Cost per signed case model
Cost per lead is the number your platform reports. Cost per signed case is the number that decides whether your marketing paid for itself. In a category where most inquiries are not viable claims and every review costs real money, the two can move in opposite directions — and usually do.
The link carries your inputs. Forward it and the recipient sees exactly this result.
Result
- Signed cases per month
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- Cost per inquiry (what your platform reports)
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- Cost per case surviving records review
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- Total monthly acquisition cost
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- — of which screening
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- Screening as a share of total cost
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- Inquiries consumed per signed case
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Show the arithmetic
Every input above is yours. We supply no industry averages, no benchmark conversion rates and no "typical" anything. If you do not know a number, put in your best estimate and note that the result inherits your uncertainty. The defaults are illustrative starting points, not claims about your market or anyone else's.
Why the two metrics diverge
| Component | Usually reported? | Why it belongs in the denominator |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising spend | Yes | Obvious, and the only one most dashboards show. |
| Agency or in-house cost | Sometimes | A programme with cheap media and an expensive team is not a cheap programme. |
| Cost to obtain records | Rarely | Paid on every screened inquiry, whether or not a case results. |
| Cost to review records | Almost never | The largest per-inquiry cost in this category, and the one that scales with volume rather than with cases. |
| If the model shows… | The constraint is probably… | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| Screening is over half of total cost | Inquiry quality, not volume | Screening and intake |
| Contact rate under about 60% | Response speed | Speed-to-lead |
| Records obtained on under half of screened inquiries | Process, not marketing — and the most recoverable loss in the funnel | Capacity planner |
| Cost per signed case within reach of expected fee | Unit economics, and possibly the market | Referral economics |
Provenance
| Input or output | Origin | If it is wrong, what breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly advertising spend | You — from platform billing | Everything. It is the largest term in the numerator. |
| Inquiries per month | You — deduplicated form fills and calls | Cost per inquiry, and every rate downstream of it. |
| The six conversion rates | You — from your CRM stage counts | The signed-case count, which drives the headline figure. Guessed rates give a guessed answer. |
| Records and review cost | You — from invoices and reviewer time | The screening share, which is the component most reporting omits entirely. |
| Cost per signed case | Computed — total cost ÷ signed cases | Nothing; it is derived, and the full working is shown on screen. |
| Any industry benchmark | Not present. We hold none we could defend. | n/a |
No default in this tool is a claim. The starting values exist so the page is not blank on arrival. They are not benchmarks, they are not averages, and they describe no real firm. Replace every one of them with your own before acting on the result. See Methodology.
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Authorship & review
- Author
- Kevin Schwaner, Founder; Chief Marketing Officer. Credentials.
- Last reviewed
- Corrections
- Found an error? Tell us and it goes in the dated corrections log, whether or not it flatters us.