Logo

MonoCalc

/

Share of Voice Calculator

Social Media

Your brand and the ones you compete with

Type the volume for each brand over the same window, measured the same way. Shorthand such as 12,000 or 1.2k works. Nothing is fetched and nothing is sent anywhere — the page makes no network calls at all.

Changes the labels and rounding — the arithmetic is identical
Unlocks Excess Share of Voice
Up to 99.9% — 100% needs every rival silent

Your share of voice

26.3%

Our brand ranks 2nd of 4 on 26.3%, 16.3 pts behind Competitor A.

Competitor A 42.5%Our brand 26.3%Competitor B 19.4%11.9%0%100% of the category

Your share

26.3%

of 16,000 mentions in total

Rank

2nd of 4

ties share a rank

Gap to leader

16.3 pts

2,600 behind Competitor A

Category total

16,000

4 of 4 brands with volume

Every brand, largest first

Bars are drawn against the leader, so the shape of the category is visible even when one brand owns most of it.

1st

Competitor A

6,800

42.5%

2nd

Our brand

You

4,200

26.3%

3rd

Competitor B

3,100

19.4%

4th

Competitor C

1,900

11.9%

The same figures as a table

RankBrandMentionsShare of voicevs you
1stCompetitor A6,80042.5%+16.3 pts
2ndOur brandYou4,20026.3%—
3rdCompetitor B3,10019.4%-6.9 pts
4thCompetitor C1,90011.9%-14.4 pts

Shares are computed from the unrounded values and displayed to one decimal, so the column can read as 99.9% or 100.1% when added up by hand. That is a display rounding artefact, not a calculation error — the underlying shares always total exactly 100%.

About This Tool

Share of Voice Calculator – Who Owns the Conversation?

Share of voice answers one question: how much of the conversation in your category is about your brand? Every other framing — share of search, share of impressions, share of ad spend — is the same division applied to a different column of numbers. Collect the volume for you and for the competitors you actually compete with, add them up, and your slice of that total is your share of voice.

The share of voice formula

Divide one brand’s volume by the volume of every brand in the set. Nothing else on this page needs a second formula.

SOV = brand volume ÷ category total × 100 Our brand 4,200 ÷ 16,000 = 26.25% → shown as 26.3% Competitor A 6,800 ÷ 16,000 = 42.50% → the leader Competitor B 3,100 ÷ 16,000 = 19.4% Competitor C 1,900 ÷ 16,000 = 11.9%

That worked example is the calculator’s starting table. It puts the brand second of four, 16.3 percentage points behind the leader — a gap that is also 2,600 mentions in raw units, which is usually the more actionable of the two numbers.

Which metric to measure

The arithmetic is identical for all five options in the selector, so pick the one your category is actually discussed in. Mentions is the classic listening definition and answers who is being talked about. Impressions weights that by how many people saw it, so one post from a large account stops counting the same as one from a small one. Engagements weights it by how many people reacted. Ad spend is the media-planning definition, and the one Excess Share of Voice is built on. Followers is a share of audience rather than a share of conversation. The rule that matters more than the choice: every brand in the table must be measured the same way, over the same window, with a comparable query.

What a target share of voice costs

Growing your own volume also grows the category total, which is why “I want 40%, so I need 40% of 16,000” is wrong. Holding the competitors’ combined total O constant and writing the target as a fraction t, the volume you need is:

B' ÷ (B' + O) = t → B' = t × O ÷ (1 − t) t = 0.40, O = 11,800 → 0.40 × 11,800 ÷ 0.60 = 7,866.67 → 7,867 already have 4,200 → 3,667 more needed

The denominator explains why a 100% target is refused rather than clamped: at t = 1 the divisor is zero, and no finite volume buys the whole category while a single rival still has any. Treat the result as the floor of what a target costs — competitors respond.

Share of voice against share of market

Excess Share of Voice (ESOV) is share of voice minus share of market, in percentage points. A brand with 20% of the voice and 14% of the market has +6 points of ESOV: it is buying more attention than its current size, the pattern associated with brands that grow. A negative figure is the mirror image and is associated with share erosion.

