Ask most trades what a lead costs and they will quote the per-lead price. That is the wrong number. The cost that matters is what you pay per job you actually win, once you count the quotes you lose along the way. Here is the maths.
The price you see
On a shared-lead platform you pay a fee per lead, and usually a monthly subscription on top. Reviewers on ProductReview report lead charges as high as around two hundred dollars and monthly fees in the tens of dollars. Your numbers will differ, and platforms do not publish a single rate. The point is not the exact figure. It is what the figure leaves out.
The price you do not see
Every shared lead is a quote you might lose, because the same lead went to other trades. So your real cost per job is the lead cost spread across only the jobs you win.
Run it with round numbers. Say you take fifteen leads and win three. If each lead cost you fifty dollars, that is seven hundred and fifty dollars spent to land three jobs, or two hundred and fifty dollars per job, before you add the subscription. The twelve quotes you lost were unpaid work, on top.
The sticker price was fifty. The real cost per job was several times that.
The number that actually matters
Two numbers, really.
- Cost per booked job, not cost per lead. Spread everything you spend across the jobs you actually win.
- Marketing as a share of your margin. As a rough guide, under about a fifth of your margin is fine, a third or more and the channel is taking too much. These are rules of thumb, not laws, but they keep you honest.
If a channel looks cheap per lead but your win rate is low, it is an expensive channel wearing a cheap price tag.
How to lower it
You lower the real cost per job by raising the win rate, and you raise the win rate by not competing.
- An enquiry that is yours alone converts far better than one shared with three trades.
- An enquiry that reaches the customer before they start comparing converts better still.
That is the whole argument for exclusive, early work over shared, late work. Same effort, more jobs won, lower cost per job.
Where Outpost fits
Outpost is built around that second number. One trade per area, so the enquiry is yours, not a race. And we reach the new homeowner before the search starts, so there is no comparison to lose. Fewer quotes, more wins, a lower cost per job.