Generic calculators stop at cost per lead. For a contractor, that number alone says almost nothing: a $90 lead that closes one time in three can be far more profitable than a $25 lead that almost never turns into a job. What you actually need is the cost hiding inside every closed job, and the profit or loss each lead produces after its cost. That is the math this page runs.
Runs entirely in your browser. No numbers are collected or sent anywhere.
A plumbing company buys 30 leads a month at $38 each and closes 20% of them. Its average job is $1,850 at a 45% gross margin. One lead in five becomes a job worth $1,850 × 45% = $832.50 of gross profit, so the expected gross profit per lead is $166.50 — and after paying $38 for the lead, each lead nets $128.50. Because only one lead in five closes, every closed job carries $190.00 of lead cost ($38 ÷ 20%), which has to be covered inside the quote. Across the month, the channel nets $3,855. This channel is healthy: the lead price could rise substantially before it stopped paying for itself.
If your net per lead comes out negative, do not buy more leads to fix it — volume only scales the loss. First work on the close rate (speed of first response is usually the cheapest lever), then renegotiate the lead price or drop the channel and move the budget to one whose break-even cost per lead you can beat.
The Contractor Lead & Quote Pack pairs this calculator with a channel-by-channel tracking spreadsheet and a quote profit worksheet, so the same math runs on your real numbers each month.
Get the $39 tracking + quote pack