What a sold job costs you in ads, and the most it can cost before the profit is gone.
Six numbers from last month. You get what a lead and a sold job cost you. Next to them sit the only bath numbers filed with the FTC. You also get the most a job can cost before it stops paying. And the smaller change that gets you to your number. The boxes start with an example shop. Put in yours.
Compare a second source, like Angi or Google
The boxes above are your first source. Put the second one here, last month, the same way.
How we worked this out
The arithmetic
Cost per lead is spend over leads; cost per sold job is spend over jobs sold. Gross on a job is value times margin. Break-even is the point where the ad cost of a job equals the gross on it. That is the most a job may cost, and it implies a return on spend (job value over gross). To reach a target cost per job at today's spend you need spend over target jobs. At today's leads that is a lead-to-sold rate. At today's rate it is a cost per lead. We print both, and the smaller move is the one to make.
The only numbers filed with the FTC
One bath franchise files these numbers with the FTC. Re-Bath's 2026 filing covers 122 US units in 2025. A lead cost $176 of marketing on average. They sold 9.8 jobs per 100 leads. That is about $1,800 of marketing per bathroom sold. Its best unit sold 46 of 100 leads, its worst 3. Those are a franchise's numbers, with leads from every source, not the trade's. Pages that print a "typical" cost per job for bath are estimating from lead prices and assumed close rates. For the cost at every step, and which lever moves it most, read the flow.
How we checked the arithmetic
This page runs each example below every time it loads, and checks it against the answer worked out by hand.
What it leaves out
- Repeat business and referrals from a sold job, which lower the true cost. Count them if you can measure them.
- Time: this month's jobs came from last month's leads if your cycle is long.
- Overheads. Gross margin is what you keep after materials and labour. Rent, trucks and salaries come out of it.
How many booked estimates happened is the number most owners can only guess, from memory. The system behind this site counts each one.