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A creative test budget, worked through with made-up numbers

The arithmetic is simple. The discipline is deciding the rules before the first euro is spent.

Creative testing · 4 min read · Updated 2026-10-07

The setup

  • Goal: find out whether a question hook beats the current opening.
  • Variants: the control and two question hooks.
  • Metric: purchases, with hook rate as an early signal.

The numbers (made up)

  • Results needed per variant: 30 purchases.
  • Recent cost per purchase: about 25.
  • Budget: 30 x 25 x 3 variants = 2,250 over 10 days.

Rules

  • Stop a variant if it spends twice the cost per purchase with no purchase.
  • Verdict: a variant wins if it has at least 20 percent lower cost per purchase with the agreed number of purchases.

If the money is short

  • Test two variants, or test hook rate as the metric, and say it is an early signal.
The test budget sizing guide explains the method.

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