What is your market actually worth?
Most outbound proposals start with what the agency charges. This starts with what the market is worth to you, then subtracts what it costs to reach it. Set your own numbers and the whole chain is visible: contacts, positive replies, held meetings, customers, gross profit, and how many months the list lasts before it runs out.
Your market
Four numbers you already know. We size the first one properly, against real contact counts, on the call.
At this market size every tier reaches the whole list inside a year, so a bigger tier only finishes sooner. It changes the pace, not the totals.
Gross profit in the first twelve months
$134k
For $19,080 paid to us. That is 7.0 dollars of gross profit for every dollar of fees.
The first twelve months
Bars are scaled to stay readable, numbers are exact.
- Contacts emailed25,000
15,000 sends a month, two emails each
- Positive replies175
7 per 1,000 contacts
- Held meetings70
40% of positive replies
- New customers14
20% of held meetings, your own close rate
New annual revenue, year one
$168k
customers x contract value, before margin
Cost per customer, all fees in
$1,363
every fee we charge, divided by customers won
Gross profit per customer
$9,600
contract value x gross margin
Held meetings, year one
70
at $250 each, only when they happen
How long the list lasts
At 15,000 sends a month you reach 7,500 contacts a month, so this market takes 3.3 months to work once.
This market is worked through inside a year. After that, growth comes from widening the ICP rather than from more volume.
The whole market, eventually
$134k
gross profit from 14 customers
Total fees to get there
$19k
$750 setup, $249 a month, $250 a held meeting
The arithmetic, in full
There is no model behind this page beyond four multiplications. Anyone can check it, which is the only reason to publish a number at all.
positive replies = contacts ÷ 1,000 × positive replies per 1,000
held meetings = positive replies × share that book and attend
customers = held meetings × your close rate
gross profit = customers × contract value × gross margin
fees = $750 setup + monthly infrastructure × months + $250 × held meetings
months to work the list = contacts ÷ (monthly sends ÷ 2 emails per contact)
Two of those inputs are ours rather than yours, so they are stated rather than hidden. We plan on 7 positive replies per 1,000 contacts and on 40% of positive replies becoming a meeting that is actually held. Multiply them and the model produces 2.8 held meetings per 1,000 contacts, which is the midpoint of the published range in our own 2026 benchmarks, where the working band runs from 1 to 6. The midpoint rather than the optimistic end, because a forecast you will quote back to us should err low.
A worked example
A company with 120,000 reachable decision makers, an average contract worth $12,000 a year at 80% gross margin, closing 20% of the first meetings it takes, sending 15,000 emails a month. A market that size outlasts the first year, which is why the two columns differ.
- First 12 months
- 90,000
- Whole market
- 120,000
- First 12 months
- 630
- Whole market
- 840
- First 12 months
- 252
- Whole market
- 336
- First 12 months
- 50
- Whole market
- 67
- First 12 months
- $604,800
- Whole market
- $806,400
- First 12 months
- $483,840
- Whole market
- $645,120
- First 12 months
- $66,738
- Whole market
- $88,734
- First 12 months
- 7.2x
- Whole market
- 7.3x
| Stage | First 12 months | Whole market |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts emailed | 90,000 | 120,000 |
| Positive replies | 630 | 840 |
| Held meetings | 252 | 336 |
| New customers | 50 | 67 |
| New annual revenue | $604,800 | $806,400 |
| Gross profit | $483,840 | $645,120 |
| Fees to Outboundwell | $66,738 | $88,734 |
| Gross profit per $1 of fees | 7.2x | 7.3x |
That market takes 16 months to work once at 15,000 sends a month, so the first year reaches 90,000 of the 120,000 contacts. Cost per customer lands at $1,320 against $9,600 of gross profit per customer.
The same business, three market sizes
Everything held constant except the number of people worth emailing. This is why sizing the market honestly matters more than any other number in an outbound proposal.
