What does a daily budget actually buy?
Set a daily budget and a click price and this works forward to clicks, enquiries and jobs. It returns a range rather than a number, because the conversion rates measured across our own accounts run from 11.64% to 36.48% and a single figure would hide that.
Your numbers
The answer
Enquiries over the period
63.3
41.9 to 131.4 across the range we have measured
Spend
$3,000
$100.00 × 30 days
Clicks
360
At $8.33 each
Cost per enquiry
$47.38
At 17.6% conversion
Jobs
19
At 30% closing
Cost to win a job
$157.94
Against $1,200.00 of revenue
How this was worked out
- Spend
- $100.00 × 30 = $3,000
- Clicks
- $3,000 ÷ $8.33 = 360
- Enquiries
- 360 × 17.6% = 63.3
- Cost per enquiry
- $3,000 ÷ 63.3 = $47.38
- Jobs
- 63.3 × 30% = 19
The same spend at the low, entered and high conversion rates
| Click-to-enquiry rate | Enquiries | Cost per enquiry | Jobs | Where the rate comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11.6% | 41.9 | $71.56 | 12.6 | Lowest across our published accounts |
| 17.6% | 63.3 | $47.38 | 19 | The figure you entered |
| 36.5% | 131.4 | $22.83 | 39.4 | Highest across our published accounts |
| 8.1% | 29 | $103.48 | 8.7 | United States median, Home & Home Improvement |
Our own rates are a range from selected work on 25 accounts we run, not a market average. The United States row is stated as United States because it is; the same figure with an Australian label would be an invention. The published US click price for the same category is US$8.33.
What to do with this
- $3,000 over 30 days buys about 360 clicks. At 17.6% that is 63.3 enquiries at $47.38 each.
- The honest version is a range: between 41.9 and 131.4 enquiries, because that is the spread of click-to-enquiry rates across our own accounts. Plan against 41.9.
- At 30% closing and $1,200.00 a job, that is 19 jobs and $22,793 of revenue — $7.60 of revenue per dollar spent. Whether that is profitable depends on your margin, which the break-even calculator handles.
- Set the daily budget and leave it alone for at least three weeks. Changing it weekly is the single most common way an account is prevented from settling.
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
- Works forward from a daily budget: spend, clicks, enquiries, jobs, and what each of those costs.
- Bands the answer using the range of click-to-enquiry rates we have measured across our own accounts, so you see the pessimistic and optimistic versions beside the one you entered.
- Shows the click price you entered next to the published United States median, with the market stated, because there is no Australian equivalent to compare against.
How to use it
- Enter the daily budget you are considering and the number of days you want to model. Thirty days is the usual planning unit.
- Enter the average cost per click. Take it from your own account if you have one; if you do not, the field carries the published US median and says so.
- Enter the share of clicks that become enquiries. The default is the median across our own accounts.
- Read the band, not the middle number. If the low end is not survivable, the budget is not ready.
The formula
- Monthly spend = daily budget × days
- Clicks = spend ÷ cost per click
- Enquiries = clicks × click-to-enquiry rate
- Cost per enquiry = spend ÷ enquiries
- Jobs = enquiries × lead-to-job rate
Reading the answer
- Plan against the low end of the band. Every account we have taken over was planned against its middle.
- If the low end produces fewer than about ten enquiries a month, the account will be hard to read: a single unusual week will move every figure and you will make decisions on noise.
- The click price is the input you have least control over and the conversion rate is the one you have most. If the numbers do not work, the landing page is usually a cheaper fix than the bid.
What it cannot tell you
No ramp, no seasonality, no auction feedback. A real account spends its first weeks learning and pays more per enquiry while it does. The click price is also not fixed: bidding for more volume raises it, which is why doubling the budget rarely doubles the enquiries.
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 CallIt depends on the click price and the share of clicks that enquire, and the honest answer is a range rather than a number. $100 a day for thirty days is $3,000. At a click price of $8.33 that is about 360 clicks, and at the conversion rates we have measured across our own accounts — 11.64% at the low end and 36.48% at the high end — that is somewhere between 42 and 131 enquiries. The middle of our book, 17.58%, lands at about 63. Two warnings on that: $8.33 is the published United States median for home services, not an Australian figure, and it is in US dollars, so it is a placeholder until you put your own account's click price in. And anyone quoting you a single lead figure for a budget is guessing.
Because it is the only one with a published method behind it. WordStream's 2026 dataset covers 13,474 search campaigns and states plainly that it is United States data. Every Australian benchmark page we checked either published no methodology or admitted its figures were US numbers adjusted by feel. We show the US figure labelled as US and let you replace it with your own account's number, which is the only truly relevant one.
No, and this tool will tell you it does, which is why the limitation is stated on the page. Auctions sell the cheapest and most relevant impressions first. Extra budget buys progressively less relevant traffic at a higher price, so the cost per enquiry rises as spend does. Expect the second $100 a day to work harder for you than the fourth.
Across 25 of our own Australian accounts that publish one, click-to-enquiry rates run from 11.64% to 36.48%, with a median of 17.58%. The end-of-lease and carpet cleaning accounts cluster near the top at 22% to 33%, and the Sydney plumbing accounts cluster near the bottom at 13% to 14% — which is what the most contested plumbing market in the country looks like. Those are our accounts, not a market survey, and a new site should not assume it starts in the middle.
Give it thirty enquiries before you trust the cost per enquiry, and three weeks before you touch the budget. Several of our published case studies record a cost per enquiry falling by 20% to 58% inside the same account as it settled — a forecast judged in week one is judged against the worst version of the account.
Run these next
One number rarely settles anything on its own. These three answer the questions this one raises.
Marketing budget from a revenue target
Work backwards from an annual revenue target to the monthly ad budget behind it, and see what that budget is as a percentage of the revenue it has to produce.
SoudCoh case studies
Cost per lead calculator
Work out cost per click, conversion rate and cost per lead from three numbers, then compare against a US benchmark and our measured Australian range.
SoudCoh case studies · WordStream 2026
Impression share and missed leads
Convert impression share and the two lost-share figures from your Google Ads account into missed enquiries, and separate the ones budget can buy from the ones it cannot.
Your own numbers only — no benchmark used
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.