Martech budget percentage: the share fell to a five-year low, and what a stack audit looks like now
Martech took a mean 19.4% of marketing budgets in Gartner's 2026 survey, a five-year low from 26.6% in 2021. Here is how to check yours and audit the stack.
Martech, short for marketing technology, took a mean 19.4% of the marketing budget in Gartner's 2026 survey of chief marketing officers (CMOs). That was a five-year low, down from 26.6% in 2021. Yet 62% of the 401 respondents planned to invest more in marketing technology. Most respondents worked at companies with over $1 billion in revenue, so treat the mean as a reference point and test your own share with a stack audit.
What percentage of the marketing budget goes to martech?
The mean share of the marketing budget that went to martech, short for marketing technology, was 19.4% in Gartner's 2026 CMO Spend Survey. That was a five-year low, down from 26.6% in 2021.
Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
The falling share did not mean CMOs were pulling back on intent. In the same survey, 62% of the 401 CMOs who took part were planning to invest more in marketing technology. A smaller slice and a stated plan to spend more can sit together. In our reading, that is what makes the number hard to read in isolation.
Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
| Year | Mean martech share of marketing budget |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 26.6% |
| 2022 | About a quarter |
| 2026 | 19.4% |
Who the 2026 figure describes
Before you set the number against your own, check the sample. Gartner ran the survey January through March 2026 among 401 CMOs and other marketing leaders in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. The vast majority of respondents reported annual revenue of over $1 billion.
The overall pot stayed close to flat. Marketing budgets rose only slightly to 7.8% of company revenue in 2026 from 7.7% in 2025. So the lower martech share came out of a budget that was not shrinking as a share of revenue. More on that ratio is in our marketing budget as a percent of revenue benchmark.
How to place your own share
Take a worked example, not a benchmark: a $40 million marketing budget with $10 million on martech gives a share of 25%, which is 10 divided by 40. That is above the 2026 mean of 19.4% and close to the 2022 level.
A gap like that is a question for the stack audit, not a verdict. Pricing models were moving at the same time: 56% of respondents had increased the share of martech budget on consumption-based pricing in the past year, and 9% had decreased it. Gartner noted that the decline in martech allocation was not necessarily the result of wider adoption of usage-based models. Our digest of the 2026 survey covers the rest of the findings.
Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
The benchmark figures by year, with source, sample and definition
The Gartner CMO Spend Survey reports a mean of what respondents say, so a year-to-year comparison holds only while the question and the sample stay alike. The table sets out what two editions reported about themselves.
| Survey year | Marketing budget as share of revenue | Respondents | Field dates | Countries or regions | Larger companies in the sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 9.5% (Gartner, 2022) | 405 | February through April 2022 | U.S. (38%), U.K. (28%), Canada (9%), Germany (9%), France (7%), Sweden (4%), Denmark (3%), Norway | Seventy-four percent at $1 billion or more |
| 2025 | 7.7% (Gartner, 2025) | 402 | February through March 2025 | North America, the United Kingdom and Europe | Vast majority over $1 billion |
The 2026 edition, covered in the previous section, said budgets have been on a plateau since 2022 and put the current mean 18% lower than the figure four years earlier. It also reported that budgets rose 1.3% since 2025.
Gartner, CMO Spend 2026 | Gartner, 25 June 2026
What the figure measures
The revenue share answers one question. In 2022 it was worded: "What percentage of your revenue is being allocated to your total marketing expense budget in 2022?" The same deck carried a caveat that applies to every row: "Results of this survey do not represent global findings or the market as a whole."
Shares of the budget follow the same logic. Paid media took 30.6% of marketing budgets in 2025 and 31.4% of budgets in 2026. Keep the two denominators apart: a share of revenue and a share of the marketing budget are not interchangeable.
Gartner, Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey Reveals Marketing Budgets Have Flatlined at 7.7% of Overall Company Revenue, 12 May 2025
Gartner, CMO Spend 2026 | Gartner, 25 June 2026
Who answered, and what that means for a smaller company
Both samples lean toward companies with $1 billion or more in revenue. A CMO at a $20M to $200M company is reading a benchmark built mostly by larger peers, with larger fixed costs in headcount and platforms. In our reading, that makes the mean a reference point for a board conversation, not a target.
A worked example, using round inputs rather than a benchmark: at the 2025 mean of 7.7%, a $40 million company would carry a $3.08 million marketing budget. At 10% of the same $40 million, the budget would be $4 million.
