Free tool
CPC calculator
Spend divided by clicks is the cost per click. The questions that matter come after it: how many clicks a monthly budget buys at that rate, what an enquiry costs once the conversion rate is applied, and what a click has to be worth for the campaign to pay for itself. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
What a click costs
- Cost per click
- 2.00
- Clicks the budget buys a month
- 750
- Cost of an enquiry
- 66.67
- Enquiries the budget buys
- 22.5
What a click is worth
- Worth of a click at your figures
- 12.00
- Most you could pay per click
- 12.00
From the cost of a click to the cost of an enquiry
Spend divided by clicks is the cost per click, and a budget divided by that cost is the clicks it buys. Neither is a result. A click becomes an enquiry at your conversion rate, so the cost of an enquiry is the cost per click divided by that rate: at two per click and three percent, an enquiry costs about sixty-seven, and a monthly budget of fifteen hundred buys about twenty-two of them. Those are the numbers to hold against what an enquiry is worth.
The worth of a click is the conversion rate times what an enquiry is worth, and it is also the most you can pay for a click before the campaign returns less than it costs. If the cost per click sits below it, the campaign pays, and the gap is the margin for the clicks that never convert. If it sits above it, no bidding strategy rescues the campaign: either the landing page has to convert more of the clicks, or the enquiry has to be worth more, or the search is the wrong one.
A cheap click from the wrong search is the expensive one. Brand searches, from people already looking for you, are cheap and convert well, and they flatter every average they are mixed into; measure them on their own and the rest of the account on its own.
The same enquiries without the click cost
Every paid click has a cost and stops when the budget does. The SEO ROI calculator runs the same chain for the searches you can appear in without paying for the click, the conversion rate calculator is for the rate this page depends on, and the ROAS calculator reads a campaign from the revenue side.
Questions about cost per click
What is a good cost per click?
One below what a click is worth to you, which is your conversion rate times the value of a conversion. A click that costs two and is worth twelve is cheap; a click that costs two and is worth one is expensive at any rate the platform calls typical. Published averages by industry describe the auction, not your margin.
Where do the clicks and spend come from?
The ad platform’s own reporting, for one campaign or one ad group over one period. Mixing brand searches (people already looking for you, cheap and high converting) with everything else hides which half of the spend is working.
What conversion rate should I use?
The rate on the page the ads land on, measured: enquiries divided by clicks over the period. The conversion rate calculator on this site works it out and says what a low rate usually means. A landing page built for the ad converts several times better than a home page, and that difference changes every figure here.
Is a cheaper click always better?
No. A cheap click from the wrong search converts at nothing and costs the whole click. The figure to watch is the cost of an enquiry, which is the cost per click divided by the conversion rate, against what an enquiry is worth. This page shows both.
Is anything I type here sent anywhere?
No. Everything happens in your browser. There is no form submission, no analytics event and no network request of any kind, which you can confirm in your browser’s network tab.
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