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Ad budget calculator

Work backwards from a customer target to the monthly ad budget it takes - with the revenue and ROAS that budget should return.

$
$
Monthly ad budget
$30,000
EXPECTED REVENUE
$39,800
BLENDED ROAS
1.3×
Plan on CAC and payback, not ROAS alone - retention decides the real return.

Runs in your browser. This sizes media at your target CAC; remember health accounts also need budget for 30–60 fresh creatives a month to hold that CAC. Target-CAC and creative-volume ranges come from our 2026 health-vertical benchmarks.

How the ad budget calculation works

Your monthly ad budget is a function of two numbers: how many customers you want and what each one costs to acquire. Set the target, use a realistic CAC for your vertical, and the budget follows.

  1. Set your monthly customer target. Decide how many new customers or patients you want to acquire this month.
  2. Enter your target CAC. Use your current customer acquisition cost, or a benchmark CAC for your vertical.
  3. Multiply target by CAC. Ad budget = target new customers × CAC. 200 customers at a $150 CAC needs about $30,000 in monthly acquisition spend.

One caveat health brands miss: media is not the whole budget. Holding a benchmark CAC in a policed vertical takes 30-60 fresh, compliant creatives a month; running five to ten typically pushes CAC 40-80% higher. Plan on CAC and payback rather than ROAS - a strong ROAS that ignores retention and margin still loses money in subscription health. Once you have a budget, sanity-check the unit economics with the LTV:CAC calculator, and judge the result on blended CAC, not one platform's claimed number.

FAQ

Budget = target new customers × CAC. To hit 200 customers at a $150 CAC, you need roughly $30,000 in acquisition spend for the period.

Plan on CAC and payback for subscription models, since ROAS ignores retention and margin. Use ROAS as a top-line efficiency check, not the target you optimize to.

In health, holding benchmark CAC takes 30–60 fresh creatives a month; running 5–10 typically pushes CAC 40–80% over. Budget for creative volume, not just media.

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