Cost per lead measures what you spend to obtain an enquiry. Cost per won contract measures what you spend to acquire a customer, including the enquiries that go nowhere. For a commercial cleaning business, both are useful, but the second calculation needs sales and administration costs to reflect the effort involved.
Use two clearly defined formulas
Cost per lead = lead acquisition spend ÷ leads received. Lead acquisition spend might be purchased lead fees or the marketing spend attributed to a campaign. State what you include, and use the same definition when comparing sources.
Full cost per acquired contract = (lead acquisition spend + sales labour + quote administration + sales travel + other attributable acquisition costs) ÷ contracts won. Avoid counting the same cost twice if your labour figure already includes administration.
Lead spend divided by contracts won is a useful intermediate figure, but it is not the full acquisition cost. Keep cleaning delivery costs separate: those belong in your assessment of contract profitability, not in the cost of winning the work.
A hypothetical example in NZ dollars
The following numbers are hypothetical, not market rates or expected results. Assume a completed group of 20 purchased enquiries costs NZ$1,000. Your team spends 12 hours on calls and quoting, valued internally at NZ$40 an hour, plus NZ$120 on sales travel and NZ$100 on separate administration. Four contracts are won.
- Cost per lead: NZ$1,000 ÷ 20 = NZ$50.
- Lead spend per won contract: NZ$1,000 ÷ 4 = NZ$250.
- Total acquisition cost: NZ$1,000 + NZ$480 + NZ$120 + NZ$100 = NZ$1,700.
- Full cost per acquired contract: NZ$1,700 ÷ 4 = NZ$425.
The NZ$425 figure includes the cost of pursuing all 20 enquiries. It does not tell you whether the four contracts will be profitable or how long they will remain active.
Keep the measurement period fair
Group leads by the date received and track their eventual outcomes. Dividing this month’s spend by wins from older enquiries can distort the result. If quotes remain open, label the figures provisional. If no contracts have been won, report spend and zero wins rather than dividing by zero.
Compare similar site types and sales processes when assessing shared versus exclusive leads. Record reasons for lost work so unsuitable locations or scopes do not disappear inside one average.
Check whether the acquired work is worthwhile
Compare acquisition cost with the contribution remaining after delivering the cleaning, over a realistic period. Revenue alone ignores labour, supplies and supervision. A disciplined commercial cleaning quote estimate gives you a stronger basis for that comparison. Review assumptions as actual hours and contract outcomes become available.
