Marketing & agency
SEO ROI Calculator
Works return on search optimisation, where the horizon is long and the attribution is hard.
Result
Simple payback, with no discounting and no financing cost. For anything large or long, money now is worth more than money later and a lender will want interest, both of which make the real return lower than this.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Gross margin on revenue from organic search, less the cost of the work, divided by that cost, measured over a period long enough for the work to have taken effect. The lag between effort and result is months, which makes short measurement periods meaningless.
What moves the number
- Time lag between the work and the ranking change.
- Branded against non-branded organic traffic.
- Gross margin on the revenue.
- What organic traffic would have existed anyway.
Where this one goes wrong
Branded organic traffic largely existed regardless of any optimisation work, which means including it in the return makes almost any programme look successful and tells you nothing, so the figure to measure is non-branded organic. Separate them. The long lag is the other difficulty, and it cuts both ways: work done this quarter shows up next year, and the traffic arriving now may be the result of work done long ago or of nothing at all.
Before you quote
- Measure non-branded organic traffic, not total organic.
- Use a measurement period that matches the lag.
- Use gross margin, not revenue or traffic.
Questions
About this calculator
Why separate branded from non-branded organic traffic?
Because branded traffic largely existed regardless of any optimisation work. Including it makes almost any programme look successful and tells you nothing, so non-branded organic is the figure that reflects what the work achieved.
How long before search work shows results?
Months, which makes short measurement periods meaningless. It cuts both ways: work done this quarter shows up much later, and traffic arriving now may be the result of work done long ago or of something else entirely.
Is traffic a good measure of success?
No, since traffic without commercial intent produces nothing. Revenue is better and gross margin on revenue is better still, and a programme reporting traffic growth without any commercial figure is reporting activity rather than results.
The formula
payback = cost / (monthly gain - monthly running cost)
Put this calculator on your site
Free to embed. Paste this where you want it to appear. It stays up to date automatically because it loads from BDEVY.
Please keep the attribution line. It is the only thing we ask in return.
How to use this calculator
- Up-front cost ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $12,000.
- Extra gross profit per month ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $1,400.
- Extra running cost per month ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $220.
- Period to judge it over. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 36.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to payback period, 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 |
|---|---|
| Up-front cost | $12,000 |
| Extra gross profit per month | $1,400 |
| Extra running cost per month | $220 |
| Period to judge it over | 36 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Payback period main result | 10.2 |
| Net gain per month | $1,180 |
| Net return over the period | $30,480 |
| Return on investment | 254% |
It pays for itself in 10.2 months and returns $30,480 over 36 months, a 254% return.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only up-front cost, this is what happens to payback period. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Up-front cost ($) | Payback period |
|---|---|
| $6,000 | 5.1 |
| $9,000 | 7.6 |
| $12,000 example above | 10.2 |
| $18,000 | 15.3 |
| $24,000 | 20.3 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Up-front cost ($)
- A money amount, starting at $12,000.
- Extra gross profit per month ($)
- A money amount, starting at $1,400.
- Extra running cost per month ($)
- A money amount, starting at $220.
- Period to judge it over
- A number, between 0 and 240, starting at 36.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Payback period | The headline result. A decimal figure. |
| Net gain per month | A money figure. |
| Net return over the period | A money figure. |
| Return on investment | 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.