At a Certain Point, Marketing Needs Structure
When your home service business crosses the million-dollar revenue mark, everything changes. You are no longer just trying to stay busy. You are trying to grow on purpose, manage demand, hire the right people, and maintain a consistent flow of work across multiple crews or service areas.
This is when marketing can no longer be reactive. You need a plan, a budget, and a system. That does not mean you have to spend like a national brand. It means you have to spend with intent.
In this article, we will walk through what a typical marketing budget looks like for a contractor doing over $1 million in annual revenue. Not based on theory, based on what works.
The Right Budget Range for a $1M Contractor
For most service businesses in this revenue tier, the marketing sweet spot falls between six and eight percent of annual revenue. That means if you are doing $1.2 million a year, your monthly marketing spend is likely in the range of $6,000 to $8,000.
This level of investment allows you to generate leads consistently, build a brand presence, and maintain visibility across key platforms. It also gives you enough room to track performance, optimize campaigns, and experiment without putting cash flow at risk.
What matters more than the total dollar amount is how those dollars are distributed.
How High-Growth Contractors Allocate Their Spend
A strong marketing budget for a $1M+ contractor is balanced across short-term lead generation, long-term brand growth, and operational support. Here is a breakdown of how that often looks in practice:
- 30 to 40 percent goes toward paid advertising. This includes Google Ads, Local Services Ads, and remarketing campaigns focused on generating immediate leads.
- 20 to 30 percent supports organic visibility through SEO and content. This may include ongoing site optimization, blog content, link building, and technical SEO improvements.
- 10 to 15 percent is invested in reputation and reviews. This often covers review automation platforms, customer follow-up processes, and branded materials that build trust.
- 10 to 15 percent goes to creative and design work—landing pages, website improvements, ad graphics, and email templates.
- The remaining 10 percent or so supports reporting, tracking, and vendor management, including tools like call tracking, CRMs, and performance reviews.
This kind of distribution ensures that your budget is not overly dependent on one channel. It also means that as certain channels begin to outperform, you have the flexibility to shift resources accordingly.
Marketing Spend Should Scale with Your Goals, Not Just Your Revenue
A million-dollar business that wants to maintain its current size may spend at the lower end of the range. A contractor targeting new trucks, new markets, or higher-ticket work will spend closer to ten percent—sometimes more—because they are fueling growth, not just preserving momentum.
This is where budgeting becomes a leadership function. Owners who set growth targets without adjusting their marketing budgets are often left wondering why the jobs do not follow. Growth requires visibility. Visibility requires investment.
The Big Shift: From “Leads” to “Pipeline”
At this stage, the goal of marketing is not just volume. It is consistency. You are not trying to chase spikes in demand. You are trying to create a reliable, trackable pipeline that keeps your team booked and your revenue predictable.
That means budgeting for more than clicks. It means investing in the full system—ads, SEO, follow-up, reviews, conversion tracking, and process improvement.
The most successful $1M+ contractors understand this. They do not just spend on marketing. They manage it.
The Budget Is the Start of the Strategy, Not the End
Setting the right budget is important. But what you do with it matters more.
The best contractors are not necessarily spending the most. They are spending with purpose, reviewing results monthly, and aligning their marketing with what the business actually needs next. Whether that is more leads, better jobs, or a stronger hiring pipeline, the budget follows the strategy.
If you are over the million-dollar mark and still treating marketing like a fixed expense instead of a growth tool, this is the time to evolve.
