Free calculator

PPC Calculator

This calculator turns a monthly budget into clicks, leads, customers and profit using your own cost per click, conversion rate and close rate. The reason to run it is the break-even point, because a $5,000 budget that wins 20 customers is either a great month or a loss, depending on what one customer is worth to you.

Your numbers

What they mean

Profit after ad spend
$25,000.00
$30,000.00 of profit from customers, minus the budget
Clicks
2,000
budget divided by CPC
Leads
100
clicks times conversion rate
Customers
20
leads times close rate
Cost per lead
$50.00
budget divided by leads
Cost per customer
$250.00
budget divided by customers
Revenue
$30,000.00
customers times profit per customer

Your profit is $25,000.00. A free Google Ads review shows what would move it.

How to read the result

Read the chain from left to right. Budget divided by CPC gives clicks, clicks times conversion rate gives leads, and leads times close rate gives customers. Every number after the first one is a guess until the campaign has run for a month.

Cost per customer is the figure to hold against profit per customer. When my wife's travel business ran on £1,500 a month, a lead cost $7, 1 in 6 of them booked, and a customer cost $42 against a profit above $750.

Conversion rate moves the whole model more than CPC does. Taking a page from 2% to 4% doubles the leads for the same spend, and that is a landing page fix rather than a bidding fix.

Put profit per customer in the last box rather than revenue. The calculator then shows the money left after the ads, which is the number that decides whether to keep going. My PPC budget guide shows how to pick the budget figure, and what Google Ads really cost gives CPC ranges by industry to start from.

Questions I get about PPC budgets

How many clicks will my budget buy?

Divide the budget by your average cost per click. $5,000 at $2.50 a click buys 2,000 clicks. Google can spend up to twice the daily budget on a busy day, and it evens that out across the month.

What conversion rate should I use?

Use your own landing page figure if you have one. If you do not, 3% to 5% is a fair starting range for a search campaign, and a well built page can pass 10%. Swap in the real number after the first 100 clicks.

What is the difference between a lead and a customer?

A lead is a form fill, a call or a sign-up. A customer paid you. The close rate between them is where most calculators go wrong, because the ad account only ever sees the lead.

How do I know if the campaign is profitable?

Compare cost per customer with the profit one customer brings you. If a customer costs $250 to win and earns you $1,500, the campaign is profitable with room to grow the budget. If the two are close, fix the landing page before you add spend.