STUDIO
What you make and decide
How much, and where.
The question that gets answered by instinct in most brands. A guided planner that works from your objectives, your channels and your actual numbers, with a sustainability mode when that matters to the brief.
What Budget Planner is
Budget Planner is a guided wizard for the earliest question in any campaign: how much to spend and how to split it. It works from your objective, your channels and your own numbers rather than a generic benchmark, and produces an allocation you can take into a media plan. It includes a sustainability mode for brands who need environmental impact considered alongside cost and reach. There is also a free public version of this tool, which needs no account.
The problem
The split is a guess that nobody revisits.
Most channel splits were decided once, in a meeting, by whoever had the strongest opinion, and then inherited quarter after quarter because changing them requires an argument. The result is a budget shaped by history rather than by the objective in front of you, which is how brands end up spending against a channel mix that made sense two years ago.
What you get
What the planner does
Starts from the objective
What you are trying to achieve, not what you spent last quarter. Most budget arguments are lost at this step.
Objective first
Channel allocation with the reasoning
A split you can defend in a review, because the logic behind each number is written down beside it.
Defensible
Sustainability mode
When the brief calls for it, allocation weighted toward lower-impact choices, with the trade-off stated rather than hidden.
When it matters
A free version on this site
The planner runs publicly without an account, because a tool that helps you before you buy anything is worth more than a gated demo.
No account needed
In practice
A split with the reasoning attached
There is a free version of this on the site that needs no account and gives a real recommendation. The platform version adds your own segments, your history and a route into a media plan.
Coverage
What it plans across
| Input | What it does with it |
|---|---|
| Objective | Awareness, consideration or sales, which changes the split materially |
| Total budget | The constraint everything else is fitted to |
| Available channels | Only the ones you can actually run, not a theoretical list |
| Audience segments | From Audience Intelligence, so reach estimates are grounded |
| Historical performance | What has worked for you before, where that data exists |
| Sustainability weighting | Optional, for brands with environmental criteria in the brief |
Where it connects
Where the output goes
- Media Planning takes the allocation as the starting structure for a plan.
- Ads Manager runs the platform-level budgets the split implies.
- Audience Intelligence grounds reach estimates in your real segments rather than platform averages.
- Analytics shows what the split actually delivered, which is how the next one gets better.
Read next
Going deeper on this
Questions
Budget Planner, answered
Is the free version really free?
Yes, and no account is needed. It is on this site: the Paid Ads Budget Advisor.
Does it work for channels other than Meta and LinkedIn?
The platform version does. The free public tool covers Meta and LinkedIn, which is where most growth-stage consumer budget sits.
What is sustainability mode?
It weights environmental impact alongside cost and reach when allocating. It is optional and off by default.
How accurate are the expected outcomes?
They are estimates, and they get better once your own performance data is connected. We would rather show a range than a false precision.
Try the free version first.
The Paid Ads Budget Advisor on this site gives a real recommendation with no account. Come to a demo when you want it grounded in your own numbers.