The useful board question is which of those two numbers your plan needs, and why. Our marketing budget as a percent of revenue benchmark tracks the series, and the CMO board deck template has a slide for stating the gap.
Why is the martech share of budget falling?
In our reading, the share fell for three reasons that show up in the survey data: total budgets got smaller relative to revenue, paid media took more of what was left, and CMOs moved money between labor, agencies and tools. Pricing models for martech changed too, though, as noted above, Gartner did not treat that as the whole explanation.
Marketing budget as a share of revenue by sector, 2025 (% of revenue)
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| Consumer products | 9.7 % of revenue |
| Manufacturers | 9.5 % of revenue |
| Pharma | 9 % of revenue |
| IT and business services | 5.8 % of revenue |
Budgets shrank, unevenly
The overall drop described earlier hid wide gaps by sector. In the 2025 survey, IT and business services saw marketing budgets go from 9% of company revenue in 2024 to 5.8%. Consumer products moved the other way, to 9.7% from 6.7%, and manufacturers and pharma also rose. Half of the 402 leaders surveyed worked with budgets of 6% or less of revenue.
Chief Marketer, Gartner: 39% of CMOs Plan to Reduce Labor Costs and Cut Agency Allocations - Chief Marketer, 25 May 2025
When the total shrinks, fixed contracts and paid media commitments compete for a smaller pool. In our reading, that squeeze lands on martech renewals first because they are visible line items.
Money moved between lines
Paid media was the only segment that grew its share over five years. In 2025, 39% of CMOs planned to reduce labor costs, and the same share planned to cut agency allocations. Gartner's Ewan McIntyre said CMOs were "going to look to their third-party partners first before they look at their in-house team."
Chief Marketer, Gartner: 39% of CMOs Plan to Reduce Labor Costs and Cut Agency Allocations - Chief Marketer, 25 May 2025
| Budget line | 2025 share of marketing spend | What we would check in an audit (our reading) |
|---|---|---|
| Martech | 22.4% | Seats and licenses with low use |
| Labor | 21.9% | Roles that duplicate tool functions |
| Agencies | 20.7% | Work a tool or staff could absorb |
Figures from the 2025 survey. By 2026, labor had risen to 24.5%, even as 43% of CMOs expected to reduce labor spend. We think part of martech's lost share went to the people needed to run AI tools.
Chief Marketer, Gartner: 39% of CMOs Plan to Reduce Labor Costs and Cut Agency Allocations - Chief Marketer, 25 May 2025
Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
Spending cycles and pricing
Another possible factor: many organizations had already made their major tools-related AI purchases and turned to getting value from them. Usage pricing carried its own cost: half of organizations using it were continually renegotiating contracts to avoid spikes.
Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
As an example, not a benchmark: on a $40 million budget, a 10-point drop in martech share is $4 million that moved somewhere. The audit question for the board is where. Gartner's advice was to cut initiatives not contributing to performance goals, however entrenched. Our board deck template has a slot for that reallocation.
Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
How much of their martech stack do teams use?
Gartner's martech survey asked leaders to estimate, across everything their stack offers, "what percentage of those capabilities are being utilized by your company today?" (chiefmartec). The average answer fell from 58% in 2020, to 42% in 2022, to 33% in 2023 (chiefmartec).
The average self-reported share of martech capabilities in use fell from 58% in 2020 to 33% in 2023.
Self-reported share of martech capabilities used
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 58% |
| 2022 | 42% |
| 2023 | 33% |
What the number is, and what it is not
The figure is a respondent's estimate. It is not a usage log pulled from the tools. Chiefmartec asked whether respondents ran any quantitative analysis or answered on gut feel. Read the series as a sentiment trend among the people who run the stack. Do not read it as an audit result you can put in a board deck as fact.
The barriers respondents named
| Barrier (Gartner 2022) | Share of respondents | Audit check (our reading) |
|---|---|---|
| Overlap among technology solutions | 30% | List every tool by job done and flag duplicates |
| Identifying and recruiting talent to drive adoption | 28% | Name an owner per tool and check the seat is filled |
| Complexity of the martech ecosystem | 27% | Map integrations and count manual handoffs |
Replace the estimate with a measure
Chiefmartec proposed a firmer metric: frequency of use by the number of users who hold a license or seat. It also separated primary users, who should be in a tool often, from secondary users, for whom occasional use is normal.
Here is a worked example, not a benchmark. A tool has 40 seats and 10 of them are primary users. That makes primary users 25% of the seats, or 10 of 40. Judge those 10 on frequency and depth of use. Judge the other 30 on whether they can get what they need when they log in. A low login count among the 30 may be fine. A low count among the 10 is the signal to act on.
