What does a useful enquiry actually cost?
Work out what each accepted and each qualified enquiry cost, from your own spend and lead counts. The formulas, assumptions and limits are shown in full.
Divide what you spent by the enquiries that were actually worth following up, not by every form submitted. Keep media spend and other costs separate, use one period and one definition of qualified, and treat a zero count as “unavailable”, not as a cost of nothing.
The formulas
| Result | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Media cost per accepted enquiry | Media spend ÷ accepted enquiries | What the platform charged for each enquiry that actually reached you |
| Media cost per qualified enquiry | Media spend ÷ qualified enquiries | What the platform charged for each enquiry worth following up |
| Fully loaded cost per qualified enquiry | (Media spend + other costs) ÷ qualified enquiries | The same, including management, creative or setup costs you choose to allocate |
| Share that qualified | Qualified enquiries ÷ accepted enquiries | How much of what arrived was usable |
If a count is zero, the matching result shows as unavailable, not $0 and not infinity. No enquiries means there is nothing to divide by: the honest report is the spend and a check that the lead path works.
Define the inputs before you count
- Media spend: the amount paid to the ad platform in the period. Take it from the platform, not from an invoice that bundles other work.
- Other acquisition costs: management fees, creative production or setup, if you want a fully loaded figure. Leave it blank to keep the media figures pure. Do not mix the two when comparing campaigns.
- Accepted enquiries: enquiries that reached your inbox or CRM. Leave out your own test submissions and obvious junk. A form that showed a thank-you screen but never arrived does not count.
- Qualified enquiries: accepted enquiries that met the definition you agreed before the campaign, such as service offered, area covered and timing workable. Our lead qualification guide helps set that definition.
A worked example
The calculator opens with made-up figures so you can see how it reads. A business spends $1,500 on media in a month and receives 30 accepted enquiries, of which 12 meet its definition of qualified.
| Figure | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Media cost per accepted enquiry | $1,500 ÷ 30 | $50.00 |
| Media cost per qualified enquiry | $1,500 ÷ 12 | $125.00 |
| Share that qualified | 12 ÷ 30 | 40% |
The second line is usually more useful than the first, because it ignores enquiries you could not use. A lower cost per accepted enquiry is not automatically better if the cost per qualified enquiry rises. Even then, a higher cost per qualified enquiry is not automatically worse: what a lead is worth depends on the job value, your close rate and your margin, so compare campaigns on those as well.
What the result does not tell you
- Whether the cost is good. That depends on what a completed job contributes to your business and how many qualified enquiries become customers. The advertising break-even calculator works out that ceiling from your own figures.
- Whether the next month will cost the same. Small numbers move around a lot; a handful of enquiries either way can swing the figure sharply.
- Which channel caused the enquiry, if you cannot see the source of each one. Keep source information with each lead, as described in tracking Meta Ads leads from click to customer.
- Anything about leads that are still waiting for a reply. Unanswered is not the same as unqualified.