Cost per booked job, by channel.
The only channel comparison that reaches your P and L, worked out with published figures.
Same trade, same job value, a fivefold difference.
Cost per lead divided by close rate, using the midpoint of each published range.
Organic and referral
A $220 supported enquiry at a 60 percent close rate. Under 3 percent of a median job.
Cold paid advertising
A $150 lead at a 12 percent close rate. Roughly 9 percent of a median job.
Shared platform leads
A $250 lead at a 14 percent close rate. Over 13 percent of a median job.
CALCULATED FROM PUBLISHED RANGES. SOURCES: GHOSTREP, GETBIDDABLE, WEBSITE AND SEO AGENCY. RANGES AS PUBLISHED SEPT 2026.
The calculation
Cost per lead divided by close rate. That is the whole method, and it is the only comparison that survives contact with your accounts. Cost per lead ranks channels in one order and cost per booked job frequently ranks them in the reverse order, which is why vendors quote the first number and your bookkeeper cares about the second.
Against a $13,400 job
At median job value, $367 acquisition cost is under 3 percent of revenue. $1,786 is over 13 percent, which is most of the margin on a competitively priced replacement. Nothing about the work changed between those two figures. Only where the enquiry came from.
What to include in the cost
Five items that belong in the numerator and usually are not.
Do it per channel and per metro
A blended acquisition cost hides the one channel losing money. Segment by channel, then by metro, then by service. It is common to find that replacement work from organic pays for the business while a shared-lead account in one metro consumes the margin, and that neither fact is visible in the blended number.
The benchmark to hold everything against
Acquisition cost as a percentage of job value, tracked over a full year. Under 5 percent is healthy in this trade. Above 10 percent, the channel is eating the margin on a median job, and no amount of negotiating the lead price fixes a close rate of 12 percent. The fix is either the close rate or the channel.
What this argues for
Building the channel that closes rather than renting the one that does not. A one-time build against a research plan replaces a permanent per-job toll, which is the commercial case worked out scenario by scenario in the cost-versus-leads examples in the cost cluster.
Build the table for your own business
Five columns, one row per channel, one year of data.
What to do with an unprofitable channel
Two options before switching it off. Improve the close rate, which usually means answering faster and pre-qualifying better rather than selling harder. Or reduce the cost, by narrowing targeting to the services and suburbs where you actually win. If neither moves the ratio under 10 percent within a quarter, the channel is structural rather than fixable.
Why this number decides strategy
Acquisition cost as a share of job value is the ratio every marketing decision reduces to. It tells you which channel to grow, which to cap, whether a rebuild pays, and whether a retainer is worth renewing. Most roofing companies have never calculated it per channel, which is why marketing budgets in this trade get argued about on instinct.
Related guides.
Organic and referral at 50 to 70 percent, cold paid at 8 to 15, shared platforms at 8 to 20, and why the spread is that wide.
$200 to $300 per shared lead with no exclusivity, against enquiries that arrive only to you.
Close rates of 50 to 70 percent against 8 to 15 percent, and what that does to cost per booked job.
Run the numbers on your market.
$2,500, and you see cost per booked job for every channel you use.