Marketing & agency
Agency Client Acquisition Cost Calculator
Works what an agency client costs to win, where proposal time dominates.
Result
Sales time is included because it is a real cost of winning work even though it never appears on an advertising invoice. Recovering under 100% on the first job is normal in the trades, provided customers come back.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Marketing and business development spend plus the senior time spent on pitching and proposals, divided by clients won. The time element is the larger part in most agencies, and because it is senior time it is the most expensive hour the business has.
What moves the number
- Senior time on pitching and proposals.
- Win rate, which determines how many pitches per win.
- Marketing and business development spend.
- Referral share, which costs little.
Where this one goes wrong
Senior time on unsuccessful pitches is the real acquisition cost in an agency and it almost never appears in any budget, which means acquisition looks cheap while the agency's most capable people spend their weeks on work that produced nothing. Cost the hours. Referrals are the counterweight and the backbone of most profitable agencies, since they arrive pre-qualified, convert far better and cost almost nothing to generate beyond doing good work.
Before you quote
- Cost senior pitching hours as acquisition spend.
- Measure cost per client won, including lost pitches.
- Build referral and reputation channels deliberately.
Questions
About this calculator
What does an agency client actually cost to win?
Mostly senior time on pitching and proposals, including the unsuccessful ones, which almost never appears in a budget. That makes acquisition look cheap while the agency's most capable people spend weeks on work that produced nothing.
How can an agency reduce acquisition cost?
By qualifying harder before investing senior time, and by building referral and reputation channels that bring pre-qualified enquiries. Referrals convert far better and cost almost nothing beyond doing good work for existing clients.
Should lost pitches be counted?
Yes, since their cost has to be carried by the clients that were won. Counting only successful pitches understates acquisition cost by the whole win-rate shortfall, which is usually the majority of the effort.
The formula
acquisition cost = (marketing + sales cost) / customers won
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Please keep the attribution line. It is the only thing we ask in return.
How to use this calculator
- Marketing spend per month ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $3,200.
- Sales time and tools ($). Quoting time, CRM, call answering.
- Leads per month. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 70.
- Share that become customers (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 32%.
- First job value ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $3,800.
- Gross margin (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 56%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to cost to win one customer, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Marketing spend per month | $3,200 |
| Sales time and tools | $900 |
| Leads per month | 70 |
| Share that become customers | 32% |
| First job value | $3,800 |
| Gross margin | 56% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Cost to win one customer main result | $183.04 |
| Cost per lead | $58.57 |
| Customers per month | 22 |
| Gross profit on the first job | $2,128 |
| Recovered on the first job | 1,163% |
Each customer costs $183.04 to win, and the first job returns $2,128 of gross profit, 1,163% of the acquisition cost. The rest has to come from repeat work.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only marketing spend per month, this is what happens to cost to win one customer. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Marketing spend per month ($) | Cost to win one customer |
|---|---|
| $1,600 | $111.61 |
| $2,400 | $147.32 |
| $3,200 example above | $183.04 |
| $4,800 | $254.46 |
| $6,400 | $325.89 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Marketing spend per month ($)
- A money amount, starting at $3,200.
- Sales time and tools ($)
- Quoting time, CRM, call answering.
- Leads per month
- A number, between 0 and 20000, starting at 70.
- Share that become customers (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 100, starting at 32%.
- First job value ($)
- A money amount, starting at $3,800.
- Gross margin (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 95, starting at 56%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Cost to win one customer | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Cost per lead | A money figure. |
| Customers per month | A number. |
| Gross profit on the first job | A money figure. |
| Recovered on the first job | A percentage. |
Attribution is the weak link
Return and cost-per-lead figures depend on knowing which enquiries came from which source, and most home-services businesses do not track that reliably. If the source data is guesswork, so is the return.
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.