How do you calculate cost per opportunity in B2B?
Divide a channel's total cost for a period, time included, by the qualified opportunities it created. If €3,600 produced 9 opportunities, each cost €400.
Cost per opportunity sits between cost per meeting and customer acquisition cost (CAC). An opportunity is a meeting that turned into a real chance to sell: the prospect has the problem, the budget and the authority, and you have agreed a next step such as a proposal or a pilot. Counting only those keeps the number honest.
The step from meeting to opportunity is where most of the cost hides. According to our breakdown of how many customers 100 cold calls bring, typically 10 to 25% of meetings turn into revenue opportunities. So if email outreach costs around €100 to €150 per meeting, per our CAC calculation guide, the cost per opportunity can be four to ten times higher.
A worked example: a small agency spends €1,400 on tools and data plus 44 hours of outreach valued at €50 an hour, so €3,600 in a month. That brings 23 meetings and 9 opportunities, or about €157 per meeting and €400 per opportunity. A channel that charges only when a conversation happens, such as Meetcatcher, where credits go only for calls that took place, makes the first half of that sum predictable.
How to calculate it step by step
- 1Fix the period and channelUse one month or one quarter per channel. Mixing channels hides which one creates opportunities.
- 2Add every costAd spend, tools, data, agency fees and hours at a realistic rate. Time is usually the largest item for small teams.
- 3Define an opportunityWrite the rule down, for example: confirmed need, budget owner involved and a proposal requested. Apply it the same way every month.
- 4Divide and compareTotal cost divided by opportunities. Compare with your cost per qualified meeting to see where meetings fall away.
- 5Work back from revenueMultiply by opportunities needed per client to get CAC, and check it against the pipeline you need to hit your target.
Use cost per opportunity to choose channels, not cost per lead. A channel with cheap leads and few opportunities can be the most expensive one you run. If the gap between meetings and opportunities is wide, look at who you are meeting before you look at how much you spend.