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How many inquiries do you need? A calculator

Ascent Vision · Published October 24, 2026

This calculator works backwards from a monthly goal. A revenue goal divided by your average job value gives the jobs you need; dividing by your close rate gives the appointments or quotes that must happen; dividing by your show rate gives the inquiries you need each month and each week. Add the inquiries each channel brings today and it shows the gap. It is arithmetic on your own numbers, not a forecast, and the numbers you type are not stored or sent anywhere.

Run your own numbers

The fields hold example numbers, made up to show the arithmetic. Replace them with your own. Money is in dollars.

The goal is in Revenue you want each month, in dollars

Average job value, in dollars (used when the goal is revenue)

Close rate, percent (of the appointments or quotes that happen, the share you win) Show rate, percent (of inquiries, the share that turn into an appointment or quote that happens; 100 if your close rate already counts every inquiry)

Inquiries you get now, each month, by channel (optional)

SearchAI answerSocialReferralPaidEmailCampaignDirect

Results: inquiries a month, and the gap

Jobs needed a month: 25
Appointments or quotes that must happen: 100
Inquiries needed a month: about 125
Inquiries needed a week: about 29 (28.8)
Inquiries arriving now, all channels: 100
Gap to fill: about 25 more a month

Without JavaScript the fields do not recompute: the results shown are the worked example.

How the numbers are worked out

Jobs needed = revenue goal ÷ average job value. If the goal is already in jobs, it is used as it is.
Appointments or quotes that must happen = jobs needed ÷ close rate.
Inquiries needed a month = appointments ÷ show rate. With the show rate at 100 this is the live answer's own rule: jobs wanted ÷ the share of inquiries you win.
Inquiries needed a week = the monthly figure × 12 ÷ 52.
Gap = inquiries needed − the inquiries the eight channels bring now. The monthly and weekly figures are rounded up, since some months are slower and some inquiries will not be a fit.

The worked example

Made-up numbers, chosen to keep the arithmetic easy to follow. They are not anyone's real figures.

Step	Example
Revenue wanted each month	20,000
Average job value	800
Close rate	25%
Show rate	80%
Jobs needed a month	25 (20,000 ÷ 800)
Appointments or quotes that must happen	100 (25 ÷ 25%)
Inquiries needed a month	125 (100 ÷ 80%)
Inquiries needed a week	about 29 (125 × 12 ÷ 52 = 28.8)
Arriving now: search 30, AI answer 5, social 10, referral 25, paid 0, email 5, campaign 5, direct 20	100
Gap to fill	about 25 more a month

What to put in each field

The goal: the revenue or the jobs you want in a typical month, not the best month you have had.
Average job value: what a typical job brings in, from your invoices.
Close rate and show rate: both from your own records over at least a few months; the related answer on how many inquiries a business needs explains why. If your close rate is simply inquiries won ÷ inquiries that ended won or lost, it already includes the people who never showed, so leave the show rate at 100. Split the two only if you track bookings separately. The related answer on cutting no-shows covers raising the show rate, and the one on why leads do not turn into customers covers finding the stage where yours stop.
By channel: the inquiries each channel brought in a typical month: search, AI answer, social, referral, paid, email, campaign and direct. The gap shows how many more the channels you can grow would have to supply. The related answer on how many inquiries a business needs covers choosing which channels can realistically fill it. If the channels already bring in more than the page says you need, the related answer on what to do when you get more leads than you can handle covers that case.

Reply time and the share of inquiries that become real conversations

The close rate you type is not fixed. In "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads" (Harvard Business Review, March 2011), James B. Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran and David Elkington wrote that their research showed "most companies are not responding nearly fast enough". SmartCompany, reporting the study's figures in July 2011, quotes the report: companies that tried to contact a web lead within an hour were "nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead" as those that tried even an hour later, and more than 60 times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or longer. In the same report's audit of 2,241 US companies, 37% responded to a test lead within an hour, 23% never responded, and the average response time among companies that responded within 30 days was 42 hours.

The study measured how often a lead became a real conversation with a decision maker, not how often it was won, and it is from 2011 and covers US companies, not small service businesses specifically. It points the way common sense does: a slower reply can lower the share of inquiries you win and raise the inquiries you need, and a faster one can do the reverse. The related answers on how fast to reply to a new lead, whether to call or email first and how to reply to a new inquiry cover what to do. To see what each inquiry and customer costs, use the marketing ROI calculator; to see what one customer is worth over time, the customer lifetime value calculator. This is arithmetic on your own numbers, not a forecast.

Sources

The other calculators

Marketing ROI calculator: Enter spend, inquiries, close rate, job value and margin to see cost per inquiry, cost per customer, net return and your break-even close rate.
Customer lifetime value calculator: Average sale, purchases a year, years a customer stays and margin give lifetime value, the most to spend to win a customer and the figure per inquiry.

Lead generation and lead tracking

A lead that waits a day goes cold, and a lead with no source teaches you nothing. Ascent Vision fixes both.

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