Estimated annual leak · modeled range
$0a year
Modeled midpoint, prorated. Not a measured loss.
Services · margin leak estimator
How much is your Services marketing leaking?
Use your revenue, marketing spend and answers to explore a modeled annual opportunity range. Free, with no login or account access.
Use the results on your own, or choose a paid audit or a fit call. Both next steps are optional.
Free · No login · Nothing leaves your browser
Model reference: $47k/yr. Published cases: 8, lower median $47,000/yr. Follow acquisition through intake, booked work and delivery contribution. Booked or invoiced revenue is different from collected revenue; include delivery costs and capacity.
Live reading · updates on every answer
Leak risk score
Appears after your first answer. Based on your answers, not on the dollars.
Pick an industry to sharpen the range.
Directional model output. Not a measured loss or promised recovery. Formula and rates are disclosed below.
Step 1 of 7 · Tell us about the Services business
Rough numbers are fine.
Tell us about the Services business
Three quick inputs set your baseline. Rough numbers are fine, and nothing leaves your browser.
Quick start
Industry
Advanced: blended ROAS and site conversion rate (optional)
Optional, and it stays in your browser. Either number narrows your range instead of widening it: the model stops guessing at your efficiency and uses yours.
Choice steps advance on click. Nothing leaves your browser.
In their words · 6 Services client statementsAll 60 client statements →
SERVICES
$62k a year found in 6 days
Qualified inbound calls that became bookings: 2 in 3 → 9 in 10
“Marketing hit every target and revenue stalled. Leslie followed our qualified calls into intake and about a third were dropped at busy times or never followed up. Fixing staffing and call handling converted demand we had already paid for.”
Managing Partner · Services · Legal
Written approvalUnder NDA6 days to findings
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSERVICES
$54k a year found in 7 days
Retainers priced below their delivery cost: 6 of 34 → 0 of 34
“Our blended margin said every account was fine. Leslie broke it apart account by account: six of thirty four retainers were priced below delivery cost, funded by the profitable ones. We repriced or exited them, our own advice.”
Managing Director · Services · Agency
Written approvalUnder NDA7 days to findings
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSERVICES
$52k a year found in 6 days
Margin on the fixed fee engagements: 9% → 17%
“Busy, revenue holding, and profit per partner hour falling. Leslie reconciled logged hours against every fixed fee package: complexity had pushed many below cost. We repriced and rescoped them, with a scope trigger so it stays fixed.”
Partner · Services · Accounting & tax
Written approvalUnder NDA6 days to findings
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSERVICES
$47k a year found in 6 days
Delivery hours actually billed to clients: ~80% → 98%
“Every project ran thinner than its day rate. Leslie reconciled real effort against billing and found travel, kickoff and early onboarding absorbed as goodwill. Those hours are written into every scope now.”
VP of Client Success · Services · Implementation
Written approvalUnder NDA6 days to findings
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSERVICES
$44k a year found in 5 days
Job margin once callbacks are counted: −1% → +5%
“Jobs kept landing below what we quoted. Leslie loaded callbacks and warranty visits back onto the jobs that caused them, and the quoting model had never counted them. Quotes now price the whole job, not the first visit.”
Owner · Services · Field services
Written approvalUnder NDA5 days to findings
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSERVICES
$39k a year of wasted spend cut in 5 days
Search cost per click across the clinics: $2.40 → $1.78
“Our cost per click climbed with no new competitor in sight. Leslie found the competitor was us: clinics bidding against each other on the same keywords in the same auctions. One geo partitioned account structure ended it.”
Operations Director · Services · Dental group
Written approvalUnder NDA5 days to findings
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit offThe calculator is free. An optional paid audit checks your account data and produces evidence for its findings.
What is the next step?
Keep your estimate, explore the case studies or request a paid audit. The calculator does not connect to your accounts. A fit call can help you assess whether an audit is appropriate.
