Calculator · marketing

Cost per lead and channel ROI calculator for real estate

Put last month's spend, leads, site visits and bookings per channel side by side. See cost per lead, cost per site visit, cost per booking, ROAS and marketing cost as a percentage of sales, blended and by channel.

Used for revenue, ROAS and marketing cost as % of sales.

Enter last month's numbers per channel. Leave a channel blank to ignore it.

ChannelSpend (₹)LeadsSite visitsBookingsCPLCost / visitCost / bookingROAS
₹714₹7,895₹1,00,00090×
————
————
₹278₹5,556₹1,25,00072×
————
————
Blended₹5,50,0001,320835₹417₹6,627₹1,10,00081.8×
Blended cost per lead
₹417
Blended cost per site visit
₹6,627
Blended cost per booking
₹1,10,000
Marketing cost per sale
1.2%
of booking value
Lead → site visit
6.3%
Industry average 6–10%
Site visit → booking
6.0%
Industry average 8–15%
Cheapest booking
99acres
Most expensive booking
Meta (FB/IG)
Cost per lead is the number every portal sells you on; cost per booking is the one that decides your margin. A channel with cheap leads and expensive bookings is a follow-up problem before it is a channel problem.

Why cost per lead is the wrong number to optimise

Every portal, agency and ad platform reports cost per lead because it is the number they can make look good. A developer does not sell leads; it sells apartments. The metrics that matter are one step further down: what does a site visit cost, what does a booking cost, and what share of the booking value went to marketing.

Two channels with the same ₹500 cost per lead can differ fivefold in cost per booking if one brings buyers who are ready and the other brings browsers. This calculator makes that visible, then tells you which channel is cheapest and dearest at the only level that reaches the P&L.

The formulas

  • Cost per lead = spend ÷ leads
  • Cost per site visit = spend ÷ site visits
  • Cost per booking = spend ÷ bookings
  • ROAS = (bookings × average ticket) ÷ spend
  • Marketing cost per sale = spend ÷ (bookings × average ticket)

Blended figures add every channel together. Best and worst channel are picked on cost per booking; a channel with no bookings yet is left out of that ranking rather than treated as infinitely expensive.

Reading the result

High CPL, low cost per booking

Typical of Google search and channel partners. Expensive to enter, but the people who arrive are further along. Scale these until the marginal cost rises.

Low CPL, high cost per booking

Typical of Meta lead forms and shared portal leads. The channel is not necessarily bad; the follow-up usually is. Before cutting the spend, check the funnel stages with the funnel benchmark: if lead-to-contact is below 60%, the leak is in the calling, not the channel.

Marketing cost per sale above 3%

Sustained over a quarter, this means the project is buying its sales. Conversion, not spend, is the lever: a two-point improvement in site-visit-to-booking usually does more for this number than any channel change.

Attribution honesty

Bookings lag leads by three to eight weeks in most projects, so a single month's spend against a single month's bookings flatters growing spend and punishes falling spend. Use a trailing quarter, or attribute each booking to the month its lead was created. And count walk-ins and CP-referred buyers as leads in their channel, or the digital channels will look worse than they are.

Questions

Frequently asked

What is a good cost per lead for real estate in India?

It depends on ticket size and city. For mid-segment residential, portal leads typically land between ₹300 and ₹1,500; Meta leads between ₹200 and ₹900; Google search leads between ₹800 and ₹3,000. Luxury projects run several times higher. Cost per lead on its own tells you very little — compare cost per site visit and cost per booking.

How do I calculate cost per booking?

Total spend on a channel in a period divided by the number of bookings attributed to that channel in the same period. Because bookings lag leads by weeks, use a trailing three-month window or attribute bookings back to the month the lead arrived.

Should marketing cost be a fixed percentage of sales?

Most developers budget 1.5–3% of project revenue for marketing across the life of the project, front-loaded at launch. The calculator's 'marketing cost per sale' uses your average ticket to show what your current channel mix implies; above 3% sustained is a signal to fix conversion before adding spend.

Why do portals look cheap on CPL but expensive on bookings?

Portal leads are shared with several brokers and often come from buyers at an early research stage. Cheap leads that rarely visit inflate the cost per visit and per booking. The fix is usually faster and more persistent follow-up, not dropping the channel.

How should channel partner cost be entered?

Treat the commission paid on CP bookings in the period as spend, and the walk-ins or leads CPs brought as leads. It will show a high CPL and a low cost per booking, which is the point: CPs are paid on outcome.

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Beyond the calculator

The numbers above improve when your team calls the right buyer first

Propfocus AI watches how every lead engages with your project and alerts presales on WhatsApp when a buyer is genuinely evaluating. Same leads, same spend, more site visits.

See the results