Content ROI calculator
See when your content investment pays for itself, and what it returns over three years. Unlike a simple ROI formula, it accounts for ranking time, compounding traffic and recurring revenue.
How the calculator works
It models your content month by month, from publishing to revenue, using your own funnel numbers.
Articles go live
Every month you publish new articles. Each one keeps working after it goes live, so your library and its traffic keep growing.
Traffic ramps up
Each article climbs evenly to its full monthly traffic over the months it takes to rank. Older articles add up, which is why traffic compounds.
Visits become customers
Your visit-to-MQL, MQL-to-SQL and SQL-to-customer rates turn each month's traffic into MQLs, SQLs and deals. Each deal closes after your average sales cycle.
Revenue vs spend
New customers pay monthly and renew, minus churn. Payback is the month total revenue from content passes your total spend.
Want content that pays back sooner?
We'll build a content plan around the topics that bring in pipeline, and report on revenue, not just traffic.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the calculator work?
It models your content month by month. Each article you publish ramps up to its full traffic over the months it takes to rank, and older articles keep bringing in visits. Your funnel rates turn those visits into MQLs, SQLs and deals, which close after your average sales cycle. Customers then pay every month and renew, minus churn. The calculator adds up what you've spent and what content has brought in, and shows the month where revenue overtakes spend.
Why does year one show a negative ROI?
Because content is an asset, not a campaign. You pay for articles up front, but they take six to twelve months to rank. The leads they bring in then need your full sales cycle to close, and those customers pay you over time. That's why a 12-month view almost always looks negative, and why we recommend judging content over two to three years. The articles you publish in year one are still bringing in customers in year three.
Where do I find my numbers?
Visits per article and months to rank come from Google Search Console or your analytics tool: look at articles published 12 to 18 months ago. Your visit-to-MQL rate is MQLs from your blog divided by blog sessions. Your MQL-to-SQL and SQL-to-customer rates, sales cycle, contract value and churn live in your CRM and billing data. For the sales cycle, use the average time from first MQL to closed-won deal. Use the last six to twelve months so one good or bad month doesn't skew the result.
What counts as revenue from content?
Revenue is counted as it's billed. A customer won in month 10 adds their monthly fee from month 10 onwards, reduced by your churn rate over time. So the total only includes money collected within your time horizon, not the full lifetime value of those customers. That keeps the ROI conservative: the customers won near the end keep paying long after the chart stops.
Is this a forecast?
No, it's a planning model. It assumes every article performs about the same and your conversion rates stay steady. In reality, a few articles drive most of the results, and rankings shift. Use it to build the business case and set expectations. If you want a model built on your actual keyword and pipeline data, we can map that out with you.
