Paid-Lead Breakeven Line

From your own numbers, in three steps. First, clients per raw lead = your qualified-lead rate × your close rate. Then breakeven cost-per-lead = client value × clients-per-raw-lead — the point where a source pays for itself exactly. Then the profit line = breakeven × (1 − your target margin), the ceiling that leaves the headroom you want. There's no industry benchmark baked in; change any input and both lines move. A source is PROFITABLE at or under the profit line, THIN between it and breakeven, and UNDERWATER above breakeven.

Because cost-per-lead is only half the picture — a lead that never becomes a client has an infinite effective cost. If a source has recorded enough leads but closed zero clients, it reads UNDERWATER no matter how cheap the leads are. In the worked example a webinar source pays just $14 per lead — well under breakeven — yet reads UNDERWATER because it's produced no clients. A cheap source that never closes still loses money. Record one real close and, if its cost-per-lead is under your line, it flips to PROFITABLE.

They answer different questions. The Lead Source ROI Scorecard grades each source's qualified-lead yield and ROAS after the fact. The CAC & Payback Calculator tells you what a customer cost to acquire and how long to earn it back. This kit computes the forward-looking ceiling — the most you can pay per lead before a source goes underwater at your close rate — and reads each source against that line. It's the number you use to decide whether to keep buying, renegotiate, or cut, before more spend goes out. They pair well: use this to set the line, the ROI Scorecard to grade yield.

Use your best honest estimate and lean conservative — a lower client value and close rate pull the line down, which is the safer direction for a spending decision. Because the whole model is transparent, you can see exactly how the line moves as you refine the inputs, and re-check your sources whenever you have better numbers. The kit never substitutes an industry average for your figure; the line is only ever as good as the numbers you enter, and it tells you plainly when a source has too few leads (under 10) to judge yet.

One .xlsx with three tabs — Start Here (what each input means), Dashboard (your breakeven line, profit line, verdict, and the monthly spend sitting in underwater sources), and the Breakeven Calculator (your economics plus a row per source with live formulas). It ships with a worked six-source example you overwrite with your own. A bonus zero-dependency Python engine grades a large source list from a CSV. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers — nothing to install, nothing to connect.

No. It's a deterministic planning tool that models lead-source economics from the numbers you enter — no industry multiplier, nothing uploaded, no money moved. It grades sources, not people, and guarantees no result. Treat the verdicts as a structured way to see which sources make money at your own close rate, not as financial advice.