We think that only works once utilization is measured from usage data rather than estimated. Otherwise the objective rewards a better guess. For definitions of what counts as martech, start with the glossary entry.
How to compare your own number with the benchmark
Two ratios answer the board's question, and they answer different parts of it. The second shows finance what the business is paying.
Step 1: Build the numerator before you divide
The benchmark only compares if your martech total counts the same things. The same firm lists what it counts as martech: platform licenses, implementation, integrations, admin time, data enrichment, reporting tools, AI tools, training, governance, consulting support, and ongoing maintenance.
pedowitzgroup.com, What's the optimal martech spend percentage?
In our reading, admin time and consulting support are the items most often left out. They usually sit in labor and agency lines. Decide where each one belongs, write it down, and use the same rule every year.
Step 2: Run the two ratios
Here is an example, not a benchmark. A company has a $40M marketing budget and $10M of martech spend, all in.
| Measure | Calculation | Example result |
|---|---|---|
| Martech share of marketing budget | $10M ÷ $40M | 25% |
| Martech share of revenue | 25% × 7.8% | 1.95% |
| Planning range, 20% to 30% of budget | 20% and 30% × $40M | $8M to $12M |
The 7.8% is Gartner's 2026 average, where "today's average budget at just 7.8% of company revenue". If your own budget ratio differs, use your actual figure in the third row.
Gartner, CMO Spend 2026 | Gartner, 25 June 2026
Step 3: Place the result against a range, not a point
Pedowitz describes 20% to 30% of total marketing budget as a practical benchmark. For a company spending about 7% to 8% of revenue on marketing, it says this "often translates to roughly 1.5% to 2.5% of company revenue for martech." The example company, at 1.95%, sits inside that band.
pedowitzgroup.com, What's the optimal martech spend percentage?
A share inside the range does not mean the money is well spent. In our reading, the useful output of this exercise is the gap between what the ratio says and what the audit finds. Teams that report a mid-range share but low use of their tools may be overfunded in practice.
Step 4: Put a date on the next check
The same guidance says to review martech spend at least quarterly and before every major renewal. Keep the four rows above in your board deck and refresh them on that cycle.
pedowitzgroup.com, What's the optimal martech spend percentage?
How do I run a martech stack audit?
An audit is a spreadsheet with one row per tool and a decision at the end of each row. The template below turns that list into columns you can copy.
| Column | What to record | Our working note |
|---|---|---|
| Tool | Product name and the module you license | One row per contract, not per vendor |
| Owner | One named person accountable for value | A team name does not count |
| Annual cost | Total cost of ownership for the year | Licenses plus the other costs below |
| Contract end date | Renewal date from the signed order form | Check the contract, not the invoice |
| Notice period | Days of notice required to cancel or change | Set a reminder ahead of this date |
| Licensed vs. active seats | Seats paid for, seats in use, split by primary and secondary users | Pull from login data |
| Capabilities in use | Features the team relies on each month | List them, skip estimates |
| Overlapping tools | Other tools that do the same job | Name the specific feature |
| Integrations | Systems it sends data to and receives data from | Note what breaks if it goes |
| Call (our reading) | Keep, consolidate or cut | Decide before the notice date |
Fill in the cost and seat columns first
Use the cost definition from the benchmark section: implementation, training and maintenance belong in the annual cost alongside licenses.
For seats, Improvado's detection method is to audit login activity for all MarTech tools and flag licenses inactive for more than 60 days, then right-size subscriptions to active user counts. Before cutting, separate users by role.
improvado.io, Marketing Budget Allocation Guide: AI, ROI & Channel Planning, 28 July 2023
As an example, not a benchmark: a tool with 40 licensed seats and 10 seats inactive past the 60-day flag has 30 active seats. Check whether those 10 belong to secondary users who need occasional access before you remove them.
Treat overlap as a cost line
Overlap rarely appears on an invoice. Fill the overlapping tools column by feature, then add the cost of the redundant tools to a separate total.
Make the call
Its guidance is to reduce duplicated, underused, poorly integrated, or low-impact platforms before approving new technology spend. Keep is a valid answer too: Brinker notes that doing nothing is a possible remedy when a tool delivers value from the features you use.
pedowitzgroup.com, What's the optimal martech spend percentage?
chiefmartec.com, Martech utilization problems: how to diagnose and remedy them, chiefmartec
Which tools should I cut first?
