Free calculator
Marketing ROI calculator: what the spend returned.
Enter campaign spend and how it moved through the pipeline. You get ROI, ROAS, cost per lead, cost per customer, gross profit, and the number of deals needed to break even. Nothing is stored and no email is required.
Your numbers
- Marketing ROI
- 438%
- ROAS
- 8.28 to 1
- Cost per lead
- $167
- Breakeven
- 4.0 deals
Gross profit of $161,460 against $30,000 of spend, a net return of $131,460.
$248,400 of revenue from 21.6 closed deals.
Cost per customer lands at $1,389.
About 33 qualified leads at this close rate before the program pays for itself.
Strong. At this return the constraint is capacity, not efficiency. The question becomes how much more the channel absorbs before the number softens.
The formulas
Written out, so you can argue with them
Marketing ROI
ROI = (gross profit from the campaign - campaign spend) / campaign spend, as a percentage. Gross profit, not revenue, is what makes the number defensible in a finance conversation.
ROAS
Revenue / spend. It answers a media question rather than a business one, which is why a program can post a 4 to 1 ROAS and still lose money at a thin margin.
Cost per lead and per customer
Spend / qualified leads, then spend / closed deals. The gap between the two is the close rate, and it usually explains more of a weak return than media price does.
Breakeven deals
Spend / gross profit per deal. This is the number worth writing on the wall before a campaign starts, because it converts a budget into a sales target.
Worked example
A B2B manufacturer, two quarters
The default numbers in the calculator are this example: a mid-market manufacturer running paid search, a trade show, and a content program against a long consideration cycle. Revenue looked fine. Margin was the part nobody had checked.
- Campaign spend, two quarters
- $30,000
- Qualified leads
- 180
- Lead to customer rate
- 12%
- Average deal size
- $11,500
- Gross margin
- 65%
That produces about 22 deals and $248,000 in revenue, so ROAS reads 8 to 1. On gross profit the return is $161,000 against $30,000 of spend, an ROI near 438%, with breakeven at roughly four deals. Cost per lead is $167 and cost per customer $1,389. The useful conclusion sits in the breakeven line: four deals covered the entire program, which made the case for spending more rather than trimming.
When the number looks wrong
Four things to check first
Revenue standing in for profit
An ROI built on revenue counts money that never reaches the business. Run it on gross profit and a thin-margin program often flips from winner to break even.
Every form fill called a lead
Newsletter signups and job seekers in the denominator drive cost per lead down and the close rate with it. Count only leads sales would accept.
Attribution windows shorter than the sales cycle
A 90-day cycle measured on a 30-day window credits the last touch and buries the demand that created the deal. Match the window to how people actually buy.
Fixed cost left out
Media is rarely the whole spend. Retainers, tooling, production, and the time your team gave the program belong in the number too.
ROI tells you what a program returned. The CAC calculator tells you what a customer costs, the Trade Show Planner runs the same math for a single show, and the digital marketing audit scores readiness across the funnel. All of them sit on the marketing math path.
Next step
A weak return is usually a positioning problem wearing a media costume.
If ROI is slipping while spend holds steady, the cause is normally the offer, the audience, or the handoff to sales. Bring your numbers to a free consult and I will read them with you.