Back to the Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator guide

Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator

Before committing budget, see the projected ROI, payback period, and net gain for the channel you're considering, and compare it directly against the alternatives.

Marketing ROI Calculator

Live

Model several channels at once and rank them on the two figures that pull against each other: total return, and how fast the cash comes back.

Shared economics

Horizon12 months

Compounding channels look poor over short horizons because they are judged mid-ramp.

Average order / contract value

Gross marginROI here is calculated on gross profit, not revenue. A revenue-based ROI overstates every channel equally, which makes the comparison useless.70%

Purchases per customer

One means single-purchase. Raise it to count repeat business within the horizon.

Currency

Channels

Selecting a channel type sets its ramp period and how much output survives if you stop spending.

Spend / month

Cost per lead

Lead → customer18%

Fastest to signal and fastest to zero. Buys existing intent, so lead quality is high and volume is capped by how many people are already searching.

Spend / month

Cost per lead

Lead → customer22%

Slowest to arrive, cheapest at maturity, and the only channel here that keeps producing after the budget stops.

Spend / month

Cost per lead

Lead → customer28%

The highest-ROI channel in most businesses, and the most neglected. Works on an audience you already paid to acquire, which is why the cost per lead is so low.

Blended ROI

570%

on $192k of spend

Net gain

$1.1M

gross profit less spend

Blended CAC

$251

766 customers

Fastest payback

Month 1

Paid search

Cumulative net position by channel

Gross profit less spend, accumulated. Steepness is return; the crossing point is payback.

Email & lifecycleSEOPaid search

What the model says

Email & lifecycle returns the most over 12 months

2179% ROI on 24,000 of spend, at a cost per customer of 74. The highest-ROI channel in most businesses, and the most neglected. Works on an audience you already paid to acquire, which is why the cost per lead is so low.

But Paid search pays back fastest, in month 1

This is the trade-off a single ROI number hides. Email & lifecycle returns more in total; Paid search returns cash sooner. If cash flow is tight, the faster payback is worth more than the larger multiple, even though it looks worse on the ranking above.

Some of this spend buys an asset, and the ROI figure does not show it

SEO and Email & lifecycle retain 85% and 60% of their output the month after spend stops. Every other channel here goes to zero. Over a multi-year view that difference usually outweighs the ROI ranking above.

The spread between your best and worst channel is wide

1970 percentage points separate Email & lifecycle from Paid search. Before reallocating, check whether the weaker channel is genuinely inefficient or simply measured badly, because attribution gaps produce exactly this pattern.

Channel comparison

Ranked by ROI. Read the payback and retention columns before acting on the ranking.

Channel	Spend	Customers	CAC	ROI	ROAS	Payback	Retained
Email & lifecycle	$24k	326	$73.73	2179%	32.6x	M1	60%
SEO	$72k	264	$273	516%	8.8x	M1	85%
Paid search	$96k	176	$545	208%	4.4x	M1	0%

Net gain by channel

Absolute contribution, not percentage.

Email & lifecycle$523k2179%

SEO$372k516%

Paid search$200k208%

Leads generated

Volume, before quality. Compare against the customer column above.

Email & lifecycle1.2k28% close

SEO1.2k22% close

Paid search97918% close