Free tool · Calculator
What can you afford to pay for a lead?
Enter your budget and funnel rates to see appointments, customers, acquisition cost, ROAS — and the break-even cost per lead for your business.
What that budget produces each month
62.5
Leads
31.3
Appointments
12.5
Customers
- Cost per appointment
- $160
- Customer acquisition cost (ad spend only)
- $400
- Revenue from new customers
- $50,000
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- 10×
- Gross profit after ad spend
- $20,000
Break-even cost per lead
$400.00
Above this cost per lead, first-purchase gross profit no longer covers ad spend (before management fees and lifetime value). Improving booking or close rates raises this ceiling — often faster than lowering lead costs.
Estimates only, based solely on the numbers you enter. Excludes agency fees, overheads, taxes and repeat business. Not a forecast or guarantee of results.
How to use this calculator
Most businesses judge advertising by cost per lead. But a lead is only worth what happens next: whether it books, whether it closes, and what the customer is worth. This calculator connects those numbers so you can see the real economics of your marketing.
The formulas
- Leads = budget ÷ cost per lead
- Appointments = leads × lead-to-appointment rate
- Customers = appointments × appointment-to-customer rate
- CAC (ad spend only) = budget ÷ customers
- ROAS = revenue ÷ budget
- Break-even CPL = booking rate × close rate × customer value × gross margin
Why booking and close rates matter more than you think
Doubling your lead-to-appointment rate has the same effect on customer acquisition cost as halving your cost per lead — and it’s often easier. Faster follow-up, better qualification and reminders frequently improve booking rates without any change to ad spend. That’s why we treat follow-up as part of the marketing system.
Limitations
This is a simplified model. It doesn’t include agency or staff costs, lifetime value, repeat business, seasonality or attribution uncertainty. Use it to frame decisions — then validate with real tracking data.
More free tools
- UTM BuilderBuild clean, consistent campaign URLs with naming checks that keep your analytics tidy.
- Conversion Tracking Checklist21 checks to find out whether your marketing reports can be trusted.
- Marketing Metrics GlossaryPlain-language definitions and formulas for CPL, CAC, ROAS, attribution and more.
Want us to run these numbers on your real accounts?
The Growth Audit reviews your ads, tracking and lead process — and shows you where the biggest gains are.
We typically respond within 2–3 business days.