True Cost Per Job Won: How to Work It Out
Cost per lead tells you what you paid. Cost per job won tells you whether it was worth it. Here is how to work yours out, source by source.
The number that matters
Cost per lead tells you what you paid. Cost per job won tells you whether it was worth it.
Most lead services quote a price per lead, per connection or per month. Those figures are easy to compare and close to useless on their own, because a lead is not a job. What you need to know is how much it cost, all in, to win each piece of work that actually went ahead.
That figure is your true cost per job won. It is simple to work out, it takes a few months of honest record-keeping, and it changes how you look at every channel you pay for.
This guide sets out the method, the costs people usually leave out, and a worked illustration using hypothetical round numbers. It is part of our guide to getting more work as a contractor. For what individual leads cost on each platform, see how much do construction leads cost.
Why cost per lead misleads
The difference between a lead and a job
A cost per lead is what you pay to receive an enquiry. Published figures for UK trades run from £6 to £30 per connection on Bark to £15 to £60 per lead on MyBuilder and Rated People, with roofing leads generally at £10 to £70 each. What is cost per lead explains the term in more detail.
Most leads do not become jobs. Some customers never answer. Some want a price for next year. Some collect several quotes and pick another one. Every lead that doesn't convert still cost money, so the jobs you do win have to carry the cost of all the ones you didn't.
Once conversion is accounted for, published estimates put the true cost per job won on paid lead platforms at £150 to £1,000. The range is wide because it depends so heavily on trade, area, platform and how well each business converts. Your own figure could sit anywhere in it, or outside it. The only way to know is to work it out.
Platform pricing as published by Trades Grow, One Base Media, Sleepless Tradesman and SwiftLead, 2026. Rates change, so check current pricing before relying on these figures.
The method
Working out your true cost per job won
Do this separately for each source of work: each platform, your ads, your referrals. Lumping them together hides the answer.
Pick a period
Three months is a sensible minimum. One month is too short to smooth out luck, and a single quiet or busy spell will distort the result.
Add up the direct spend
Every per-lead fee, the share of any subscription for that period, and any add-ons or boosts. For advertising, the full ad spend plus any management fee.
Add the cost of your time
Calls, travel, site visits and quotes for enquiries that didn't convert. Put a fair hourly value on it. This is the step most people skip, and it is often the largest hidden cost.
Count the jobs won from that source
Only jobs that went ahead. Accepted quotes that were later cancelled do not count.
Divide the total cost by the jobs won
The result is your true cost per job won for that source. Alongside it, the share of enquiries that became jobs is your conversion rate; what is a good lead conversion rate explains how to read it.
Compare it with your margin
Set the figure against what you make on a typical job from that source. The cost of winning the job comes out of that margin, whether you notice it or not.
What people leave out
The hidden costs of winning a job
Surveys that go nowhere
A site visit for a job you don't win is a morning or an afternoon you can't bill. It is often the single biggest cost in the calculation.
Quoting time
Measuring up, pricing materials, writing it out and sending it. On larger jobs this can run to hours per quote, whether you win it or not.
Calls and chasing
Ringing customers back, answering questions, following up quotes. Small each time, significant across a month.
Discounting to win
If you knocked money off to compete with cheaper quotes, that reduction is a cost of winning the work too. It just never arrives as an invoice.
Bad leads
Wrong trade, wrong area, customers who say they never enquired. Unless you got the fee back, it belongs in the total.
Admin after the win
Invoicing, collecting the deposit, arranging start dates. Not strictly acquisition, but it belongs in any honest view of what a job costs you to land. See the admin cost of winning work.
Worked illustration
An example with round numbers
Illustration only. Every figure in this section is a hypothetical round number chosen to show the method. None of them is an average, a benchmark or a typical result for any platform or trade.
Say that over three months you spent £1,000 on leads from one source. From those leads you won five jobs. On spend alone, your cost per job won is £1,000 divided by five: £200 per job.
Now add your time. Say you spent 20 hours on calls, travel, site visits and quotes for enquiries that didn't convert, and for the sake of the example you value your time at £50 an hour. That adds another £1,000. Your true cost per job won is £2,000 divided by five: £400 per job, double the figure you started with.
Finally, set it against your margin. If, in this example, a typical job from that source leaves you £1,500 after materials and labour, a £400 cost of winning it leaves £1,100. If a typical job leaves you £500, the same cost takes most of it.