The growth figure is a rule of thumb with a source
Les Binet and Peter Field’s analysis of the IPA Databank (996 case studies, Media in Focus, IPA, 2017) uses annualised market-share growth per 10 points of ESOV as its headline efficiency measure, and the widely quoted average is about 0.5 percentage points a year per 10 points of ESOV — so +6 points reads as roughly +0.30 points a year. That is an average observed across hundreds of documented campaigns, not a forecast for any one brand, and it assumes the extra voice buys work that is any good.

Where the number misleads

Share of voice is only as honest as the set it is measured over. Leave out a competitor and everyone left looks bigger. A looser listening query for one brand — brand name alone against brand name plus product names — inflates it for a purely mechanical reason. And a spike of mentions says nothing about their sentiment: a brand in the middle of a crisis can top this table for exactly the wrong reason.

There is no benchmark for a good share of voice
This calculator deliberately ships no industry average, because none would be meaningful: 12% is dominant in a fragmented category of forty players and dismal in a duopoly. The two comparisons that do mean something are both on this page — your share against the named competitors you chose, and your share of voice against your own share of market.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Share of Voice Calculator free?

Yes, Share of Voice Calculator is totally free :)

Can I use the Share of Voice Calculator offline?

Yes, you can install the webapp as PWA.

Is it safe to use Share of Voice Calculator?

Yes, any data related to Share of Voice Calculator only stored in your browser (if storage required). You can simply clear browser cache to clear all the stored data. We do not store any data on server.

How does this share of voice calculator work?

You type in a small table — your brand and the competitors you actually compete with, each with its volume for one metric — and every figure on the page is arithmetic over that table. Share of voice is one row's value divided by the total of all rows, times 100. Rank, the gap to the leader, the volume needed for a target share and Excess Share of Voice all fall out of the same numbers. Nothing is fetched, no account is looked up and no listening tool is contacted: the calculator never makes a network call.

Which metric should I measure share of voice on?

Whichever one your competitive set is measured on consistently. Mentions is the classic social-listening definition and answers who is being talked about; impressions weights that by how many people saw it; engagements weights it by how many people reacted; ad spend is the media-planning definition used for Excess Share of Voice; followers is a share of audience rather than a share of conversation. The arithmetic is identical for all five — what changes is the question you are answering, so pick one and keep every brand on the same one.

Where do I get the numbers to put in?

From whatever you already use. Mention and impression counts come from a social listening or media monitoring tool with a fixed date range and one saved query per brand. Engagement counts can be read off public posts. Ad spend comes from your own media plan plus an estimate for competitors from an ad library or a spend estimation service. The single most important thing is that every brand is measured the same way over the same window — a competitor counted with a looser query will look louder than it is.

What is the difference between share of voice and share of market?

Share of voice is your slice of the category's conversation or advertising; share of market is your slice of its sales. Excess Share of Voice (ESOV) is simply the first minus the second, in percentage points. A brand with 20% SOV and 14% market share has +6 points of ESOV, which is the classic signal of a brand buying more attention than its current size — the pattern that Binet and Field's IPA Databank work associates with share growth over time.

What counts as a good share of voice?

There is no universal number, and this tool deliberately ships no benchmark table. Twelve percent is dominant in a fragmented category of forty players and dismal in a duopoly, so any cross-industry average would be misleading. The two comparisons that do mean something are both on this page: your share against the specific competitors you listed, and your share of voice against your own share of market.

How accurate is the target share calculation?

It is exact for the model it states and no more. To reach a target share t while every competitor holds steady you need tO ÷ (1 − t) volume, where O is the competitors' combined total — so a 40% target against 11,800 competitor mentions needs 7,867 of your own. In reality competitors respond, so treat the figure as the floor of what the target costs rather than a plan, and note that a 100% target is arithmetically unreachable while any rival still has volume.