What’s a “Good” Cost Per Lead?

One of the most common questions we hear from clients is:

• What should my cost per lead be?
  
  

• What’s a good MQL-to-SQL conversion rate?
  
  

• How do I know if my funnel metrics are “healthy”?

And the honest answer is… it depends.

There are plenty of benchmarks out there and some are solid, some questionable. That’s why we built this interactive dashboard, which pulls from anonymized client data and reputable third-party sources to give you directionally accurate averages for cost per click, CTR, conversion rate, and cost per lead across Google, Meta, and LinkedIn.

👉 Super useful? Yes.

👉 The final word on what your metrics should be? Absolutely not.

Why benchmarks matter (but not as much as you think)

Benchmarks are a great starting point. They help you sanity-check your numbers. If you’re paying $1,000 for a LinkedIn lead when your industry’s average is $250, that’s worth digging into.

But here’s the thing: every industry is different. Every audience is different. And frankly, every offer is different. A free checklist download is going to look a lot different from a demo request for enterprise software.

So while this dashboard can show you what “average” looks like, your real job is to:

1. Establish your own baselines.
   
   

2. Test, learn, and optimize.
   
   

3. Measure improvement over yourself, not your neighbor.

The metrics that actually matter

Instead of obsessing over whether your CPL is a few dollars higher than a benchmark report, zoom out. What really drives growth is understanding your economics:

• CAC Payback Period – How long does it take you to earn back what you spent to acquire a customer?
  
  

• LTV:CAC Ratio – Are you spending responsibly relative to the lifetime value of your customers?
  
  

• ROI Windows – Are you measuring ROI in the first 12 months or across the full customer lifetime? Both tell different stories.

You can have a “high” cost per lead and still win if those leads convert at a strong rate and become high-LTV customers. On the flip side, you can have the cheapest leads in the world that never close. Benchmarks won’t tell you that.

Use benchmarks as a compass, not a map

Think of industry benchmarks like the GPS telling you which direction north is. They’re helpful for orientation, but they’re not a step-by-step map for your business.

The companies that win aren’t the ones who chase averages. They’re the ones who:

• Test relentlessly.
  
  

• Set clear baselines.
  
  

• Iterate month after month.
  
  

• Obsess over ROI, not vanity metrics.

So the next time you find yourself asking, “What’s a good cost per lead?” the better question might be:

“What’s a profitable cost per lead for my business, my audience, and my offer?”

That’s the benchmark that really matters.