The arithmetic is identical for any source. Run it for each one and the comparison is usually clearer than you expect.
The £1,000, five jobs, 20 hours and £50 an hour above are invented to make the sums easy to follow. Use your own records. The only published figures on this page are the platform prices and the £150 to £1,000 estimate, each from the sources listed.
What moves the number
What pushes cost per job won up, and what brings it down
Pushes it up
- Enquiries shared with several other businesses
- Slow response to new enquiries
- Surveys booked without qualifying the customer
- Quotes sent late or informally
- No follow-up on submitted quotes
- Buying leads outside the work you win most
Brings it down
- Enquiries that go to you alone
- Answering or calling back quickly
- A short qualifying call before any visit
- Clear written quotes, sent promptly
- A polite follow-up a few days later
- Concentrating spend on your best categories and areas
Keeping records
The records that make the sum possible
The method only works if the records exist. They don't need to be elaborate. For each enquiry, note the date, the source, what it cost, and then how far it got: spoken to, visited, quoted, won or lost.
Add a rough note of time spent on anything that went to a visit or a quote. You don't need it to the minute. An honest estimate recorded on the day is far more useful than a guess made three months later.
For subscriptions, divide the fee across the months it covers, so a year paid in advance isn't loaded onto the month you paid it. For advertising, take the spend from the account for the same period and add any management fee.
Keep the sources separate from the start. It is tempting to note just "online" or "platform", but the whole point is to see which specific source earns its keep. Two services that look similar on price can produce very different results in the same area.
Review it on a fixed date each quarter. A regular review turns a pile of notes into decisions, and it stops one memorable good job, or one memorable bad month, from deciding where the money goes.
Using the figure
Turning the number into decisions
Once you have a cost per job won for each source, the decisions get easier. A source that costs more per lead but wins more often can be cheaper per job. A source that looks cheap can turn out to be the most expensive thing you pay for. Why shared leads don't convert explains one of the commonest reasons.
Use the figure to set a ceiling. Decide the most you are prepared to pay to win a job of a given size, and review any source that consistently goes over it. When is a lead worth paying for covers how to set that line.
It helps with budgeting too. Knowing your cost per job won lets you work backwards from the work you want to the spend you need, rather than picking a monthly figure and hoping. See how much should I spend on marketing.
And it is the fairest way to compare different models. A subscription and a per-lead service charge in different ways, but both produce a cost per job won. Pay-per-lead vs subscription sets the two side by side.
Where Mortaro fits
When the cost of winning the work isn't yours to carry
Some arrangements move the cost of winning work away from the contractor altogether. In the Mortaro network, we generate the enquiries, qualify the customer, book the site visit, prepare and issue the quotation and follow it up. There is no membership, no subscription and no per-lead charge.
You price the job at trade rate. We add our fee on top of your figure in the customer's quotation, and you are paid your rate in full; nothing is deducted. Trade rates explained sets out how that pricing works, and no upfront lead fees, explained covers the commercial side.
Your time on site visits still counts, so the method above still applies to your own planning. Volume is never promised: it depends on your area, your trade and your record with us. For some contractors the trade-off is clearly worth it. For others, their own marketing will work out cheaper, and the method on this page is how to tell.
Straight answers
Questions about cost per job won
What's the difference between cost per lead and cost per job won?
Cost per lead is what you pay for each enquiry. Cost per job won is the total cost of a source divided by the jobs it actually produced. The second is the one that tells you whether the source pays.
Should I include my own time?
For an honest figure, yes. Time on visits and quotes that don't convert is a real cost, even though no invoice arrives for it. If it helps, work out both versions, with and without time, and look at the gap.
What is a good cost per job won?
There is no single right number, because it depends on the size and margin of the jobs. The test is whether it leaves you a margin you are happy with. Published estimates for paid lead platforms run from £150 to £1,000 per job won. Platform pricing as published by Trades Grow, One Base Media, Sleepless Tradesman and SwiftLead, 2026. Rates change, so check current pricing before relying on these figures.
How often should I recalculate?
Every quarter is a sensible rhythm, and whenever you change platform, category or area. Prices, competition and your own conversion all shift over time.
For contractors
Tell us about your business
Your trade, the areas you cover and the size of work you take on. A person reads every enquiry, and if it looks like a fit we will send you the full application.