Lead Generation Campaign Breakeven Calculator

Determine how many leads it will take to break even on your LeadGen campaign.
Breaking even is never the goal of a LeadGen campaign, but knowing your required number of leads makes it much simpler to determine your target return on investment (ROI), more specifically called return on ad spend (ROAS) for PPC.
For example, if your breakeven number of leads is 100 (an ROI of 1x), then you’ll have a 2x ROI if your campaign generates 200 leads, assuming your spend does not increase.

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Lead Source

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Lead ID

Campaign Budget*

Please enter a number from 500 to 1000000.

Amount to spend on SEO, PPC, etc for the duration of the campaign (e.g. $5,000 for 1 month or $60,000 for 1 year)

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)*

Please enter a number from 1 to 100000.

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the average revenue per customer (one or multiple transactions) from all their purchases over their entire relationship with your company.

Lead to Sale Conversion Rate (%)*

Please enter a number from .01 to 100.

What percentage of leads (e.g. submit online quote request form) actually become customers?

Average Profit Margin (%)*

Please enter a number from .01 to 100.

We want to avoid negative ROI so we compare spend to profit, not spend to gross revenue

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# of Leads Needed to Breakeven*

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Cost Per Lead*

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Results*

If leads are produced from your lead generation campaign, you will break even.

Formula: Budget ÷ ConversionRate% ÷ (CLV% × ProfitMargin%) (rounded up to the next whole number because you cannot have a portion of a lead)

This equates to allowing a cost per lead (CPL) amount up to (campaign spend ÷ number of leads to breakeven).

Breaking even is never the goal of a LeadGen campaign, but knowing your required number of leads makes it much simpler to determine your target return on investment (ROI), more specifically called return on ad spend (ROAS) for PPC.

For example, if your breakeven number of leads is 100 (an ROI of 1x), then you’ll have a 2x ROI if your campaign generates 200 leads, assuming your spend does not increase.

You can reduce the number of leads required to break even (i.e. more quickly get to positive ROI) if you improve your other formula inputs:
<ul>
 	<li>Increase your average lifetime revenue per customer by raising prices, requesting reviews, asking for referrals, and offering upsells or cross-sells.</li>
 	<li>Increase your % average profit margin by raising prices or lowering costs.
<ul>
 	<li>You could be pickier in the projects you work on, only choosing the type of work with the highest profit margins or the ones you’re able to complete most quickly.</li>
 	<li>Offering fewer services usually also leads to greater efficiency, and specialization usually enables you to charge higher prices.</li>
</ul>
</li>
 	<li>Improve your % conversion rate by A/B testing, reviewing mouse-tracking heatmaps, or targeting keywords more likely to convert, such as ones with buyer-intent.
<ul>
 	<li>Note that conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a specialization usually best left to your technical marketer.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

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