Model assumptions and limitations
This calculator applies model assumptions to your inputs. Its range, comparison position and score are directional scenarios, not measured account losses, verified peer percentiles or a recovery promise. The industry reference amounts are model references, distinct from the lower medians of published case figures. Underlying calibration budgets and validation evidence are not published.
- Monthly marketing spend is multiplied by 12 and the selected industry rate band. Monthly revenue is multiplied by 12 and 0.84% to 1.63% for the second term. These two modeled terms are added, adjusted by your answers, and rounded.
- Higher spend changes the marketing term; higher revenue changes the pricing, margin and retention term. These terms may describe related economic effects, so their sum is a scenario for investigation, not additive proven savings.
- The comparison uses the marketing term only. Its reference is annual marketing spend multiplied by the middle point of the industry model curve. A position from 10 to 90 on that curve is not an observed peer percentile.
- The 0 to 100 score summarizes the selected answers. Category scores reflect allocated shares of the estimated midpoint, not independently measured health.
- Optional ROAS and conversion inputs scale the range against model reference values and narrow it by a fixed factor of 0.70 before rounding. A narrower interval does not establish greater statistical confidence.
- When spend exceeds half of revenue, a midpoint limit of 6% of annual revenue can activate. Rounding and minimum interval width still apply. This is a model safeguard, not an observed business limit.
Input and coefficient sensitivity are model behavior. Calibration periods, eligible budgets and validation errors are unavailable in the published cases.
Directional model estimates, not a diagnosis of your accounts. Nothing leaves your browser to produce this result.
Behind the Services estimate
What the model assumes for Services
The Services model reference is $47k a year. Among the five modeled categories, Services gives Funnel & conversion a 15% heavier weight in the category split and a head start as the first area to investigate when your answers point two ways.
The 8 published Services cases are a separate statistic: a lower median annual highlight figure of $47,000, computed from the cases listed below, not from the model. The largest of them is Intake was dropping a third of qualified calls, +$62k a year, found in 6 days.
What the Services estimator asks
Every version of the calculator starts from monthly revenue and monthly marketing spend. Three of the seven questions then carry Services options, listed here as the wizard shows them. Each option still maps to the same five leak categories, which is what keeps a Services estimate comparable with any other.
Where does most of your marketing budget go?
The Services channel mix. The answer moves weight between wasted paid spend and attribution.
- Paid search & local
- SEO & Google Business
- Referrals & partnerships
- Outbound & cold outreach
- Paid social
- Honestly, I’m not sure
How do you mainly make money?
The Services revenue model. The answer moves weight between pricing and retention.
- Project / one off fees
- Retainers / recurring contracts
- Commission / success fees: Paid on results: placements, deals, bookings
- A mix
- Not sure / it varies
Where do you suspect you lose the most?
The Services vocabulary for the five categories. The answer orders the checklist; it never moves the score.
- Paying for leads that never close
- Lead tracking & attribution
- Lead response & booking rate: Speed to lead, no shows, quotes left unbooked
- Package pricing & scope creep
- Repeat & referral business
- Not sure: that’s why I’m here
Tracking and the optional inputs
Services answers the tracking question on the web analytics scale, from a modeled, reconciled first party setup down to patchy or not sure.
Advanced, optional: a blended ROAS, placeholder 4.0, and a site conversion rate, placeholder 3.0%. Either one narrows the Services range instead of widening it.
Three Services leak patterns from the published cases
Each card names the cases it rests on; open one for its evidence. Together the cards cover all 8 published Services cases. The Services marketing audit page explains each pattern and shows the before and after of its largest case.
