What can you afford to pay per lead?

In short

Enter your average first-year deal size, gross margin, lead-to-opportunity rate, win rate and the return you want on media. The calculator returns break-even ROAS, the maximum cost per lead, per opportunity and per customer, and the target CPA and ROAS to put in Google Ads and LinkedIn.

Last updated

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x

1x is break-even. 3x means each media dollar should bring back three dollars of gross profit.

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Maximum cost per lead to hit your target
$525
Break-even ROAS
1.4x
Target ROAS
4.3x
Break-even cost per lead
$1,575
Max per qualified opportunity
$11K
Your CPL is inside target
Your full report

Pay no more than $525 per lead

At a 3.0x target return. Break-even ROAS is 1.4x and the most you can pay per qualified opportunity is $11K.

The full report includes

  • The CPA and ROAS targets to enter in Google Ads and LinkedIn
  • What your numbers mean for each channel
  • A 30-day plan

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The method

How it works

  1. Gross profit per deal

    Deal size times gross margin. Break-even ROAS is revenue divided by that profit share, so it is 1 divided by margin.

  2. Value per lead

    Gross profit per deal times lead-to-opportunity rate times win rate.

  3. Maximum costs

    What you can pay per lead, per opportunity and per customer before media loses money.

  4. Targets

    Divide by the return you want, for example 3x, to get the CPA and ROAS targets to bid toward.

FAQ

Questions about this tool

Related: Lead value calculator, Paid media services.

What is break-even ROAS?

The return on ad spend at which gross profit from ad-driven revenue exactly covers the ad cost. With a 70% gross margin, break-even ROAS is about 1.43x: every dollar of media must bring back $1.43 of revenue.

How do I calculate a target CPA for B2B?

Work back from the deal: gross profit per deal times the win rate gives the most you can pay per opportunity; times the lead-to-opportunity rate gives the most per lead. Divide by your target return to set the bid target.

Why not just use the platform’s CPA?

Platform CPA counts form fills, which vary wildly in quality. Set targets on qualified opportunities and send those back to the platform as offline conversions so bidding optimizes to them.

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Hojabr Sattari
Hojabr SattariFounder and Director of Revenue Growth Strategy. Reads every request.

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