Free tool
What a lead actually costs you per sale
Cost per lead is the number vendors quote. Cost per sale is the number that decides whether you keep your contract. Put your own rates in and watch the gap.
Your numbers
Cost per sale
$714
20.4 leads per sale
Monthly lead spend
$3,031
87 leads/mo
Contacts
30
Appointments
12
Sales
4.2
Issued AP written
$3,819
Advance in pocket
$2,864
Net after leads
-$167
Thin margin
You are returning 1.26× your lead spend in first-year commission at $714 per sale. Under 3×, one bad batch or a run of chargebacks puts you underwater. Move the close rate or the lead price, not the volume.
This is arithmetic on the numbers you entered, not a projection. It ignores chargebacks, persistency, renewals, and your own time. Track your real contact and close rates for 60 days and put those in instead of the defaults.
The other half of the math: what a lead costs when you make it yourself
The calculator above prices a lead you buy. This one prices a lead you generate — put in a monthly ad budget and an expected cost per lead and it returns lead volume, cost per placed policy and first-year commission. Same arithmetic, other side of the trade.
Tool by FEXads — Facebook ad CPL calculator for life insurance agents. Embedded here with the advertiser’s own widget.
How to use the number you just got
Cost per sale is the only figure that compares two vendors honestly. A $12 shared lead that closes one in forty costs you $480 a sale. A $45 exclusive lead that closes one in twelve costs you $540. The cheap one looked half the price and finished within $60 of the expensive one — before you count the hours of dialing.
Once you have your cost per sale, three levers move it, and only three:
- Lead price. The easiest to change and the least likely to help, because price usually tracks exclusivity.
- Contact rate. Speed to lead moves this more than any script. Minutes matter, not hours.
- Close rate. The slowest to move and the one that changes everything downstream.
If you cannot get the number under a third of your average first-year commission, the problem is usually the lead source, not the agent. Read what leads actually cost or compare vendors in the directory.