A good cost per lead in the UK is whatever lets you win customers at a profit, and you can work it out from two numbers: the profit on a typical sale and how many leads it takes to make one. Multiply your cost per lead by the leads needed per sale and you have your cost per sale; if that sits comfortably inside your profit, your cost per lead is good, even if it looks high next to someone else’s. Industry averages are a poor guide, because a £5 lead for a takeaway and a £50 lead for a kitchen fitter can both be excellent.
Why “average cost per lead” is the wrong question
Owners ask for an average because they want to know whether they are being overcharged. The trouble is that averages mix businesses with completely different prices and margins. A gym membership, a £3,000 piece of equipment and a solicitor’s fixed-fee service do not share a sensible average. Neither do a lead in central London and one in a market town.
What you actually need to know is your own ceiling: the most you can pay for a lead before advertising stops making money. Below that ceiling, cheaper is nicer. Above it, no amount of volume will save the campaign.
How do I work out my maximum cost per lead?
You need three numbers. Use honest estimates if you do not have exact ones, and refine them later.
Profit per sale
What you keep from a typical first sale after the cost of doing the job or supplying the product. Not the price: the profit.
Leads per sale
How many leads it takes, on average, to win one customer. If one in five buys, that is 5.
Share you will spend on ads
How much of that profit you are willing to hand to advertising. Many owners start at a third so the rest covers time and overheads.
Maximum cost per lead = profit per sale × share for ads ÷ leads per sale.
Worked example: a local home-improvement business
These are example assumptions, not data from a real account. Say an average job brings £1,200 of profit, the business is happy to spend a third of that winning it, and one lead in six turns into a job.
| Step | Sum | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Budget per customer | £1,200 × ⅓ | £400 |
| Maximum cost per lead | £400 ÷ 6 leads | about £67 |
| At a £25 lead | £25 × 6 | £150 per job, well inside £400 |
| At a £90 lead | £90 × 6 | £540 per job, over the limit |
So for this business a £25 lead is very good, and a £60 lead is still acceptable. A £10 lead that only closes one time in thirty, on the other hand, works out at £300 per job: still inside the limit, but worse than the £25 lead that closes one in six. That is why the cheapest lead is rarely the best one.
💡 Cost per lead only means something next to your close rate. A dear lead that buys beats a cheap lead that does not, every time you do the sum.
A real side-by-side from October 2026
Here is one real example, anonymised. A UK company that sells professional analysis equipment to beauty, fitness and hair businesses ran two sets of campaigns in the same ad account during October 2026: an agency’s, and lead-form campaigns built with Adyft. This is a high-ticket, business-to-business sale.
| Same days, same account | Cost per lead |
|---|---|
| Adyft-built lead-form campaigns | roughly £9–13 |
| Agency campaigns running alongside | roughly £16–22 |
Leads were counted on the day they arrived, not on the day someone first saw the ad, so both sets of campaigns were judged on the same calendar. The owner reports that roughly one lead in eight to ten becomes a sale. At £9–13 a lead, that means each sale cost between about £72 (£9 × 8) and £130 (£13 × 10) in advertising, for equipment that sells for thousands of pounds.
It is important to be honest about the limits. These are small numbers, a handful of leads a day, over a short period. In the two weeks before, the agency’s campaigns had averaged about £12 a lead overall, which is why comparing the same days matters: results move from week to week, and a fair comparison holds the dates still. It is an early signal, not proof, and we would not quote it as a guaranteed saving.
What pushes cost per lead up in the UK?
- 1Competition for the same customers. Popular trades and services in big cities cost more per lead than niche ones.
- 2High-ticket sales. People think longer before giving their details for a £5,000 purchase than for a £30 one.
- 3Selling to businesses. There are fewer business owners than consumers, so each one costs more to reach.
- 4Asking qualifying questions on the form. This raises cost per lead and usually lowers cost per sale.
- 5Seasonal peaks such as the run-up to Christmas, when every advertiser is bidding for attention.
Several of these are good reasons for a higher cost per lead, not signs that something is broken.
When is a high cost per lead a real problem?
When your cost per sale, worked out with the sum above, is close to or above your profit per sale. Or when cost per lead has risen and the leads are no better than before. Common causes are an ad shown to people who could never buy, an offer that attracts the wrong motive, a form or page that breaks on some phones, or a budget set below what the platform needs to run the campaign properly.
Adyft checks for the mechanical ones before launch: the daily budget is above the platform’s real minimum, the form or destination works, and nothing goes live half-built. The rest comes down to who sees the ad and what it says, which is where campaigns built around your real customers tend to beat ones built by hand from a template.
How to judge your own campaigns this month
- 1Work out your maximum cost per lead with the formula above and write it down.
- 2Record every lead with the date it arrived and what happened to it.
- 3After four weeks, divide spend by sales for each campaign.
- 4Compare campaigns over the same days, not one month against another.
- 5Only then decide where to move budget.
Adyft plans in the UK are £39, £79 or £159 a month, a fixed price with 0% of your ad spend. Campaigns launch in your own ad account, so the spend goes straight to Meta or Google and every number is yours to check.
Questions about cost per lead in the UK
What is a good cost per lead in the UK?
One that keeps your cost per sale well inside your profit per sale. Work it out as profit per sale × the share you will spend on ads ÷ leads needed per sale. There is no useful national average.
How do I calculate cost per lead?
Divide what you spent on ads by the number of leads in the same period. To make it meaningful, also count how many of those leads bought, and divide spend by sales.
Is a £20 lead expensive?
It depends on what a customer is worth. If one in five £20 leads buys and each sale makes £500 profit, a sale costs £100 in ads, which is good. If one in fifty buys a £50 product, it is far too much.
Why is my cost per lead higher than my agency’s?
Check the dates and the sales, not just the lead price. Compare the same days, count leads on the day they arrived, and see which leads actually bought. A higher cost per lead with more sales is the better result.
How long before I can judge cost per lead?
Give a campaign at least one to two weeks before judging, and four weeks before moving budget on cost per sale. A few days of data can swing either way.
Does Adyft charge a percentage of ad spend?
No. Adyft is a fixed monthly price (£39, £79 or £159 in the UK) and takes 0% of ad spend, which goes straight from your account to Meta or Google.
Judge your ads on cost per sale
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