How much should contractors pay for leads?

A $60 lead that becomes a paid job once in every ten enquiries costs $600 per acquired job. A $150 lead that becomes a paid job once in every three enquiries costs $450.

Those are hypothetical figures, but they expose the problem with shopping on lead price alone. The number on the quote tells you what an enquiry costs. It does not tell you what winning the work costs—or whether enough money remains after doing it.

To set a contractor lead budget, start with the contribution from a completed job, decide how much of it can fund acquisition, and multiply that acquisition allowance by your lead-to-paid-job rate.

Start with what a job leaves after delivery

Suppose a job brings in $3,000. Materials, field labor, subcontractors, and other costs attributable to delivering it total $1,800. That leaves $1,200 before acquisition, overhead, and profit.

For this planning exercise, call that $1,200 the job contribution. Use costs from completed work, and allocate labor consistently. If your bookkeeping already puts some intake or sales costs in job delivery, do not count them again in acquisition.

Now decide how much contribution must remain for overhead and your profit target. If you need to retain $750, the job can support up to $450 of acquisition cost under those assumptions.

The planning formula is:

Acquisition allowance per paid job = job contribution before acquisition − amount needed for overhead and profit.

This is a budget constraint, not a universal benchmark. A repair business and a replacement specialist may have different economics even when both call an enquiry a “lead.”

Turn the job allowance into a lead ceiling

Assume 25% of the unique leads from a channel become completed, paid jobs. A $450 acquisition allowance per job supports $112.50 of all-in acquisition cost per lead:

$450 × 25% = $112.50.

That ceiling must cover the acquisition costs you include in the model. If allocated intake and sales costs are $12.50 per lead, only $100 remains for the external channel cost.

Hypothetical input	Amount
Collected revenue per completed job	$3,000
Direct delivery costs	$1,800
Contribution before acquisition	$1,200
Required amount for overhead and profit	$750
Acquisition allowance per paid job	$450
Lead-to-paid-job rate	25%
All-in acquisition ceiling per lead	$112.50
Allocated internal acquisition cost per lead	$12.50
Remaining external channel allowance per lead	$100

Replace every input. These figures are a worked example, not contractor averages or CallerBridge results.

Keep the conversion denominator consistent

“We close half our leads” can mean half of all enquiries, half of answered calls, or half of estimates delivered. Those are different rates.

For this model, divide completed, paid jobs by unique leads from the same acquisition group. Give those leads enough time to reach an outcome. Comparing this month's new enquiries with this month's completed jobs can mix unrelated customers.

If the quote counts qualified leads, record both raw enquiries and qualified leads. Calculate qualification rate separately, and use the denominator that matches the price you are evaluating. A 25% conversion rate from all enquiries cannot be substituted for a rate from pre-screened enquiries without checking the underlying records.

Test the price against a weaker month

At a $450 allowance per paid job, changing the conversion assumption changes the lead ceiling:

Lead-to-paid-job rate	All-in ceiling per lead
15%	$67.50
25%	$112.50
35%	$157.50

If a proposal works only at your best close rate, it leaves little room for missed calls, capacity constraints, or a less favorable mix of work. Ask what happens when conversion falls and when average job contribution falls. Do not assume every lead will resemble your most profitable job.

Compare the full channel bill

For each provider, add the external costs required to obtain the leads: media, management, lead purchases, subscription fees, tracking, and any other mandatory charges. Subtract approved credits. Add internal acquisition costs separately when calculating the all-in figure. Avoid adding media twice when it is already included in a monthly package.

Consider a hypothetical $4,000 monthly channel bill. If that channel produces 40 qualified leads and ten paid jobs, its external cost is $100 per qualified lead and $400 per paid job. With the same bill, 20 qualified leads and five paid jobs make those costs $200 and $800.

A fixed monthly price does not create a fixed effective lead cost. Delivered volume and paid-job conversion still determine the result. Neither scenario is a CallerBridge quote or forecast.

CallerBridge's pricing page describes a monthly channel package rather than a separate fee for each delivered lead. Check the inclusions and proposed volume before comparing it with a per-lead quote. Its published economics are estimates; CallerBridge has not yet launched a live market.

Use this worksheet before agreeing to a budget

Pull a recent group of leads from one channel and fill in these fields:

1. Total external acquisition spend, net of approved credits.
2. Allocated internal acquisition spend, with no double counting.
3. Unique enquiries and the subset meeting your agreed qualification rules.
4. Jobs completed and paid from that group.
5. Collected revenue and direct delivery costs for those jobs.
6. Contribution you need to retain for overhead and profit.

Calculate external cost per lead, all-in cost per paid job, and contribution remaining after acquisition. If no jobs have been paid yet, there is no meaningful paid-job acquisition cost to report. Keep the group open rather than describing the cost as zero.

For a proposed channel with no history, use a range of conversion assumptions. Mark them as assumptions until actual outcomes replace them.

Use the CallerBridge calculator to explore the proposed market economics, then check the result against your own delivery costs and retained contribution. Take the resulting budget and required close rate into the pricing conversation.