The audit leaves you with a list. This section puts that list in order. The order is our method: cut first where the risk to pipeline is lowest, and finish with the tools that need a process fix rather than a cancellation.
| Order | What goes on the list | The test we apply (our reading) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Duplicated capability | Two tools do one job. Keep the one with a named owner and the working integrations. |
| 2 | Seats with no active users | The audit flagged the seat. Remove it before the renewal count is set. |
| 3 | Renewals inside the next notice window | The contract renews before you can decide. Give notice now, then renew on purpose or not at all. |
| 4 | AI agent add-ons below expectations | No measured business result against the case made at purchase. |
| 5 | Usage-priced tools with no spend oversight | Nobody sees consumption until the invoice arrives. |
Why duplication goes first
In our reading, duplication is often a byproduct of buying suites. In our reading, a suite bought on top of existing point tools is where overlap tends to build up.
Here is a worked example, not a benchmark. In a stack of 40 tools where steps one and two clear 10, steps three to five act on the remaining 30.
The AI agent test
Gartner surveyed 413 marketing technology leaders from June through August 2025. Of those with agents in pilots or production, 45% said vendor-offered agent capabilities did not meet expectations.
Check the cause before you cut. In the same survey, half reported lacking the technical and data stack readiness that agent deployment requires. An add-on that fails on bad data may fail at the next vendor too. Benjamin Bloom of Gartner put the test this way: "business value is the yardstick CMOs should use to evaluate these investments, rather than vendor hype." (Gartner)
Usage-priced tools come last
Usage pricing is growing. In the 2026 survey, 56% had increased their allocation to it and 9% had decreased it. The risk is spend control rather than shelfware: a lack of proper oversight can make these tools cost much more than anticipated.
Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
That is why we put them last. Gartner recommends building oversight into existing processes, and 41% of organizations had set up real-time controls or were doing so. Give each tool an owner and a monthly cap. Cut it only if that oversight cannot be built. Report the cut list in your board deck as savings by step.
Chief Marketer, Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
How do I make the case for keeping a martech tool?
A keep case now has to win against a flat budget. Gartner's 2026 CMO spend research found marketing budgets up 1.3% since 2025. In the same research, 73% of CMOs described the growth expected of them as high, very high or overly ambitious. Every renewal competes with that gap, so the case has to read as a return on capital, not as a description of the tool.
Gartner, CMO Spend 2026 | Gartner, 25 June 2026
Finance has already set the terms. ZoomInfo's guide to martech budgets says CFOs now demand direct attribution to pipeline, CAC (customer acquisition cost) reduction and cycle time improvement, and puts it plainly: "CFOs want payback periods, not feature lists."
ZoomInfo Blog, How to Build a Martech Budget That Proves Its Value
The one-page template
Keep each field to one or two lines. If a field cannot be filled, the tool is not ready for renewal.
| Field | What goes on the page |
|---|---|
| Use case | The job the tool does and the funnel stage it serves |
| Owner | One named person accountable for adoption and the renewal call |
| Adoption target | Seat utilization (active users divided by licensed seats). ZoomInfo treats below 70% as a review trigger |
| Outcome | The marketing-sourced pipeline, CAC or cycle-time metric it moves, with its baseline |
| Full cost | License plus integration, admin, data and training |
| Payback period | Full annual cost divided by monthly contribution |
| Renewal rule | The condition, agreed before the renewal date, that keeps, renegotiates or ends the contract |
Price the full cost, then the payback
The license is rarely the whole bill. In ZoomInfo's illustration, a $50,000 tool needed $30,000 in developer time and $20,000 in ops time, so the real cost was double the license fee.
ZoomInfo Blog, How to Build a Martech Budget That Proves Its Value
Here is a worked example, not a benchmark. A tool with a full annual cost of $40,000 that returns $10,000 a month in gross margin from the pipeline it influences pays back in 4 months. Show the board how the contribution figure was attributed. In our reading, where you can, use a holdout or incrementality test rather than touch-based credit, because a finance team will discount credit it cannot check.
Write the renewal rule in advance
A rule written before the vendor's renewal call keeps the decision from turning into a negotiation about features. A workable form: renew at the current seat count if utilization holds at the target and the outcome metric beats its baseline. If utilization misses, take one of the two options ZoomInfo lays out: invest in enablement or renegotiate the contract to match actual usage. Add a check on depth as well. ZoomInfo reads feature adoption below 50% as a sign of poor fit.
