How much should your agency spend on marketing?
Stop measuring your marketing against other agents. Businesses at large put 7.8% to 9% of their revenue into marketing [3][4], and UK marketing budgets are rising at their fastest rate in over two years [6]. Enter your figures to see your budget in pounds, what it has to win back, and where every pound should go.
Example agency: £450,000 sales, £150,000 lettings. Enter yours.
£0a month
Where it should go
Split across the five areas House of Marque builds marketing around, in the order they are built. Gaps get more of the budget. How the split works.
+14.3%
Net balance of UK companies that raised their marketing budgets in Q3 2026, the highest since Q2 2024 [6]
Businesses are spending more on marketing. Agents should be measured against them.
UK advertising investment is forecast to reach £51.3 billion in 2026, up 9.9%, and to grow a further 6.5% in 2027 [7]. Every business competing for your sellers' attention is spending more to get it.
Comparing yourself with other agents only keeps you level with them. This calculator sets your target against businesses that treat marketing as an investment.
Five areas, built in order
The split is not a guess. It follows the five areas House of Marque builds marketing around, with one rule applied the same way to every agency.
| Starting weight | 15, 20, 20, 25, 20 |
|---|---|
| An area that is not yet working | × 1.5 |
| Creating demand, by ambition | × 1, 1.25, 1.5 |
- 01
Getting the foundations right
Positioning, brand, website and tracking where every instruction comes from. If this is a gap it comes first, because every other pound depends on it.
- 02
Saying something worth hearing
Useful content, social, video and local PR in a voice that is recognisably yours. Sellers notice the agent with something to say.
- 03
Being found
Local search, AI answers and reviews. Sellers check you here before they ever pick up the phone.
- 04
Creating demand
Paid search and social advertising, targeted letters and valuation campaigns. The area that scales fastest with ambition.
- 05
Staying front of mind
Past clients, applicants and landlords already in your system. Zoopla found 30% of sellers chose an agent they had used before [8].
What businesses at large spend
The calculator's three levels come straight from these figures. Portal fees are a cost of listing and sit outside them.
| Benchmark | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Average marketing budget, 2026 | 7.8% of company revenue, up from 7.7% in 2025 | Gartner CMO Spend Survey, May 2026 [3] |
| Average marketing budget, 2026 | 9.0% of company revenue | The CMO Survey, March 2026 [4] |
| Best-equipped marketing teams | 11% of company revenue, the top 9% of respondents | Gartner, reported June 2026 [5] |
| UK companies raising budgets | Net balance of +14.3% in Q3 2026 | IPA Bellwether, October 2026 [6] |
| UK advertising investment | +9.9% in 2026 to £51.3bn, then +6.5% in 2027 | AA/WARC, October 2026 [7] |
Most companies in the Gartner and CMO Survey samples are large, and the CMO Survey is US-based. That is the point: they are the businesses competing for your sellers' attention, and they set their budgets by what it takes to grow.
Want us to check your budget?
Send us your figures and one of the two founders will look over your budget and reply personally with what they would change first.
No obligation, and your figures stay with us.
About the calculator
How much should an estate agent spend on marketing?
Set it against what businesses at large spend, not against other agents. Gartner puts the average marketing budget at 7.8% of company revenue in 2026 [3]. The CMO Survey puts it at 9.0% [4]. The best-equipped marketing teams in Gartner's survey averaged 11% [5]. Portal fees sit outside those figures.
Why not compare with other estate agents?
Because matching your competitors only keeps you level with them. The calculator benchmarks you against businesses that treat marketing as an investment, so the target is what it takes to win, not what the agent down the road spends.
Are marketing budgets going up?
In pounds, yes. A net 14.3% of UK companies revised their marketing budgets up in the third quarter of 2026, the highest level since the second quarter of 2024 [6]. UK advertising investment is forecast to grow 9.9% in 2026 and a further 6.5% in 2027 [7].
Should portal fees count as marketing spend?
No. Portal fees are a cost of listing a property, paid whether or not you win the next instruction. The calculator keeps them separate and, if your figure includes them, takes them out for you.
Where does the split come from?
From the five areas House of Marque builds marketing around for property businesses, in the order they are built. Each area starts with a fixed weighting. Anything not yet working for you weighs half as much again, and creating demand scales with your ambition. The rule is the same for every agency, so the answer changes only when your answers do.
What does fee income mean?
Your sales commission and lettings income for the last 12 months, before costs and excluding VAT. Use invoiced fees rather than agreed fees still waiting to complete.
Do you store what I type into the calculator?
No. The calculator runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere unless you choose to ask us to check your budget.
Know your number. Now spend it well.
Book a free 30-minute discovery call with House of Marque. One of the two founders will go through your budget and tell you where they would put the first pound.
No spam. No automated phone system. Just us.
Sources
- Property Industry Eye, Higher house prices drive up estate agent fees, 17 March 2026, reporting GetAgent research (average fee per sale across Great Britain, excluding VAT, Q4 2025).
- Rightmove plc, Half-year financial report for the six months ended 30 June 2026, 31 July 2026 (average revenue per advertiser, agency).
- Gartner, Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey, 11 May 2026 (401 marketing leaders in North America, the UK and Europe, surveyed January to March 2026; most at companies with revenue above $1 billion).
- Duke University Fuqua School of Business, The CMO Survey, CMOs face headwinds even as marketing value and AI impact grow, 31 March 2026 (308 marketing leaders at US companies, surveyed January 2026).
- Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: budgets reflect increase in consumption-based martech, paid media spend, 24 June 2026, reporting the Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey.
- IPA, UK companies revise marketing budgets up to highest level in over two years, reveals Q3 2026 IPA Bellwether Report, 15 October 2026 (around 300 UK companies).
- Advanced Television, Forecast: UK ad spend to reach record £14bn in Q4, 29 October 2026, reporting the Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report.
- Zoopla, What really matters when choosing an estate agent in 2025, 14 August 2025.