Building an Informed Marketing Budget: Part 3 – One-Time Costs and Budget Strategy

by Jamie Rinehart on Jun 11, 2025

Welcome to the final installment of our three-part series on building an informed marketing budget. In Part 1, we broke down the core recurring components of a strong digital marketing plan. Part 2 helped you evaluate how much you should be spending based on industry benchmarks and your business goals. Now, in Part 3, we’ll walk through how to account for one-time costs, make strategic choices between in-house vs. agency resources, and craft a marketing budget that actually drives results instead of just tracking spend.

One-Time Marketing Costs to Budget For

In addition to ongoing costs, don’t forget to budget for periodic or one-time marketing investments. These are larger projects that occur occasionally (perhaps every few years or as needed) but can significantly impact your budget in the year they occur. Two of the most common examples:

Website Redesign or Overhaul: Your website is the cornerstone of digital marketing. Every few years, or as your company evolves, you may need to redesign the site or add major new capabilities. This is typically a substantial one-time cost. Typical Cost: Website redesign costs span a huge range depending on complexity. For a small business website with a simple design (say under 50 pages), a basic refresh might cost on the order of $3,000–$5,000 for largely cosmetic updates. However, a more thorough redesign involving new layouts, updated infrastructure, and significant content changes can run $10,000–$20,000+. Industry surveys show that in 2025, a full small-business website overhaul can range from around $1,000 (very basic updates) up to $30,000 for a large-scale revamp with added features (). Medium-sized companies (50–150 page sites, perhaps with multiple integrations) might see redesign costs in the $20k–$40k range. Custom design, interactive elements, and hiring a top-tier agency can push costs higher. It’s important to scope your needs: do you need a brand-new site from scratch, or just a visual refresh? Budget accordingly and get quotes. And remember to account for website content migrations, testing, and launch in the cost – those are often included but can add labor. A website redesign is a big-ticket item, but it usually only comes around every few years; view it as a marketing investment that, if done right, will improve conversion rates and support your strategy for the long term.

New Functionality (e-commerce, interactive tools, etc.): Sometimes you don’t need a full redesign, but you want to add a major feature to your marketing arsenal. This could be integrating an e-commerce module into your site (to start selling online), building a customer portal, adding an interactive product configurator or cost calculator, etc. These development projects are one-time (or occasional) costs to plan for. Typical Cost: It depends on the feature, but adding robust functionality isn’t cheap. For instance, integrating e-commerce capabilities into an existing website can easily start around $5,000 and go up from there. If you use a platform plugin (like adding a Shopify or WooCommerce store), software licensing might be minor, but the development and design to make it work smoothly could be several thousand dollars. A fully custom online store or complex tool can run into five figures. According to one guide, simply adding a secure shopping cart and payment system tends to begin at about $5k and rises with complexity (inventory integration, etc.). Likewise, creating a custom interactive tool (say a product customizer or an ROI calculator for your clients) might be a project costing anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000 depending on requirements. The good news is these are one-time development expenses. Once built, you just must budget a bit for maintenance. Just be sure to include these big items in your annual budget planning when they’re on the horizon, so they don’t come as a surprise. It can also pay to get multiple quotes or consider phased approaches (perhaps piloting a smaller tool before a huge build) to manage costs.

Note: Don’t forget occasional traditional marketing costs as well. For example, a rebranding initiative (new logos, brand collateral) or a big trade show event (booth design, travel, etc.) could be significant one-off expenses each year. While this blog focuses on digital, include those in your budget projections if they apply, as they can impact how much remains for other marketing efforts.

Agency vs. In-House: The Value of a Unified Digital Marketing Team

As you budget for marketing activities, one strategic consideration is how you execute your marketing. Do you hire internal staff for each specialty or outsource to an agency? This has huge budget implications. For many organizations, working with a digital marketing agency or outsourced team can be far more cost-efficient than building an in-house team of specialists, especially when you need a broad range of skills.

Consider the annual cost of a fully staffed in-house marketing team. If you wanted experts covering all the bases, you might hire: a marketing manager, a content writer, a graphic designer, an SEO specialist, a social media manager, an email marketer, and a digital ads (PPC) specialist. Salaries for those roles add up quickly. For example, an SEO specialist might command $50–80k, a good content writer $40–70k, a marketing manager $80k+, and so on (). A realistic range for a 7-person in-house marketing team is around $360,000 to $600,000 per year in salary alone () and that’s before benefits, software, and overhead costs for those employees. In fact, when you factor in benefits and taxes, companies often add another ~20%+ on top of salaries (). Not every business will hire this many marketers, of course, but it illustrates how hiring even a few full-time specialists can consume a budget fast.