Paid media
Spend scored on leads, not closed work
3 of the 8 published cases · $39k to $47k a year
- Lead spend ignored close rate by source, +$47k a year
- Every location bought the same keywords against each other, −$39k a year
- Job board spend was spread evenly regardless of fill rate, +$39k a year
Intake
Qualified calls lost at intake
1 of the 8 published cases · $62k a year
- Intake was dropping a third of qualified calls, +$62k a year
Pricing and delivery
Fees set below the work they buy
4 of the 8 published cases · $44k to $54k a year
- Retainers were priced below delivery cost, +$54k a year
- Fixed fee packages were scoped below the hours they consumed, +$52k a year
- Travel and onboarding time was going unbilled, +$47k a year
- Quoting ignored callback and warranty cost, +$44k a year
What an audit checks after a Services estimate
- Cost per closed deal by channel, not cost per lead
- Lead response time and routing audit
- Fixed fee package margin against actual delivery cost
- Nurture and reactivation sequence coverage
- CRM hygiene: duplicate, stale and unattributed leads
The estimate points at a category; the audit tests these 5 Services checks against your own account data. Compare industries in the 2026 benchmark.
Why trust the estimate
A wasted ad spend calculator with explicit assumptions.
01
Industry model assumptions
The calculator uses industry rates and your inputs. Published case lower medians are shown separately so you can compare their definitions.
02
Understand the range
The interval describes a model scenario. It does not establish the percentage of comparable businesses that achieved that result.
03
The audit makes it real
An estimate can’t be acted on by itself. The audit names each leak, proves it with your data and hands you the fix. $10,000 to $50,000 of findings, or your money back.
Next step, optional
Turn estimates into evidence.
Fixed fee. 5 to 7 working days. $10,000 to $50,000 of findings, or your money back.
Questions about the Services estimator.
Is the estimator really free, and what’s the catch?
Yes. The Services calculator uses your inputs and the Services model assumptions, with no account access. You can keep the results or choose an optional paid audit or fit call.
Does the calculator need access to my ad or analytics accounts?
No. It runs entirely in your browser from a few situational inputs, with Services preselected as the industry. No logins and no account access, by design.
How accurate is the estimate?
It is a directional model using your inputs and Services industry assumptions. Its range and comparison position are not verified peer percentiles or measured account losses. The 8 published Services cases are a separate statistic, with a lower median annual highlight figure of $47,000 and a largest published case figure of $62,000 a year. An audit checks your own evidence.
What does the Services estimator ask that the general calculator does not?
Three of its seven questions carry Services options. Where the budget goes offers Paid search & local, SEO & Google Business, Referrals & partnerships, Outbound & cold outreach and Paid social. How you make money offers Project / one off fees, Retainers / recurring contracts, Commission / success fees and A mix. Where you suspect the loss offers Paying for leads that never close, Lead tracking & attribution, Lead response & booking rate, Package pricing & scope creep and Repeat & referral business. Each answer still maps to the same five leak categories, so a Services estimate is comparable with any other.
Why does the Services calculator ask for a blended ROAS?
It is optional. The Services version offers two advanced inputs, a blended ROAS with 4.0 as the placeholder reference and a site conversion rate with 3.0% as the placeholder. Either number narrows your Services range rather than widening it, because the model stops guessing at your efficiency and uses yours. Leave both empty and the range stays wider.
Services wasted ad spend calculator: model and case evidence
This calculator applies model assumptions to your inputs. Its range, comparison position and score are directional scenarios, not measured account losses, verified peer percentiles or a recovery promise. The industry reference amounts are model references, distinct from the lower medians of published case figures. Underlying calibration budgets and validation evidence are not published.
Follow acquisition through intake, booked work and delivery contribution. Booked or invoiced revenue is different from collected revenue; include delivery costs and capacity.
Scroll horizontally to compare all columns on a narrow screen.
| Industry | Published cases | Model reference / year | Case lower median / year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Services | 8 | $47k | $47,000 |
The population is the 74 published case studies, with one selected highlight figure per case. It is not a representative sample of all SMBs or a total of every finding in each audit. A lower median is the middle value after sorting, using the lower of the two middle values for an even count. Published annual figures include different outcome types; they are not all collected cash, profit or recurring savings. Case publication dates do not establish common observation, implementation or recovery periods; use each case for its supported timing and outcome.