It is the first question almost every business owner asks us, and the honest answer is that there is no universal number. What matters is matching your budget to your goal, your margins, and the data the platform needs to do its job. Here is how we think about it.
Start with the goal, not the number
Before talking dollars, get clear on what a result is worth to you. If a new customer is worth $200 in profit, a $40 cost per lead is a bargain. If your average sale is $30, the math is very different. Your budget should be a function of what you can profitably pay to acquire a customer, not a round number that feels comfortable.
A realistic starting range
For most small and mid-sized businesses, we recommend a minimum of around $1,000 to $1,500 per month in ad spend, on top of management. Below that, the platform simply does not get enough data to optimize, and you spend the whole month stuck in the learning phase.
That figure scales with your market. A national e-commerce brand needs more. A local service business in one city can often start lean.
The testing phase is not wasted money
The first two to four weeks are about learning, not scaling. You are paying to discover which audiences, hooks, and creatives actually convert. Expect your cost per result to be higher at the start and to drop as the data sharpens. Judging a campaign in its first week is the most common, and most expensive, mistake we see.
When to scale
Once you have a few winning creatives and a cost per result that works against your margins, you scale deliberately. Raising budgets too fast resets the learning phase and spikes your costs. Steady, measured increases keep performance stable while you grow.
The bottom line
Budget enough to escape the learning phase, give it time to optimize, and tie every decision back to what a customer is actually worth to you. If you are not sure where to start, that is exactly what a free strategy call is for.