Cost per qualified inquiry equals the included acquisition cost divided by qualified inquiries. Cost per held appointment uses the same cost boundary divided by qualifying meetings that actually occurred.
Establish the numerator before choosing a metric
List the costs included in the period: media spend, marketing service fees, relevant software, production and attributed handling labor. Keep the list consistent across channels. An organic article may generate an inquiry without a media charge, but the content and operating system still have costs.
Show separate direct and fully included views when useful. The direct view can help manage an advertising test; the broader view can help assess whether the whole acquisition program is affordable. Label each view so one month's direct cost is not compared with another month's comprehensive cost.
Define the denominator consistently
A qualified inquiry meets the agency's documented audience, service and intent criteria. A booked appointment is a scheduled slot. A held appointment actually occurs. A held, qualified appointment satisfies both the meeting and qualification definitions. Choose the denominator that matches the business decision.
Deduplicate records before counting. A person submitting a form twice and then booking once should not become three acquired prospects. Keep spam, test submissions and inquiries from the wrong audience visible as exclusions so the team can inspect why raw volume differs from qualified volume.
Calculate a complete illustrative cohort
Assume a thirty-day program includes one thousand dollars in media, one thousand two hundred ninety-eight dollars in service fees and two hundred two dollars in attributed tools and handling. Included cost totals two thousand five hundred dollars. The cohort produces fifty inquiries, twenty-five qualified inquiries, fifteen bookings and ten held, qualified meetings.
Cost per raw inquiry is fifty dollars. Cost per qualified inquiry is one hundred dollars. Cost per booking is approximately one hundred sixty-seven dollars. Cost per held, qualified appointment is two hundred fifty dollars. All are correct for their respective denominator, and none alone describes the entire funnel.
Align timing with the records
An inquiry arriving at the end of a month may hold its appointment in the next month. Use an acquisition cohort when evaluating a source's eventual meeting outcomes. For cash planning, also retain the monthly spending and attendance view. These answer different questions and should not be silently combined.
- Record inquiry date and appointment-held date separately.
- Set a consistent maturation window for cohort reviews.
- Show pending appointments instead of treating them as permanent failures.
- Keep credits, refunds and late invoices traceable to the cost record.
Use the metric to choose an action
If cost per inquiry rises, inspect targeting and acquisition costs. If inquiry cost remains stable but held-meeting cost increases, examine qualification, response and attendance. The second pattern does not automatically justify a new advertisement because the loss may occur after the form submission.
Do not infer profitability from appointment cost alone. Evaluate the agency's actual revenue, service burden, retention and any relevant adjustments separately. The worksheet is a way to compare acquisition efficiency and diagnose a stage; a complete business decision needs outcomes after the meeting as well.
Questions agents ask
Should organic leads have zero cost?
No. Include the relevant content, SEO and operating costs when measuring blended acquisition economics.
Sources & further reading
Primary references for the rules and platform mechanics discussed here. Templates and recommendations are Medicare Marketing’s planning guidance. Examples are illustrative unless explicitly sourced.
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