Let’s get the awkward answer out of the way first.
It depends. I know.You hate that answer. So do I.
So let me give you a more useful one. The honest answer is: less than the gurus tell you, more than zero, and the right number is the one you can run consistently for at least 90 days without panicking.
Here’s the actual breakdown.
Below £5/day: some would say don’t bother
I know this is going to upset some people. But Meta needs data to optimise and money buys data. Tiny budgets make it very hard for Meta to be successful as it can’t learn who your customers are very well. ! The chances are that you’ll spend three months proving the ads “don’t work” when really you just never gave them enough fuel to do their job.BUT, where I slightly differ is that if you only have £3 a day, I still think you can get *some* success. But you need to go into it with your eyes open. This needs to be treated simply as getting more eyeballs on your business than you would if you spent nothing. It’s unlikely to bring you any volume of leads or sales but it’s better than nothing as a beginners budget.
I have a client right now that is spending £3 a day and has made almost £100k in the last 18 months! But, she is a bit of a unicorn because of how her business works. My point is, I would have been someone historically who said don’t spend less than £5 a day but I’ve had to eat humble pie!
If £5/day is genuinely the maximum you can afford right now, that’s ok. This can still help get your business visible but again, this will be about getting your business in front of MORE of your ideal customer in a really predictable way.
£5–£10/day (£150–£300/month): the testing budget
This is where most small businesses would ideally start. Enough for Meta to optimise. Not so much that one bad week wipes you out. What you can realistically do at this level:- One simple campaign
- Two creative options
- Simple targeting (don’t get clever)
- Build a small retargeting audience over time
- Generate real data on whether your offer is converting
What you can’t do:
- Test 10 different audiences
- Run multiple campaigns simultaneously
- Get “scaling-style” results
- Get loads of sales/leads. These are more expensive!
If your offer converts well, this budget can absolutely generate enquiries, sales, or list signups. Just don’t expect it to make you Pretty Little Thing in a quarter.
£10–£30/day (£300–£900/month): the working budget
At this level, ads can start being a real channel for your business. You’ve got enough to test creative more often, run a basic retargeting layer, and survive a slow week without panicking.This is where most service-based small businesses I see settle once ads are actually working for them. It’s enough to generate consistent leads without being so much that you’re stressed every time you check the dashboard.
You can run:
- One main acquisition campaign
- One retargeting campaign
- Two-to-four creative variations rotating in
- A monthly budget review without ulcers
£30+/day (£900+/month): the scaling budget
If you’re consistently profitable at the £10-£30/day level and you’ve got the operational capacity to handle more leads or sales, this is where you start scaling.Don’t get here too fast. I see businesses jump straight to £50/day before they’ve proven £10/day works. That’s an expensive way to find out your landing page is broken.
Scale your spend when:
- The ads have been consistently profitable for 60+ days
- You can handle the extra workload from more leads
- Your operations don’t fall over when sales double
The number you actually need
Whatever your spend, the rule that matters more than the amount is consistency.£10/day for 90 days will teach you more about your business than £40/day for 30 days. Meta needs runway. Your customers need to see your ads multiple times before they convert. Your data needs time to stabilise.
If you can only afford to run ads consistently for one month, I’m not going to say don’t start…..but treat it as a test to see if they can work for your business. And if they do? Save up to run for three months.
What about agencies and “experts” who say you need £1k+ a month?
For many businesses that’s 100% true. If you are an ecomm business, this is the BASE level of budget. For alot of small businesses I work with, it isn’t.Anyone telling you that you “need” a four or five-figure monthly spend before ads can work for you is usually either selling you services priced to that spend level, or running an ecom playbook that doesn’t apply to your service business.
The actual minimum is the spend where Meta has enough data to optimise (£5+/day) and you have enough patience to let it run for a decent amount of time. That’s it.
So what should YOU spend?
A simple decision rule:– If you’ve never run ads: start at £5-£10/day for a minimum of 30 days – ideally 90. £450-£900 total. That’s your first proper test.
-If you’ve run ads and they “kind of worked”: increase to £15-£20/day and commit to another 90 days.
– If they’ve been profitable for 60+ days at your current level: increase by 25%, not 100%. Slow and steady.
Don’t bet the farm. Don’t starve the campaign. Find the boring middle and run consistently.
That’s the whole answer.
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