TerryKX Media
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Resources / Lead Acquisition Cost Scenario Planner

Free PPC planning tool · Lead generation

Lead Acquisition Cost Scenario Planner

Connect advertising costs with qualified enquiries, sales outcomes and contribution profit. Compare paid-media CPL with the cost of acquiring a customer, then work backwards to the conversion rates and budget your funnel needs.

Editable scenarios · examples, not benchmarksTransparent costs · formulas explained belowKeep your work · CSV, copy & PDF

1. Build your acquisition funnel

Use data from your ad account, CRM and sales records. Keep leads and customers in the same acquisition cohort and allow enough time for sales to close.

Changes the display currency only; amounts are not converted.

All spend, fees and outcomes must refer to the same period. This label does not rescale inputs.

Use known leads for native lead forms, call campaigns or an existing CRM cohort when click data is not appropriate.

Use realised or supportable net revenue over one clearly defined horizon, after refunds and excluding sales tax.

After product or service delivery costs, before the acquisition and sales costs entered below.

Advanced costs · handling, sales, management & overhead

Enter acquisition costs not already deducted in the contribution margin. Zero means excluded. Total CAC includes only the costs you enter.

Applied to all raw leads, including leads that do not qualify.

For qualification, demos or sales follow-up beyond the raw-lead cost.

For sales commissions or onboarding incentives. Exclude product or service delivery costs already in the margin.

Enter the fee in the selected currency. No management fee is quoted automatically.

For allocated tools, creative or other acquisition overhead, without double-counting.

Qualification and sales scenarios

Conservative
Base
Optimistic

Qualified rate = qualified leads ÷ raw leads. Close rate = paying customers ÷ qualified leads. Do not enter an overall raw-lead-to-sale rate in the close-rate field.

Plan for a commercial outcome

Used to calculate a target CPL, CPC and qualified close rate. Zero requests break-even.

Reverse-calculates leads and budget at the base rates. This is separate from the profit target.

Calculations run in your browser. This tool does not submit your inputs. Saving assumptions on this device is optional; use care on shared computers.

2. Evaluate cost and lead quality

Separate recorded enquiries, qualified prospects and paying customers. A low raw CPL can still produce an expensive customer.

Paid-media cost per raw lead—Ad spend ÷ raw leads
Paid-media cost per qualified lead—Ad spend ÷ qualified leads · base case
Total customer acquisition cost—(Ad spend + entered acquisition costs) ÷ customers
Base expected customers—Qualified leads × qualified close rate
Base contribution profit—Customer contribution less entered acquisition costs
Break-even paid CPL ceiling—At this lead volume and fixed-cost allocation

Base case cost breakdown

Total customer acquisition cost comparison

Shorter bars mean lower total CAC among the entered scenarios. N/A means no acquired customers; acquisition costs still apply.

What can the base funnel afford?

These ceilings and required rates use the base qualification and close assumptions, current lead volume and entered costs. A zero or negative paid-media allowance cannot support positive advertising spend. A required rate above 100% cannot be achieved by changing that rate alone.

Break-even paid CPC ceiling—Current lead-conversion rate · traffic mode
Break-even total CAC—Contribution per customer before acquisition
Break-even qualified close rate—At current qualified-lead volume
Break-even click-to-lead rate—At current CPC, qualification and close rates
Paid CPL ceiling for your profit target—Current raw-lead volume and cost allocation
Paid CPC ceiling for your profit target—Current lead-conversion rate · traffic mode
Qualified close rate for your profit target—At current qualified-lead volume
Customers needed for break-even—At current lead-handling costs · expected count

Paid CPL ceiling = contribution per raw lead after variable acquisition costs − fixed acquisition costs ÷ raw leads. A profit target also subtracts target profit ÷ raw leads. CPC ceiling = CPL ceiling × click-to-lead rate. These values hold the stated volume or rate assumptions constant; use the sensitivity table to model a changed funnel.

Compare the three scenarios

Expected counts may be fractional. They describe modelled averages, not guaranteed orders or customers. Money is displayed to two decimal places; calculations use unrounded values.

Test the assumptions that change the result

In traffic mode, compare different CPCs and click-to-lead rates. With a known lead count, compare qualification and close rates. This is a sensitivity check, not a confidence interval or a prediction.