ZoomInfo Blog, How to Build a Martech Budget That Proves Its Value
We think one page per tool, filed with the board deck, does two jobs. It answers the CFO's questions before they are asked. It also shows which tools are funding the growth target and which are only being carried.
What this page does not cover
This page does not compare or evaluate specific martech vendors or tools, and it does not set a martech share for any one company. It does not cover contract negotiation in detail. It is not financial or legal advice: check renewal and cancellation terms with your own finance and legal teams.
Related on CMO Tribune: Marketing budget as a percentage of revenue in 2026, by sector and business model; Average CMO Tenure by Index, Sector and Year; Marketing team size benchmark, as a share of headcount and by revenue band.
Questions
What percentage of marketing budget should go to martech?
Gartner's 2026 survey put the mean martech share at 19.4% of the marketing budget. The Pedowitz Group describes 20% to 30% of total marketing budget as a practical benchmark. For a company spending about 7% to 8% of revenue on marketing, that often comes to roughly 1.5% to 2.5% of company revenue. Treat both figures as a range for a board conversation, not a target.
Why is martech spend falling as a share of marketing budget?
Marketing budgets were on a plateau, at 7.8% of company revenue in 2026 against 7.7% in 2025. Paid media was the only segment that grew its share over five years, and labor rose to 24.5% of spend in 2026. Many organizations had also already made their major artificial intelligence (AI) tool purchases. Gartner noted the decline was not necessarily the result of wider use of usage-based pricing.
How much of the martech stack do marketers actually use?
In Gartner's martech surveys, leaders estimated they used 58% of their stack's capabilities in 2020, 42% in 2022 and 33% in 2023. These are respondent estimates, not usage logs pulled from the tools. The barriers respondents named most often were overlap among tools (30%), finding talent to drive adoption (28%) and the complexity of the martech ecosystem (27%).
How do you run a martech stack audit?
Build a spreadsheet with one row per contract. Record the owner, full annual cost, contract end date, notice period, licensed and active seats, capabilities in use, overlapping tools, integrations, and a keep, consolidate or cut call. Pull seat data from login activity, flag licenses inactive for more than 60 days, and check whether those seats belong to secondary users before removing them. Map tools by feature to find overlap.
Which martech tools should I cut first?
Our order starts with duplicated capability, then seats with no active users, then renewals inside the next notice window. After those come AI agent add-ons that have no measured result against their purchase case, and finally usage-priced tools with no spend oversight. In a Gartner survey of 413 martech leaders, 45% of those using agents said vendor-offered agent capabilities did not meet expectations. Half also lacked data stack readiness, so check the cause before you cut.
How do I justify martech spend to the CFO?
Write a one-page case per tool covering the use case, owner, adoption target, outcome metric, full cost, payback period and a renewal rule agreed in advance. ZoomInfo treats seat utilization below 70% as a review trigger and says chief financial officers (CFOs) want payback periods, not feature lists. Price the full cost: in ZoomInfo's illustration, a $50,000 tool needed $30,000 in developer time and $20,000 in ops time. Show how the contribution was attributed, using a holdout or incrementality test where you can.
Sources
- Gartner CMO Spend Survey: Budgets Reflect Increase in Consumption-Based Martech, Paid Media Spend - Chief Marketer, Chief Marketer, 24 June 2026
- Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey Finds CMOs Allocate 15.3% of Marketing Budgets to AI, But Only 30% Are Ready to Scale AI Capabilities, Gartner, 11 May 2026
- The Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2022: The State of Marketing (webinar deck), Gartner
- Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey Reveals Marketing Budgets Have Flatlined at 7.7% of Overall Company Revenue, Gartner, 12 May 2025
- CMO Spend 2026 | Gartner, Gartner, 25 June 2026
- Gartner: 39% of CMOs Plan to Reduce Labor Costs and Cut Agency Allocations - Chief Marketer, Chief Marketer, 25 May 2025
- Martech utilization problems: how to diagnose and remedy them, chiefmartec, chiefmartec.com
- What's the optimal martech spend percentage?, pedowitzgroup.com
- Marketing Budget Allocation Guide: AI, ROI & Channel Planning, improvado.io, 28 July 2023
- Gartner Survey Finds 45% of Martech Leaders Say Existing Vendor-Offered AI Agents Fail to Meet Their Expectations of Promised Business Performance, Gartner, 29 October 2025
- How to Build a Martech Budget That Proves Its Value, ZoomInfo Blog
Written by the CMO Tribune Desk and edited by Lila Odinaev. Every factual sentence was checked against a passage on the source it cites. See how we work, or report an error on the corrections page.