Local GGA functionals produce large errors and therefore cannot be recommended. In contrast Apart from that, employing a hybrid instead of a GGA functional for geometry optimization has less-significant effect on the calculated absorption bands whereas increasing the basis set does not improve the calculated absorption bands. Most notable, including diffuse basis functions even leads to worse results. Thus, employing a cheap GGA like BLYP for structure optimization, selecting an overall small basis set of double-ζ quality in combination with a CAM-B3LYP and the sTDA approach provides a cost-efficient approach to estimate the absorption spectra of porphyrinoids which can be barely improved by more expensive approaches. Unfortunately, none of the local functionals has sufficient predictive power, which is an obstacle in particular for periodic calculations.