SEO Insights
The Real Cost of a Rented Lead
2 min
Key Points
- Cost per booked job is lead price divided by close rate. The only numbers that matter are your own.
- Leads you rent build no asset. Spend on an owned digital presence can keep working after you stop paying.
- A free growth assessment at bodyne.com/score helps you compare your rented and owned channels.
Run the math on your own lead spend. The figures below are an illustrative example, not industry data.
Say a contractor buys 20 leads per month at $500 each. That is $10,000 per month. If 2 of those leads become booked jobs, that is $5,000 per booked job in acquisition cost alone, before a single truck rolls.
Now compare that to the margin on a job. If your margin on a typical job is lower than your cost to acquire it, you are busy but not profitable.
The formula is simple: monthly lead spend, divided by booked jobs, equals cost per booked job. Put your real lead price, your real close rate, and your real job margin into it.
Being busy is not the same as being profitable. And renting leads is not the same as owning customers.