How Many Leads Fill a Trade Diary? The Maths

The number of leads you need is your target jobs divided by your win rate, and your win rate is the number most tradespeople have never actually worked out. If you win one job in every four quotes you give, you need four quoted leads for each job you want to book. Get that ratio right and you can plan your diary, and your lead spend, with a calculator instead of a hunch.

Why “more leads” is the wrong question

Ask most tradespeople what they need and they will say “more work”. But a diary does not fill with leads. It fills with booked jobs, and plenty of leads never become jobs. Some people were only after a ballpark price. Some were already talking to a mate of a mate. Some went quiet after you sent the quote.

So the useful question is not “how many leads can I get?” but “how many leads does it take to book one job, and what does each of those jobs cost me to win?” Once you know that, every decision about marketing gets easier.

The three numbers you need

You only need three figures, and you probably have all of them already in your phone, your quote folder or your invoicing app.

1. Your contact-to-quote rate

Of everyone who enquires, how many do you actually quote? Not every lead is a job you want or can do. Wrong postcode, wrong trade, a job too small to travel for, or a customer who will not give you a straight answer on the phone. Call it a straight share of enquiries: if you quote seven out of every ten, your contact-to-quote rate is 70%.

2. Your quote-to-job rate

Of the quotes you send, how many turn into booked work? This is your win rate, and it varies enormously by trade, by area and by how fast you reply. A tradesperson who prices carefully and replies the same day will usually win a higher share than one who sends a number three days later.

3. Your average job value and margin

What does a typical job bring in, and how much of it is yours after materials, labour, fuel and overheads? Revenue is vanity. Margin is what pays the mortgage.

A worked example (illustrative numbers)

These figures are made up to show the method. Swap in your own.

Say you are a sole-trader plumber in Kent and you want eight new jobs a month to keep the diary full alongside your regulars.

You quote 70% of the enquiries you get.

You win 35% of the quotes you send.

That means roughly one lead in four becomes a job (70% x 35% is about 25%).

To book eight jobs you need around 32 leads.

If your average job brings you £450 in margin, eight jobs is £3,600 of margin a month. Now you can ask the sensible question: what is it worth paying to land those jobs?

What a job costs you to win

Divide what you spend on getting leads by the jobs they produce and you get your cost per job won. If you paid for 32 leads and won eight jobs, your cost per job is the total lead spend divided by eight.

Compare that to the margin on the job. If winning a job costs you a small slice of what you make on it, the lead source is working. If it eats most of the margin, it is not, however busy it keeps you.

This is the maths that makes a pay-per-lead model easy to judge. You know exactly what you paid per lead, you know your win rate, so you know your cost per job. With a monthly subscription or a flat directory fee, the cost per job swings wildly depending on how many enquiries happened to arrive that month. You can pay the same fee in a quiet month and a busy one.

The three levers that fill your diary faster

You have three ways to improve the numbers, and only one of them involves buying more leads.

Reply faster. Customers who send an enquiry often message several tradespeople at once. The first sensible reply usually has the advantage. Ringing back within the hour beats a perfect quote sent tomorrow.

Quote better. A clear, itemised quote that explains what is included and what is not lifts your win rate without costing a penny. If you have not looked at how you quote lately, our guide on how to write a quote that wins the job is a good place to start.

Qualify early. A two-minute call that checks the job, the postcode and the budget stops you driving to a quote you were never going to win.

Lifting your win rate from one in four quotes to one in three cuts the number of leads you need by a quarter. That is the same as getting a quarter more leads for free.

How many leads is too many?

There is a ceiling. If you are booked out for six weeks, more leads just mean more people you have to say no to, and slow replies hurt your reputation. Work backwards from your capacity:

How many jobs can you realistically finish in a month?

How many of those come from repeat customers and referrals?

The gap is what you need leads to fill.

If you do not need many, buy few. A lead source you can turn up and down is worth more than one you are locked into.

Why lead exclusivity changes the maths

Your win rate depends heavily on how many other tradespeople are chasing the same enquiry. If five firms get the same lead, you are fighting for a share of one job. If only two or three do, your odds improve and so does your cost per job.

That is why Trade Pilot sells each lead to a maximum of three trades in an area. Fewer competitors per enquiry means a better chance that your quote lands on a customer who is actually ready to book.

Track it properly: a simple lead log

You do not need software. A notes page or a spreadsheet with five columns is enough:

Date the enquiry arrived.

Where it came from.

Whether you quoted.

Whether you won the job.

The margin on the job.

After a month you will know your real contact-to-quote and quote-to-job rates by source. After three months you will know which lead sources are worth your money and which only keep you busy.

Join Trade Pilot and run the numbers on real leads

Trade Pilot is free to join and charges per lead, not by monthly plan. You pay when a real local job lands in your inbox, and each lead goes to no more than three trades. That makes your cost per lead a known figure, and your cost per job easy to work out. If you want to test the maths in your own area, join Trade Pilot free and see what leads look like where you work.

FAQ

How many leads should a tradesperson get a month?

Enough to book the jobs your diary can handle. Take the number of jobs you want, divide by your win rate and your contact-to-quote rate, and that is your target. For most self-employed trades it is a small number of good leads rather than a flood.

What is a good win rate for quotes?

It depends on your trade, your area and how competitive the lead is. Rather than chase a benchmark, track your own and aim to improve it. Moving from winning one in four quotes to one in three makes a big difference to your costs.

Is it better to pay per lead or pay a monthly fee?

Pay per lead gives you a clear cost for each enquiry and lets you spend more or less as your diary changes. A monthly fee is the same whether the month is busy or quiet, so your cost per job can swing a lot. Work out your cost per job both ways before you commit.

How quickly should I reply to a lead?

As soon as you sensibly can. Customers often contact several tradespeople at the same time, and a prompt, friendly reply usually puts you ahead of someone who waits a day.

How do I work out the cost of winning a job?

Add up what you spent on getting leads in a period and divide by the number of jobs you won from them. Then compare that to the margin on a typical job.

Related reading: how to write a quote that wins the job · how to price a job · Google Business Profile for tradespeople · how to get reviews