By contrast, partnering with a digital marketing agency can give you access to all those skills at a fraction of the cost. Many agencies offer full-service packages covering SEO, SEM, social media, content, web design, and more via a team of experts. You’re essentially sharing the cost of that expert team with the agency’s other clients. For example, a small marketing agency might charge $4,000–$10,000 per month for a comprehensive retainer covering multiple services. Even at the higher end, that’s ~$120k per year, which is equivalent to maybe two mid-level in-house salaries – far less than the cost of a whole team. Some agencies or consultants can be even more affordable, or you might scale the engagement up or down as needed (many offer packages in the ~$3k–$8k/month range for small to mid-sized businesses). In other words, you could get a team of specialized professionals (strategist, designer, writer, SEO, etc.) for about the cost of one or two full-time hires.

Beyond cost savings, working with an agency offers other efficiencies:

• Multi-disciplinary Expertise: An agency brings a ready-made team. You instantly get a breadth of skills without having to recruit for each role. This is especially useful if your marketing needs are diverse (website updates, Google Ads management, graphic design, analytics, all in one). You’re not relying on one “marketing generalist” in-house to do everything (which is risky, as no single person can be expert at all facets).
• Avoiding Capacity Issues: With an agency, you can scale your engagement. Need to ramp up for a product launch? The agency can allocate more resources (without you having to hire extra staff). Conversely, if you need to tighten budget, you can reduce the scope – something that’s harder to do with full-time employees. It offers flexibility project by project.
• Latest Tools & Techniques: Agencies that specialize in digital marketing invest in the latest tools, ad platforms, and training. They spread those tool costs across clients. As a client, you benefit from sophisticated software (SEO tools, marketing automation, reporting dashboards) without directly paying for all of them. And the agency team stays up to date on trends (algorithm changes, new ad features) as part of their day-to-day work.
• Focus on Strategy and Results: By outsourcing execution to a trusted agency, your internal team (maybe you, the owner or a small marketing department) can focus more on high-level strategy and other business needs. The agency handles the heavy lifting of campaign implementation and optimization, reporting back on performance. You avoid getting bogged down in hiring or training for every niche skill.

Of course, there are trade-offs. In-house staff are immersed in your brand 24/7 and can react at a moment’s notice internally. But for many organizations, the cost-benefit of an agency is compelling. Instead of spending hundreds of thousands on multiple salaries, you could allocate maybe a five-figure annual sum (within your marketing budget) to an agency and still get strong results. For instance, one study noted a thought leadership marketing agency might cost ~$120k/year, whereas building an in-house content team would far exceed that.

The bottom line: when planning your marketing budget, factor in personnel/resources costs. If your budget wouldn’t comfortably cover a full team of specialists, working with an agency (or a mix of a lean internal team plus agency support) can maximize your budget’s impact. It allows you to execute a multi-channel digital strategy without the fixed expense of each specialist in-house. Many clients find they get better ROI by leveraging an agency’s expertise and only paying for the portion of each expert’s time that they actually need, rather than a full salary.

Plan, Prioritize, and Be Strategic

Setting a realistic marketing budget is all about balancing benchmarks with your company’s unique situation. Use industry standards as a starting point. For example, if you’re a healthcare company and only spending 2% of revenue on marketing, you’re likely under-investing relative to peers. On the other hand, a nonprofit might aim for 10% of its budget on marketing if growth is a priority. Align your budget with your growth goals: new companies or product launches may need a higher percentage to build awareness, whereas an established brand might maintain with a bit less.

Within your budget, prioritize core ongoing activities (SEO, content, ad campaigns, etc.) to ensure you have consistent market presence. Allocate a portion to digital – in most industries today, at least half of your marketing efforts will be digital, if not more). That’s where you can often get the most measurable returns. But also leave room for those one-time projects (website improvements, new creative campaigns) that set the stage for future success. It’s wise to set aside contingency funds as well, marketing always involves some experimentation and having 5–10% of the budget flexible for testing new channels or handling “surprise” opportunities can make a big difference.

Finally, remember that investing in marketing is investing in growth. As the saying goes, you must spend money to make money, the key is spending it smartly. Whether you leverage an agency to extend your capabilities or build an internal team, ensure you’re spending enough to genuinely move the needle. A well-planned budget, informed by industry norms and tailored to your strategy, will help you avoid the common pitfall of either overspending with little direction or underspending and stagnating. By planning ahead and understanding typical costs, you can approach your next fiscal year with confidence knowing your marketing budget is both realistic and strategic for the results you need.

About Jamie Rinehart

Jamie leverages his 19+ years of Digital Marketing and Advertising account management experience to help new Trivera clients develop strategic digital marketing plans that will help them achieve their business and brand goals.

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