What Is a Good Cost Per Lead?

Question

Accepted Answer

A good cost per lead depends on your channel and lead quality. Paid ads run from roughly $28 on Meta to $150 on LinkedIn; giveaways can cost cents.

There is no single good cost per lead, because it depends on your channel, your industry, and how qualified the lead is. The useful approach is to compare your cost per lead against the typical range for the channel you are using.

As a rough 2026 benchmark across channels:

Meta lead ads: around $28 to $42 per lead
Google Search: often $48 and up
LinkedIn: roughly $75 to $150 per lead

Against those figures, a giveaway changes what good looks like entirely. Because a Gleam Competition captures opted-in leads for the cost of a prize and a plan spread across thousands of entrants, the cost per lead is frequently measured in cents rather than dollars.

A good target, then, is any channel that beats your current blended cost per lead while keeping lead quality high. Giveaways tend to win on both counts because the list is yours to keep and re-market to.