every figure here is attributed to its source so you can judge it for yourself.
What Is a Content Marketing Budget?
A content marketing budget is the money a business sets aside specifically for creating, distributing and measuring content, things like blog posts, videos, infographics, ebooks and social content. It's the financial plan behind your content efforts.
It's worth distinguishing from the wider marketing budget. Your total marketing budget covers everything: paid advertising, events, tools, salaries and more. The content marketing budget is the slice of that dedicated to content specifically. Keeping it as a distinct line makes your content spend deliberate and measurable rather than something absorbed invisibly into general marketing.
What Does a Content Marketing Budget Cover?
A content marketing budget covers more than just writing. The main cost lines are:
- Content creation: writing, design, video and other production.
- People: in-house staff, freelancers or agencies who produce the work.
- Tools and software: SEO, analytics and scheduling platforms.
- Paid distribution and promotion: putting spend behind content to reach more people.
- Miscellaneous and production: stock imagery, equipment and other one-off costs.
Design sits squarely within content creation, and it's often underweighted. Well-produced visuals, infographics, ebooks and social graphics are a real and worthwhile line in any content budget.
How Much Should You Spend on Content Marketing?
There's no single right number, but benchmarks give you a starting point. The usual approach works in two layers: first decide your overall marketing budget as a share of revenue, then decide how much of that goes to content.
On the overall figure, marketing budgets averaged 7.7% of company revenue in 2025 — flat for a second year running — according to Gartner's 2025 CMO Spend Survey. The CMO Survey from Deloitte, Duke and the AMA puts it higher, at 9.4% of revenue (up from 7.7% in 2024), with the gap largely down to who each survey asks: Gartner samples large enterprises, while the CMO Survey includes smaller firms, which tend to spend a higher share of revenue on marketing. As a rough rule of thumb, 7 to 10% of revenue on total marketing is a common mid-point, though it varies enormously by size and growth stage.
On content's share of that marketing budget, estimates vary widely. In the Content Marketing Institute's annual B2B content marketing benchmarks, just under half of B2B marketers (48%) put less than 10% of their marketing budget into content, 29% spend between 10% and 24%, and about a quarter (24%) spend a fourth or more (excluding salaries). The wide spread reflects how differently companies define and prioritise content, which is exactly why these are starting points rather than targets.
The honest summary: the right figure depends on your size, stage and industry. Early-stage and high-growth companies typically spend a much higher share of revenue on marketing than mature ones, and spending varies sharply by business type — the same CMO Survey data shows B2C product companies invest the most as a share of revenue, while B2B product companies invest the least:
Source: The CMO Survey (Deloitte, Duke and the AMA), 2025.
Content marketing budgets in the UK
UK benchmarks broadly track the international picture. Gartner's CMO Spend Survey spans North America, the UK and Europe, so its 7.7% figure includes UK respondents. For UK-specific tracking, the IPA's Q1 2026 Bellwether Report is the most widely cited read on quarterly trends: it recorded a net +7.3% of UK companies revising marketing budgets upward in early 2026 — the strongest upward revision in almost two years — with events and video leading the increases. As ever, your own goals and sector matter more than any national average.
How to Break Down & Allocate Your Budget
Once you know the total, you split it across cost lines and channels. There's no universal split, but a sensible starting point looks like this.
This is illustrative, not a fixed rule. The right allocation shifts with your goals: awareness-led campaigns lean more towards creation and reach, while performance-led goals push more into paid distribution. B2B, with its longer buying cycle, typically weights more towards thought-leadership content that builds trust over time.
How to Create a Content Marketing Budget (Step by Step)
Here's a simple process for building one from scratch.
- Set your goals and KPIs. Decide what the content must achieve and the numbers that prove it.
- Work backward from your goals. Forecast what it'll take to hit them rather than guessing a figure first. Reverse-engineering from targets is more reliable than picking a percentage and hoping.
- List your cost lines. Creation, people, tools and promotion, as above.
- Decide your delivery model. In-house, freelance, agency or subscription (covered next), since this drives most of the cost.
- Allocate across channels and content types. Split the budget according to your goals.
- Build in flexibility and a review cadence. Leave room to adjust, and schedule regular reviews so the budget responds to what's working.
In-House vs Freelance vs Agency vs Subscription
How you resource content is usually the biggest cost decision, and there are four main models.
