---
title: "What is cost per opportunity?"
description: "Cost per opportunity is campaign spend divided by the new sales opportunities it created. It ties channel cost to pipeline, not clicks or replies."
canonical: https://trysincerely.com/glossary/cost-per-opportunity
last_updated: 2026-10-08
---
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# What is cost per opportunity?

> Cost per opportunity is campaign spend divided by the new sales opportunities it created. It ties channel cost to pipeline, not clicks or replies.

Source: https://trysincerely.com/glossary/cost-per-opportunity

Cost per opportunity is your total campaign spend divided by the number of new sales opportunities it created. If a campaign costs $2,000 and produces 4 opportunities, cost per opportunity is $500. It is the cleanest way to compare channels that produce very different volumes of cheap activity.

## Why it matters

A reply costs almost nothing to generate by email and several dollars by mail, so cost per reply rewards whichever channel sends the most. Cost per opportunity asks a narrower question: what each channel paid for pipeline. Which one wins depends on the audience, the offer, and how you define an opportunity, which is why you measure it rather than assume it.

The trap is counting opportunities the campaign did not cause. Some accounts would have converted anyway. An incremental estimate divides spend by estimated additional opportunities: the [lift](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/lift) over a randomized [holdout](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/holdout) group you deliberately did not mail. This often raises the cost estimate, but sampling uncertainty matters. If incremental opportunities are zero or negative, a positive incremental cost per opportunity is not meaningful. Report the attributed and incremental metrics with their definitions and uncertainty.

## Example

You mail 500 accounts at $2.00 per letter, $1,000 total. The mailed group opens 16 opportunities in the window. Naive cost per opportunity: $1,000 / 16 = $63.

Your 100-account randomized holdout converted at 2%, giving an estimated baseline of 10 opportunities for a 500-account group. The point estimate is 6 incremental opportunities, so estimated incremental cost per opportunity is $1,000 / 6 = $167. With such small counts, the estimate is uncertain and does not establish profitability. Eligible randomized Sincerely campaigns lock the holdout and outcome window at launch, and the [measurement readout](https://trysincerely.com/measurement) reports lift with a confidence interval.

Cost per opportunity is what a channel costs to move pipeline; everything cheaper to measure is a proxy.

## Related questions

- [How much should you spend pursuing a target account?](https://trysincerely.com/guides/how-much-to-spend-pursuing-a-target-account): Set a target-account pursuit ceiling from expected gross profit, win probability, payback, seller labor, and the value of the next tactic.
- [Direct mail ROI calculator](https://trysincerely.com/tools/direct-mail-roi): Estimate direct mail ROI from lift, not response rates. Enter your costs and target lift to find when the campaign breaks even.
- [How to measure direct mail ROI](https://trysincerely.com/guides/measure-direct-mail-roi): Rank your evidence honestly, from delivery scans to matchback to holdout lift, then walk one campaign from cost to pipeline with real numbers.

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