The question I’m asked most often as a paid media specialist is: how much should I spend? So when thinking about something useful I could build with Claude, the idea of a digital budget calculator came to mind.
Step 1 is a simple budget model based on a “percent of revenue” calculation. According to Gartner’s survey of 402 CMOs in 2025, the average marketing budget as a percentage of total revenue is 7.7%. Claude’s ‘training data’ puts it at 5–12% for B2C and 6–10% for B2B.
Step 2 takes things a bit further and gives you the option to input details about your business so you can estimate what that budget in Step 1 might return. I think this gets at the crux of the question when people ask for a recommended ad budget. Because at the end of the day, how much you should spend is dependent on what what you get in return for that investment.
Some knowledge of your market is needed in Step 3 to make the projections more accurate, since they are based on estimated CPMs and CTRs. If you’re able to plug in these metrics from your own digital reports, the tool will give you a ballpark idea of what you might get in return for your budget and help you decide how much you should spend on online advertising.
Have use for something like this? Play around with it and let me know what you think. I welcome any feedback you might have to make it better. Hope you find it helpful.
Digital Media Budget Calculator
Plan and allocate your digital advertising spend across channels. Get projections based on your goals and industry benchmarks.