- In-house: a salaried team gives you full control and deep brand knowledge, but it's the highest fixed cost and limited by the team's capacity.
- Freelance: flexible and often cost-effective for one-off work, though availability and consistency can vary.
- Agency: access to a full team and strategic expertise, but typically the most expensive option and often on longer contracts.
- Subscription (flat-rate): a fixed monthly fee for ongoing work, which makes the cost predictable and scalable without hiring. This is the model we run for design, and it suits steady, high-volume needs; it's less suited to one-off projects.
There's no universally "right" model; it depends on your volume, budget and how much you need in-house. Many teams mix them, for example, an in-house strategist with outsourced design and production.
How to Stretch a Smaller Content Budget
If your budget is tight, a few tactics make it go further.
- Repurpose your content. Turn one strong asset into many: a blog into a carousel, a webinar into clips, a report into an infographic.
- Focus on your highest-ROI channels first. Do one or two channels well rather than spreading a small budget thinly across all of them.
- Prioritise conversion. Improving how well your existing content converts often beats producing more of it.
- Encourage referrals and user-generated content. Low-cost reach that also builds trust.
Budgets by Business Type
The right approach shifts with the kind of business you are.
- Small businesses and startups: keep it lean and repurpose-heavy; consistency on a few channels beats spreading thin.
- B2B companies: expect a longer funnel, so weight towards thought leadership and trust-building content (this is the area we most often support).
- Non-profits: focus on low-cost, high-trust content like storytelling and impact reporting.
How to Measure Content Marketing ROI
You measure content ROI by tracking what your spend produces against your goals. The metrics that matter most are traffic (reach), leads and conversions (action), revenue attribution (money), and organic rankings (long-term visibility). Free tools like GA4 and Google Search Console cover the essentials.
One important caveat: content ROI compounds. A blog post or guide can keep generating traffic and leads for years after it's published, so judging content purely on immediate returns understates its value. It behaves more like a long-term asset than a one-off ad spend.
Make Every Pound of Your Budget Work Harder
A large share of any content budget goes on design and production, and that's a line you can make predictable. A flat-rate design subscription turns variable design costs into a fixed monthly figure and removes the cost and commitment of hiring in-house, which is exactly where we fit in for B2B marketing teams.
See Design Cloud's pricing or book a demo to see how a flat monthly fee could simplify your content budget.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a content marketing budget?
A content marketing budget is the money a business sets aside specifically for creating, distributing and measuring content, such as blog posts, videos, infographics and social media. It's a distinct slice of the wider marketing budget, focused on content, which makes that spend deliberate and easier to measure rather than absorbed into general marketing costs.
How much should I spend on content marketing?
There's no single right figure. A common approach is to set your total marketing budget at roughly 7 to 10% of revenue (Gartner's 2025 CMO Spend Survey reports an average of 7.7%), then allocate a share of that to content. In the Content Marketing Institute's B2B benchmarks, just under half of marketers put under 10% of their marketing budget into content, while about a quarter spend 25% or more (excluding salaries).
What percentage of revenue should go to content marketing?
It depends on your size, stage and industry. Overall marketing budgets average around 7.7% of revenue (Gartner, 2025), with content taking a portion of that. Early-stage and high-growth companies often spend a much higher share of revenue on marketing than mature firms, and the share varies by business type (the CMO Survey puts B2C product companies highest and B2B product companies lowest). Treat benchmarks as starting points.
What's included in a content marketing budget?
A content marketing budget covers content creation (writing, design, video), the people who produce it (in-house, freelance or agency), tools and software (SEO, analytics, scheduling), paid distribution and promotion, and miscellaneous production costs like stock imagery. Design is a real and often underweighted line within content creation.
Should I hire an agency, freelancer, or build in-house?
It depends on your volume, budget and how much control you need. In-house gives control but is the highest fixed cost; freelancers are flexible but less consistent; agencies offer full teams at a premium; and flat-rate subscriptions make ongoing costs predictable and scalable. Many teams blend models, such as an in-house strategist with outsourced design and production.
Building a Budget That Works
A content marketing budget makes your content spend deliberate and measurable: you decide what it covers, how much to commit, how to split it, and how you'll prove the return. The best next step is to start with your goals and a benchmark percentage, then build out the cost lines from there.
Want to make the design line of your budget predictable? See how Design Cloud works for marketing teams, or check our pricing.
