How many leads and estimates do you need to hit your revenue goal?
Enter your numbers and see how many jobs, estimates and leads you need each month, and how much you can pay for each closed job without losing your margin. The starting values are an example: replace them with your own.
Your numbers
Example, replace with your numbersThese values are an invented example to show how it works. They are not an industry average or any client's data.
The calculation runs in your browser. We do not send or store any of the numbers you type.
Result
Volume you need
- Jobs to close
- 3 per month
- Estimates to deliver
- 10 per month
- Leads you need
- 25 per month
What you can afford to pay
- Maximum cost per closed job
- $2,000
- Maximum cost per lead
- $240
- Monthly acquisition ceiling
- $6,000
Where you are today
- Current cost per lead
- $50.00
- Current cost per closed job
- $417
- Jobs per month from your current leads
- 3.6
- Resulting revenue
- $72,000
You are $1,583 below the maximum cost per job.
Sensitivity: improve the close rate or lower the cost per lead
Same numbers, four hypothetical scenarios. These are not forecasts.
Current situation
- Close rate
- 30%
- Cost per lead
- $50.00
- Estimates needed
- 10
- Leads needed
- 25
- Cost per closed job
- $417
Close rate +5 points
- Close rate
- 35%
- Cost per lead
- $50.00
- Estimates needed
- 9
- Leads needed
- 23
- Cost per closed job
- $357
Cost per lead −14.3%
- Close rate
- 30%
- Cost per lead
- $42.86
- Estimates needed
- 10
- Leads needed
- 25
- Cost per closed job
- $357
Close rate −5 points
- Close rate
- 25%
- Cost per lead
- $50.00
- Estimates needed
- 12
- Leads needed
- 30
- Cost per closed job
- $500
Raising the close rate by five points is equivalent, in cost per job, to lowering the cost per lead by 14.3%. The difference is that a better close rate also reduces the estimates you have to prepare.
Scenarios built on your numbers, not a forecast or a guarantee.
How it is calculated
Everything is chained from your own numbers: revenue goal, average job value, close rate and the share of leads that reach an estimate. No industry average is hidden in the math. If you do not type a number, it does not enter the calculation.
1. Jobs needed
Revenue goal ÷ average job value (rounded up)
How many jobs you have to close each month to reach the revenue you want.
2. Estimates needed
Jobs needed ÷ close rate
If you win one in three, you need to quote three times as many jobs as you want to win.
3. Leads needed
Estimates needed ÷ share of leads that reach an estimate
Not everyone who contacts you ends up with an estimate: some are a poor fit, others disappear. This number measures how many do.
4. Maximum cost per closed job
Average job value × (gross margin − margin you want to keep after acquisition)
The part of your margin you can spend winning each job and still keep the margin you set for yourself.
5. Maximum cost per lead
Maximum cost per job × close rate × share that reaches an estimate
The same limit, spread across every lead, including those that never become a job. It is the ceiling on what each lead can cost.
6. Current cost per closed job
Monthly spend ÷ leads you get ÷ (close rate × share that reaches an estimate)
What it costs you today to win a job, if your rates are the ones you typed. Compare it with the maximum.
What this calculator leaves out
It is a simplified model. It ignores seasonality, the delay between a lead arriving and the job closing, your real capacity to estimate and build, taxes and financing. It also cannot know whether today's rates will hold when volume goes up. Use it to structure the conversation with your own numbers, not as a forecast.
How to read the result
The first block, jobs, estimates and leads, gives you the volume. If you need more estimates than your team can visit and prepare in a month, the problem is capacity, not advertising, and bringing in more leads will not fix it.
The second block, the maximum cost, is a ceiling, not a target. It is the most you can spend per closed job before dropping below the margin you want to keep. It is wise to stay well under it, because the math does not include surprises, jobs that go sideways or months with no closings.
Compare the maximum cost per lead with what you pay for each one today. If you pay more, every lead costs you margin even when plenty come in. If you pay less, you have room, but only if your close rate and your estimate rate are real and not wishful.
The sensitivity table compares two paths with your same numbers: raising your close rate by five points or lowering your cost per lead. Notice that both can produce the same cost per job, but a better close rate also reduces the number of estimates you have to prepare. This is a comparison of hypothetical scenarios, not a prediction: improving the close rate takes real changes in how you quote and follow up, and nobody can guarantee those five points.
Three common mistakes when using these numbers
The problem is rarely the formula. It is the data that goes in and what gets decided with it.
1. Optimizing only for cost per lead
Cost per job is cost per lead divided by the close rate and the share that reaches an estimate. If a cheaper lead reaches an estimate half as often, your cost per job doubles even though each lead costs the same as before. A cheap lead that never becomes an estimate is not cheap.
2. Using hoped-for rates or those of a good month
A close rate comes from many estimates, not from two or three jobs won in a good month. Use the history of recent months, and if you do not have enough data, say so and treat the result as a hypothesis to test.
3. Blending every job type into one average value
A bathroom and a whole-home remodel do not share the same job value, close rate or margin. If you average them, the result describes neither. Run each type of job you want to attract separately.
What data to gather before you calculate
With an hour and your estimates from recent months you have most of it:
- Jobs closed in the period and their value, split by job type, to get the average value of each.
- Estimates delivered and estimates accepted in the same period, for the close rate.
- Leads received and how many ended up with a delivered estimate, for the estimate rate.
- Real gross margin per job: revenue minus direct costs such as materials, subcontractors and labor.
- Everything you spend to win customers: advertising, fees and any other cost you decide to include.
- How many estimates your team can prepare per month without quality dropping.
If you are missing any of these, mark it as pending instead of guessing. Not being able to say how many leads end up with an estimate already tells you where to look first.
Want to review your numbers with us?
In the Strategic Growth Session we walk through your funnel with your real figures, from where leads come from to how many close, and check whether the goal makes sense before we talk about execution.