Budget pacing calculator

Enter a monthly budget, how far into the month you are, and what has been spent. You get expected spend, variance, and where the month lands if nothing changes.

The formula

Budget pacing compares what has been spent against what should have been spent by this point in the month. Three lines of arithmetic:

daily budget  = monthly budget / 30.4
expected      = daily budget * days elapsed
variance %    = (actual - expected) / expected * 100

A positive variance means overspending. A negative one means underspending, which costs a client just as much: budget that does not get spent does not get results, and an under-delivered month is a renewal risk rather than a saving.

Why 30.4 and not the actual month

30.4 is the average length of a month across a year. Using it means the daily budget is stable no matter which month you are in, which is what you want when you are comparing clients side by side.

It also means the expected line is never exactly right for the month you are actually in. In a 31-day month the synthetic month is shorter, so expected spend reads about 1.9 per cent low. In February it is longer, so expected spend reads about 8.6 per cent high. Neither is large enough to change a decision, and both are large enough that you should know before you quote a number to a client.

Adswave uses the same constant, so the number above is the number the product shows you.

Doing this for every client

One client is a calculator. Twelve is a spreadsheet you have to remember to open. Adswave connects Google Ads and Meta, tracks pacing per client, and alerts you when one drifts. It is read-only, so it tells you and you decide.

See how it is built on the security page, or see pricing.