Work backwards from a customer target

This volume plan uses the base funnel rates and the current paid cost per raw lead. It does not optimise the budget or promise that these rates will hold as spend changes.

Raw leads required—Customer target ÷ base lead-to-customer rate
Estimated advertising budget—At the current paid CPL
Total acquisition budget—Advertising + entered variable and period costs

How the funnel is calculated

In traffic mode, clicks = ad spend ÷ CPC, and raw leads = clicks × click-to-lead rate. In known-leads mode, raw leads come directly from your entered count.

Qualified leads = raw leads × qualification rate. Customers = qualified leads × qualified close rate. Paid-media CPL, cost per qualified lead and CAC divide advertising spend by the corresponding stage.

Total CAC = (advertising + raw-lead handling + qualified-lead handling + per-customer acquisition costs + entered period costs) ÷ acquired customers. When no customer is acquired, CAC is undefined; it is not zero.

How profit and break-even are calculated

Contribution per customer before acquisition = revenue per customer × contribution margin. Contribution profit = customer contribution − total entered acquisition costs.

With Q = qualification rate, C = qualified close rate and V = contribution per customer, the contribution per raw lead available for advertising and fixed costs is:

Q × C × (V − per-customer acquisition cost) − raw-lead handling cost − Q × qualified-lead handling cost. All percentage inputs are converted to decimal rates.

Break-even close rate = (ad spend + period costs + raw and qualified handling) ÷ (qualified leads × contribution remaining per customer after per-customer acquisition cost). Break-even click-to-lead rate divides ad spend plus period costs by clicks × contribution available per raw lead. A non-positive denominator means no finite feasible rate.

Use a consistent sales cohort

  1. Deduplicate enquiries and define qualification before calculating rates. An unqualified enquiry, spam message or repeat contact should not be treated as a new paying customer.
  2. Track leads from acquisition through the sales cycle. This month’s advertising spend and this month’s closed deals may refer to different lead cohorts.
  3. Compare CRM outcomes with ad reporting and record repeat revenue separately. More lead volume is useful only if qualification, follow-up capacity and contribution remain sustainable.

What these scenarios do not prove

The model assumes stable costs and funnel rates within the selected period. It does not establish lead quality, causal incrementality, attribution accuracy, sales capacity, cash-flow timing or the probability of winning a sale.

Revenue per customer uses the horizon you choose. Lifetime value, retention, cancellations and payment defaults are not calculated automatically. If you use lifetime revenue, match its delivery costs and state that horizon when comparing CAC; do not treat it as same-period cash.

Questions about the results

What is the difference between CPL, qualified CPL and CAC?

Paid-media CPL is advertising spend divided by raw enquiries. Paid-media cost per qualified lead uses qualified enquiries. Paid-media CAC uses paying customers. Total CAC adds the acquisition and sales costs you enter before dividing by customers. Compare like-for-like definitions across reports.

Can I use this for Meta lead forms or call campaigns?

Yes. Choose the known raw-lead count mode when clicks and landing-page conversion are not appropriate. Use deduplicated raw enquiries attributable to the entered spend. The tool then calculates qualification, customer acquisition and profit; CPC-based outputs are unavailable in that mode.

Why does a cheap lead sometimes produce a high CAC?

Only a share of raw enquiries qualify, and only a share of qualified prospects buy. Follow-up costs also apply to leads that do not close. The same raw CPL can therefore produce very different CAC and contribution results when qualification or close rates change.

What does a fractional number of customers mean?

It is an expected average from multiplying funnel rates, not a claim that a fraction of a customer will buy. Low-volume results can be volatile. The planner does not calculate statistical confidence, so validate assumptions against enough completed sales cycles.

Why is a ceiling unavailable or a required rate above 100%?

With no leads, no qualified prospects or no remaining contribution per customer, a relevant threshold may be undefined or impossible. A required rate above 100% indicates that improving that stage alone cannot cover the entered costs; revisit costs, value and the other funnel stages.

Are my inputs saved or shared automatically?

This tool calculates in your browser and does not submit inputs. Saving on this device is optional and local to this browser. CSV exports, copied summaries and printed PDFs include your assumptions, so review them before sharing.