How a Local Enterprise Grant Can Help Pay for MarkGo
How a Local Enterprise Grant Can Help Pay for MarkGo
A plain-English guide to where MarkGo fits across the Grow Digital Voucher, the Business Expansion Grant and the Priming Grant.
If you're an Irish SME or start-up, there's a good chance your Local Enterprise Office (LEO) can part-fund a chunk of your marketing spend, including a MarkGo project. The tricky part is knowing which grant applies to you, because it depends less on what MarkGo does and more on where your business is in its own journey.
This guide walks through the three main supports your business may qualify for, who they're for, and how MarkGo fits under each one.
One thing up front: grant schemes change, budgets get reviewed, and eligibility rules get tweaked. Everything below is accurate at the time of writing, but before you commit to anything, confirm the current details with your own Local Enterprise Office. It's their scheme, and they're genuinely helpful people to talk to.
Note on the Trading Online Voucher: this scheme has largely been replaced by the Grow Digital Voucher, but some LEOs may still be processing legacy applications. If yours is one of them, it works differently again, it funds e-commerce and online trading specifically rather than marketing strategy in general. Worth asking your LEO which version they're currently running.
The three grants, in summary
Priming Grant – for start-ups in their first 18 months of trading.
Grow Digital Voucher – for established small businesses adopting a new digital tool.
Business Expansion Grant – for established small businesses past the start-up phase and investing to grow.
FAQs on Leo Grants and MarkGo
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The Priming Grant. It's aimed squarely at micro-enterprises in their first 18 months, and it's the broadest of the three when it comes to marketing spend.
To qualify, you generally need to:
Be trading for less than 18 months
Employ 10 or fewer full-time staff
Be in manufacturing, internationally traded services, or a domestic service with clear export or growth potential
Be registered and operating within your LEO's area
It covers up to 50% of eligible investment, usually capped at €80,000 (exceptionally up to €150,000 with Enterprise Ireland approval). Crucially, the covered costs explicitly include marketing and consultancy: things like websites, trade fairs, and consultancy fees, alongside capital items and first-year salary costs.
For MarkGo, this means a strategy engagement can be funded directly as a marketing or consultancy cost. You don't need to reframe what MarkGo is to make it fit.
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The Grow Digital Voucher. This is the scheme that replaced the old Trading Online Voucher at the end of 2024, and it works differently to the other two.
To qualify, you generally need to:
Be a small business with up to around 50 employees
Have been trading for at least six months
Have completed a free Digital for Business assessment (this is a prerequisite, not optional, more on it below)
Be solvent and tax-compliant, and not already a client of Enterprise Ireland or the IDA
The grant covers 50% of eligible costs, with a minimum of €500 and a maximum of €5,000 per application. Enterprises can draw down a second voucher later, up to a combined €5,000, if their Digital for Business report shows continued progression.
Here's the part that catches people out: this voucher funds software subscriptions and the training or configuration to use them. It explicitly excludes bespoke consultancy, marketing retainers and custom development. So a MarkGo engagement pitched as "strategy sessions" won't qualify here, but MarkGo positioned as a subscription to a marketing intelligence platform, with configuration and training billed as a distinct, capped line item, is exactly the shape of thing this voucher is designed to fund.
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The Business Expansion Grant. It picks up where the Priming Grant leaves off, aimed at small businesses and micro-enterprises past their initial 18-month start-up window.
To qualify, you generally need to:
Employ 10 or fewer full-time staff
Be past the initial 18-month start-up phase
Be established and operating within your LEO's area
Be in manufacturing, internationally traded services, or a local service with clear potential to trade internationally
Funding usually covers up to 50% of eligible costs, commonly capped around €80,000 or higher in exceptional high-growth cases. Like the Priming Grant, the covered costs explicitly include marketing campaigns, website development, trade fairs and consultancy fees, alongside capital items, salary support for new hires, and overheads.
So the same logic applies as with the Priming Grant: MarkGo can sit here as a marketing or consultancy cost, funded on its own terms, without needing to be repackaged as "software."
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Because the Grow Digital Voucher has a narrower definition of what it funds than the other two. The Priming Grant and Business Expansion Grant both name marketing campaigns and consultancy fees as eligible costs outright, so a MarkGo strategy engagement fits naturally under either. The Grow Digital Voucher only funds off-the-shelf software subscriptions and the setup or training that goes with them.
Under this scheme, MarkGo can be structured and invoiced as a software subscription, for example an annual licence to a marketing planning platform, with any setup or training work billed separately and kept under half the total cost.
MarkGo fits the scheme well, because the whole point of how it's built is that it uses software to do, in hours, what used to take a consultant days to do by hand.
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The order matters, particularly for the Grow Digital Voucher, because spending before approval can make you ineligible.
Talk to your Local Enterprise Office before you commit to or pay for anything
For the Grow Digital Voucher specifically, start with the free Digital for Business assessment, since it's a prerequisite for the voucher and points you toward where it would help
Submit your application with the details and quotes your LEO asks for
Once approved, go ahead with the work and claim the grant back against the eligible spend
Talk to us and we can give you a clear, itemised quote in the format your LEO expects, so you can get at least half of our fees covered by a LEO grant.
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Yes, in most cases. Irish SMEs and start-ups can often part-fund a MarkGo project through their Local Enterprise Office, up to 50% back depending on the scheme. Three grants typically apply:
Priming Grant – if you're trading less than 18 months
Business Expansion Grant – if you're past 18 months and investing to grow
Grow Digital Voucher – if you're an established business adopting a new digital tool (some LEOs may still run the older Trading Online Voucher too)
Which one fits depends on your business, not on what MarkGo does. Read the [full LEO grant guide →] for the details, or email hello@markgo.co and we'll tell you where you fit and give you a LEO-ready quote.
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Before, always. Spending before approval can make you ineligible, particularly for the Grow Digital Voucher. Talk to your LEO first, get your application in, then start the work once approved. We'll give you a quote in the format your LEO needs so this is straightforward.
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They can. Grant schemes get reviewed and budgets and eligibility rules get tweaked from time to time. We keep our guide as accurate as we can, but always confirm current details with your own Local Enterprise Office before committing to anything.
Quick reference guide to available LEO grants
Comparison table of the Priming Grant, Grow Digital Voucher and Business Expansion Grant, showing who each is for, funding levels, and how MarkGo qualifies under each scheme.
Where MarkGo comes in
Wherever you are in your journey, from your first 18 months to your next growth push, there's very likely a grant that can take a bite out of the cost of getting your marketing strategy properly sorted.
We'll help you work out which one actually applies to your business, and give you a clear, LEO-ready quote structured the way your grant needs it.
Talk to us for a free 5-minute audit, and we'll tell you honestly where you fit.