Return calculator
Work out what the outbound engine returns.
You should be able to check our maths before you buy anything. This page gives you the volumes we publish, the fees we charge, the meeting floors we commit to, and the industry reply rate we benchmark against. Put your deal value in and read the return.
What the outbound engine returns on your numbers.
Worked below on Growth using the default assumptions, so you can read the whole chain without touching anything. Load the interactive version to change the tier, your deal value and your close rate.
| Line | Value |
|---|---|
| ICP-fit buyers contacted | 5,000 |
| Emails sent | 15,000 |
| Replies at this reply rate | 74 |
| Meetings, modelled from replies | 18.4 |
| Meetings, published floor | 10+ |
| Sends per meeting | 1,500 |
| Operating fee | $2,497 / mo |
| Meeting fees at the floor | $2,500 / mo |
| Setup, amortised over 12 months | $167 / mo |
| Cost, whole fee charged to outbound | $5,164 / mo |
| Cost, outbound 32% share | $3,352 / mo |
| Cost per buyer contacted | $1.03 |
| Customers closed | 2.0 |
| Revenue | $24,000 / mo |
The headline figure is the unflattering one, on purpose. It charges the entire operating fee to outbound, including the content engine that runs alongside it. Everything the content engine produces is therefore uncounted upside in that number.
The second figure allocates the fee instead. Outbound’s share is 32%, taken from the midpoints of the hired-separately line items on our pricing, with half of the analyst cost assigned to outbound because reporting serves both engines. The 32% is the more conservative of the two available allocations.
The meeting fee sits in the outbound column in both readings. It is only earned when an agreed ICP-fit buyer attends, so a no-show or an out-of-ICP meeting costs you nothing.
Worked on Growth: {s} sends against a floor of {f} meetings, {r} replies at {p}. That is one meeting per {spm} sends. At $12,000 per customer you break even at a {be} close rate. The reply to meeting conversion is an assumption, not a measurement, and is shown as 25%. The only figure we commit to is the published meeting floor, which no-show and out-of-ICP meetings never count against. Industry reply rate from Belkins 2026. See the evidence for every source.
One fee, two engines.
Every tier pays for two things. An inbound content engine that makes buyers know the name before anyone contacts them, and an outbound engine that contacts them.
Most calculators in this market charge the entire fee to outbound and quietly bank the content engine as free. We show you that number first, and it is the unflattering one: on Growth at the defaults above, charging the whole fee to outbound still returns 4.65x.
The second figure allocates the fee instead. Outbound’s share is 32%, taken from the midpoints of the hired-separately line items published on our pricing, where content strategist, writers and designer make up the content engine and outbound ops and infrastructure sits with outbound. Half of the analyst cost is assigned to outbound, because reporting serves both engines. We used the more conservative of the two possible allocations.
The meeting fee sits in the outbound column in both readings. It is only earned when an agreed ICP-fit buyer attends, so a no-show or a meeting outside your ICP costs you nothing.
We do not publish a single blended return across both engines. Inbound attribution needs multi-touch data we do not hold, and a blended figure would be the easiest number on this page to attack. Keeping the two separate is why each one stands up.
What the fee also buys.
None of the content engine below is counted in the return above. This is what runs in it each month, by tier.
| Tier | Inbound content engine, monthly |
|---|---|
| Foundation | 10 LinkedIn posts a week (founder and company), 20 ICP engagements a day on buyer posts, 2 newsletters a month. Articles, lead magnets, landing pages and email funnels are not included at this tier. |
| Growth | 15 posts and carousels a week, 25 ICP engagements a day, 6 newsletters a month, 8 signal-informed articles a month, 2 comparison pages a month, and 1 lead magnet, 1 landing page and 1 email funnel a month. |
| Scale | 15 posts and carousels a week, 30 ICP engagements a day, 8 newsletters a month, 24 signal-informed articles a month, 4 comparison pages a month, and 2 lead magnets, 2 landing pages and 2 email funnels a month. |
The industry evidence behind those channels is on the homepage, and our own published results are on the case studies page.
What is measured and what is assumed.
- Measured, and published by us. The tier volumes, the operating fee, the setup, the meeting fee and the meeting floor. All of it appears on the pricing grid, and the calculator reads it from there.
- Cited industry rate. The reply rate defaults to 0.49%, the 11 to 50 employee band from Belkins 2026, across 7,530,489 emails, counting replies per email sent rather than per opener. It is adjustable, because your market is not the average.
- Assumed, not measured. The conversion from reply to meeting is set at 25%. We hold no citation for it and do not present it as data. It is labelled as an assumption everywhere it appears.
- Yours to set. Deal value and close rate have no default that flatters us. They start at $12,000 and 20% and you should move them to your own numbers.
- The commitment. The only figure we stand behind is the published meeting floor. No-show and out-of-ICP meetings never count against it and are never charged.
Check the maths against your own numbers.
Thirty minutes, no pitch. We will put your deal value and your close rate into this model and show you the two figures it produces, including the one that does not flatter us.
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