A good cost per lead is one your close rate and deal value can pay for: multiply average deal value by close rate to get the value of a lead, and stay under it with room for sales cost. Google Search averages $67 to $76 per lead across industries and $130 to $300 in legal, insurance, and financial services; LinkedIn lead gen forms run $50 to $150.
What moves it
CPL is driven by CPC and form conversion rate, and it is easy to lower by loosening qualification, which raises the true cost per qualified lead. Import qualified leads back to the platform and optimize to those, or CPL improvements will be illusory.
Google Search benchmarks, September 17, 2026
| Average CPC | $4.30 to $5.50 across industries; Legal, Insurance, and Financial Services from about $15 to over $23; Ecommerce and Arts under $2 |
| Average CTR | 6 to 7 percent across industries in 2026 studies; under 5 percent in Legal and Industrial, above 9 percent in Dating and Finance |
| Conversion rate | 5.7 to 8.2 percent (click-based) across industries; highly dependent on what counts as a conversion |
| Cost per lead | $67 to $76 blended; $130 to $300 in Legal, Insurance, and Financial Services |
| ROAS | About 4x blended in agency-reported data; ecommerce accounts commonly target 4x to 6x |
Sources and every other channel: Google Search benchmarks.
Run your own numbers with the CPA and ROAS calculator.
Cite this page:
Agency Echelon. "What is a good cost per lead?" Agency Echelon Reference, reviewed September 2026. https://agencyechelon.com/reference/questions/what-is-a-good-cpl/