What is your cost per lead, and is it any good?
Put in what you spent, the clicks it bought and the enquiries you got. This works out your cost per click, your conversion rate and your cost per lead, then sets them beside the only two reference points anyone can honestly offer: a published United States benchmark, and the range we have measured across our own Australian accounts.
Your numbers
The answer
Cost per lead
$75.00
40 enquiries from $3,000.00 of spend
Cost per click
$7.50
400 clicks
Conversion rate
10%
Clicks that became an enquiry
Where it sits in our range
Inside our range
$57.21 to $176.78 across 10 accounts
Spent on clicks that did not enquire
$2,700.00
360 clicks left without making contact, at $7.50 each
How this was worked out
- Cost per click
- $3,000.00 ÷ 400 clicks = $7.50
- Conversion rate
- 40 ÷ 400 × 100 = 10%
- Cost per lead
- $3,000.00 ÷ 40 enquiries = $75.00
- Spend on clicks that did not enquire
- 360 × $7.50 = $2,700.00
Your account against the two reference points that exist
| Figure | Cost per lead | Market | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your account | $75.00 | Your own data | 40 enquiries from 400 clicks |
| Our plumbing and drainage accounts | $57.21 – $176.78 | Australia | 10 published accounts, median $112.56 |
| Home & Home Improvement | US$90.92 | United States | Median of 13,474 search campaigns, 2026 |
An aggregate that also contains electrical, air conditioning and roofing. The source does not publish plumbing on its own. Our own figures are a range from selected work, not a market average.
What to do with this
- Your $75.00 falls inside the $57.21 to $176.78 spread we have measured in this trade, which tells you the account is not broken. Whether it is affordable is a different question — that one needs your job value.
- Whatever the number, write it down with the date and the period length. A cost per lead with no comparison point next month is trivia.
Change anything above and the link in your address bar changes with it, so you can send the exact result to whoever needs to see it. Nothing you type is sent anywhere — the whole calculation happens in your browser.
What this does, and how the maths works
What it does
- Turns three numbers off your ad account into the three that actually describe it: what a click cost, how many clicks became an enquiry, and what an enquiry cost.
- Then it does the part most calculators skip. It shows you a real published benchmark with its market and year stated, and it shows you the spread we have measured across our own accounts in the same trade, with a link to each one.
- There is no Australian cost-per-lead benchmark from any source with a published method. Anything claiming otherwise is a US figure with an Australian flag on it. This tool does not do that.
How to use it
- Open your Google Ads account and pick a period with enough volume to mean something. A month is usually the shortest sensible window.
- Enter the spend, the clicks and the conversions for that period. Use the conversion action that represents a real enquiry, not every button press on the site.
- Choose the closest trade so the comparison uses the right accounts.
- Read the three results, then read the comparison table underneath before you decide anything.
The formula
- Cost per click = spend ÷ clicks
- Conversion rate = enquiries ÷ clicks × 100
- Cost per lead = spend ÷ enquiries
Reading the answer
- A high cost per lead with a healthy conversion rate is an auction problem. You are paying too much for the click, usually because the account is bidding on searches with wide intent.
- A low cost per click with a poor conversion rate is a relevance problem. Cheap clicks are cheap for a reason, and the landing page is usually the second half of it.
- Neither number means anything on its own until you know what a job is worth. Run the break-even calculator next and you will know whether the cost per lead you have is affordable rather than merely average.
What it cannot tell you
The benchmark is United States data and it aggregates several trades into one category. Our own figures are a range from selected work on accounts we run, not a market rate. Treat both as context, not as a target.
Where every figure on this page came from
Every default in the calculator above is either your own number or a figure from one of the studies below, with the market and the sample stated. Nothing here is an estimate somebody felt was about right, and no United States figure is wearing an Australian label.
SoudCoh, 36 published client case studies
SoudCoh · 2026 · measured in AU/UK · high confidence
Cost per enquiry taken from the headline figure published on each case study, for a measured period in 2026. Australian dollars.
A range from selected work on accounts we run, not a market average and not a forecast. Read the individual case studies before using any figure from it.
WordStream / LocaliQ, Google Ads Benchmarks 2026
WordStream (LocaliQ) · 2026 · measured in US · high confidence
13,474 United States search campaigns, 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. Figures are medians.
United States data. Australian auction prices are widely believed to differ, and no published Australian dataset measures by how much.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about working with SoudCoh
Have more questions? Let's chat!
Book a Free Strategy CallThere is no published Australian benchmark to answer that with, and any site quoting one is either not citing a source or is quoting United States data. What we can tell you is what we have measured. Across ten plumbing accounts we run, the published cost per enquiry ranges from $57.21 to $176.78, with a median of $112.56. Across four electrical accounts it runs $65.01 to $138.74. Residential cleaning sits far lower at $25.02 to $40.69. Those are Australian dollars, from measured periods in 2026, and they are a range from selected work rather than a market rate.
Because it is the only one with a published method. The WordStream 2026 dataset covers 13,474 search campaigns over twelve months and states that it is United States data. Every Australian benchmark page we checked either published no methodology at all or admitted its numbers were US figures adjusted by feel. Relabelling a US number as Australian would be inventing a figure, so we show it as what it is and let you weigh it.
Usually because the account is buying searches that were never going to become a job. Emergency trades are the clearest case: a plumbing account pays emergency prices for the person with water on the floor and the same prices for the tenant checking whether the landlord has to pay. Start by reading what people actually searched before they clicked. Cutting budget lowers the bill without changing the ratio.
Yes, if they connected and lasted long enough to be a conversation. Counting every tap on a phone number inflates the lead count and flatters cost per lead. In our own accounts calls are a large share of enquiries — 231 of 985 on one Sydney plumbing account — so leaving them out understates the channel just as badly.
Long enough to clear thirty enquiries if you can. Below about fifteen the figure moves several dollars on one odd week, which is how businesses end up rebuilding an account that was working. Our own case studies report windows of ten to thirty-one days and state the length rather than the month, precisely because a short window needs to be read as a short window.
Run these next
One number rarely settles anything on its own. These three answer the questions this one raises.
Break-even ROAS and max cost per lead
Turn job value, gross margin and close rate into the maximum you can pay for an enquiry, the break-even return on ad spend, and how much headroom your current cost per lead leaves.
Your own numbers only — no benchmark used
Google Ads budget forecaster
Turn a daily budget and a click price into a monthly range of clicks, enquiries and jobs, banded by the conversion rates measured across 25 of our own accounts.
SoudCoh case studies · WordStream 2026
True cost per booked job
Add management fees, tools and tracking to your media spend, divide by booked jobs rather than leads, and see what is left of the margin after acquisition.
ATO
We will read
your real ones.
Send us the account rather than the estimate. We will tell you what it is actually costing to win a job, which part of the chain is leaking, and whether it is worth fixing — before anyone asks you to sign anything.