Content ROI & Payback Calculator
Find out whether the content programme pays back before you spend twelve months finding out.
Built for this site after its own content programme returned 22 clicks from 4,553 impressions in 85 days. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Your programme
Writer, editor, tools, and your own time at whatever you bill. Most models undercount the editing.
The input that decides everything, and the one people guess highest. On this site it is under 2% — 111 of 182 pages earned 5 or fewer impressions in a quarter.
At maturity, not at launch.
Margin, not revenue. Use lifetime margin if you have retention.
Payback
Breaks even in
month 12
Total production spend
$24,000
Cumulative return by month 36
$161,280
ROI at 36 months
572%
Monthly sessions at 36 months
960
Monthly return at 36 months
$5,760
Trajectory
| Month | Sessions | Spent | Returned |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 80 | $6,000 | $800 |
| 6 | 280 | $12,000 | $4,480 |
| 12 | 760 | $24,000 | $24,640 |
| 18 | 960 | $24,000 | $57,600 |
| 24 | 960 | $24,000 | $92,160 |
| 36 | 960 | $24,000 | $161,280 |
The case this model exists to catch. This site published around 390 pages and earned 22 clicks from 4,553 impressions in the 85 days to 3 September 2026 — a 0.48% clickthrough rate, with 111 of 182 ranking pages drawing five impressions or fewer. Every stage of the programme executed. The output was still approximately zero. Press Load: a programme that is failing to see what those inputs do to the payback line, and note that nothing about the spend looks wrong until you multiply it out.
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Browse all free guides →The maths behind this
A Content Marketing ROI Model You Can Actually Run
A full payback model for a content programme — cost inputs, ranking probability, traffic and conversion assumptions, plus a sensitivity table and runnable Python. Every input is labelled an assumption.
Read →SEO Measurement: 5 Metrics, Read Off My Own GSC Data
My site earned 22 clicks from 4,553 impressions in 85 days. Here are the five Search Console readings that explain why, and the Python that pulls them out of a CSV export.
Read →What Is a Content System? Components, Costs, Failures
A content system is seven components — capture, brief, draft, edit, publish, measure, recycle — each with an owner, a tool and a time cost. Here is what each one costs, where AI helps, and the quality floor I skipped.
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Want this fitted to your actual numbers?
The defaults here are illustrative. Fitted to your own data — real hazard rates, real margins, real conversion — the same models tell you what to do next rather than what is theoretically possible.
Get it modelled properly