Digital Marketing ROI Calculator for Service Businesses
See what $1,000–$10,000 a month in marketing should actually return — leads, customers, revenue, payback — calibrated to your industry. Change the inputs, results update live.
Base case: industry benchmarks and the numbers you enter. A forecast, not a guarantee of results.
12-month projection
Cumulative revenue vs cumulative spend, assuming steady monthly inputs.
Estimates only. Real results vary with offer, landing page quality, speed to lead, seasonality, geography, and campaign execution. See methodology for the math and benchmark sources. Copy sharable link.
How to read your result
Walk through the math — the HVAC example
Say you run an HVAC business. You're putting $3,000/month into Google Ads and paying an agency $1,500/month to manage it. Average first-job revenue is $450, and you keep customers for about 3 years. Here's what the calculator is telling you, line by line.
Example$3,000 ad spend · $1,500 fee · HVAC · $450 ACV · 3-year lifetime
- 35 leads/month. HVAC benchmark cost-per-lead is
$85. $3,000 ÷ $85 = 35.3 leads. If your CPL is actually $120, you'd get ~25 leads — override it in Advanced. - 9.9 new customers/month. HVAC benchmark lead-to-customer rate is
28%. 35.3 × 0.28 ≈ 9.9 customers. If your phone team answers slowly, you'll be closer to 20% (≈ 7 customers). That's the single biggest lever in the whole model. - $4,447 revenue/month, $53,364/year. 9.9 × $450 ≈ $4,447/mo. This is gross revenue before you subtract the $54,000/yr you spent on ad budget + agency.
- CAC = $455. ($3,000 + $1,500) ÷ 9.9 ≈ $455 per customer. That's what it costs you to land one. First-job revenue ($450) is revenue, not profit: after the cost of delivering the job it covers less of the $455 than it looks. Illustrative example, before margin.
- LTV = $923. $450 × (1 + 0.35 × 3) = $922.50. One first job ($450) plus 35% repeat × 3 years (≈ $472 in follow-ups). If you don't have a re-engagement system, LTV collapses to just $450 and the whole model breaks.
- Revenue LTV : CAC = 2.0 : 1. $923 / $455 ≈ 2.0. This is a revenue ratio. With an illustrative 40% gross margin, LTV on a profit basis is about $369, so the ratio is about 0.8 : 1 and acquisition cost is not recovered from gross profit. Your real margin decides this, so enter it in the calculator.
- Payback depends on your margin. This is revenue payback, before the cost of delivering the job. Recovering CAC from gross profit takes longer than revenue alone suggests, so use your own margin before drawing a profitability conclusion.
Lever 1 · Cost per lead
Drop CPL from $85 to $60 and you get 15 more leads/mo. Usually comes from better landing pages, negative keywords, local targeting.
Lever 2 · Conversion rate
Move lead-to-customer from 28% to 35% and you get 2.5 more customers/mo. Usually comes from speed-to-lead, phone training, and follow-up automation.
Lever 3 · LTV / repeat rate
Raise repeat rate from 35% to 55% and LTV jumps +$270 per customer. Usually comes from reminders, loyalty, and memberships.
Scroll back up to the calculator and try toggling each lever — the KPIs update live, so you can see exactly how much one percentage point is worth in dollars per year.
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Methodology
The math — nothing up our sleeve
Leads, customers, revenue
leads = ad_spend / CPL
customers = leads × conversion%
revenue = customers × ACV
Monthly revenue × 12 = annual. This is a revenue figure: it does not subtract your costs. Enter a gross margin to see profit-based LTV:CAC and payback.
CAC, LTV, payback
CAC = (spend + fee) / customers
LTV = ACV × (1 + repeat% × lifetime_yrs)
payback_mo = 1 + (CAC − first job) / (first job × repeat% / 12), or 1 month if the first job already covers CAC. With a margin, "job" and LTV are gross profit (revenue × margin); without one they are revenue.
With no customers (0 leads or 0% conversion), CAC and payback are not defined and show N/A. A common rule of thumb is LTV ≥ 3× CAC on a gross-profit basis; it is not a guarantee.
Benchmarks — where they come from
Cost-per-lead and lead-to-customer rates are midpoints of published Google Ads industry benchmarks (WordStream, Thrive Agency, LocaliQ, 2024–2025 service-business reports). Ranges are wide — we use honest midpoints and let you override.
Industry benchmarks used
Midpoints. Actual CPL and conversion vary by geography, season, offer, and channel mix.
| Industry | Avg CPL | Lead → customer | Typical first-job |
|---|