- Months of runway
- 0.7
- Held meetings, yr 1
- 14
- Gross profit, yr 1
- $27k
- Per $1 of fees
- 6.1x
- Months of runway
- 3.3
- Held meetings, yr 1
- 70
- Gross profit, yr 1
- $134k
- Per $1 of fees
- 7x
- Months of runway
- 13.3
- Held meetings, yr 1
- 252
- Gross profit, yr 1
- $484k
- Per $1 of fees
- 7.2x
| Contacts | Months of runway | Held meetings, yr 1 | Gross profit, yr 1 | Per $1 of fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | 0.7 | 14 | $27k | 6.1x |
| 25,000 | 3.3 | 70 | $134k | 7x |
| 100,000 | 13.3 | 252 | $484k | 7.2x |
All three assume 15,000 sends a month, an $12,000 contract at 80% margin, and a 20% close rate from a first meeting.
What this does not tell you
- Whether your market is really that big. Almost every self-reported market size is too large, usually because it counts several people per company. We approach one contact per company, and we size the real number against verified contact counts before quoting anyone a forecast. The gap between the two is routinely a factor of three or more.
- Whether your offer lands in cold email. Nothing on this page tests that. Some offers cannot be sold cold at all, whatever the market size, and the honest answer is worth more than a forecast. The fit check is five questions that say so in about a minute.
- What happens after the meeting. The single most common reason outbound engagements fail is not the meetings, it is that nobody closes them. This model takes your close rate as given. If you do not know it, that number is the first thing to find out, not this one.
- The first three weeks. Nothing prospects during domain warm-up, so the first month produces infrastructure rather than meetings. The twelve-month column above spreads sending evenly, which slightly flatters the early months and slightly understates the late ones.
Questions
How do you calculate what outbound is worth to a business?
Four multiplications, in order. Contacts in the market, times positive replies per thousand contacts, gives positive replies. Times the share of positive replies that become a held meeting, gives meetings. Times your close rate from a first meeting, gives customers. Times your average contract value and your gross margin, gives gross profit. Outboundwell plans on 7 positive replies per 1,000 contacts and 40% of those becoming a held meeting, which is 2.8 held meetings per 1,000 contacts.
How many held meetings should 1,000 cold email contacts produce?
Roughly 1 to 6 held meetings per 1,000 well-targeted contacts worked through a full sequence, and about 2.8 when every link in the chain lands at its midpoint. This calculator defaults to that midpoint rather than to the optimistic end, because a forecast a prospect will hold you to should err low rather than high. The full chain is in our 2026 benchmarks.
How long does a cold email list last?
Divide your contact count by the number of contacts a month of sending reaches. At two emails per contact, 15,000 sends a month reaches 7,500 contacts a month. A market of 25,000 contacts therefore takes about 3.3 months to work once. A list is a wasting asset, so the honest question before signing anyone is not what the market is worth but how many months of runway it holds.
What does a cold email agency cost per customer acquired?
Add the one-time setup fee, the monthly sending infrastructure, and the per-meeting fee, then divide by customers won. On this page's default assumptions that is $1,363 per customer, against $9,600 of gross profit per customer. The ratio matters more than either number: a held meeting should cost roughly 5 to 10% of the deal it produces.
What contract value do you need for pay-per-meeting outbound to work?
At $250 per held meeting and a 20% close rate, each customer costs about $1,250 in meeting fees alone. A deal worth a few hundred dollars cannot carry that. As a rule, pay-per-meeting outbound works when annual contract value times gross margin is at least ten times the cost of the meetings needed to win one customer. Set your own numbers in the calculator above and look at the gross profit per dollar of fees; below about 3 to 1 the model is not worth running.
Is this forecast a guarantee?
No. It is arithmetic on assumptions, and the assumptions are printed on the page so you can change them. Nothing here is a contractual commitment. The only commitment Outboundwell makes is the billing model itself: you pay when a qualified meeting is actually held, so a forecast that proves optimistic costs us rather than you.
Want the first number done properly?
On a 30-minute call we size your market against real contact counts rather than an estimate, and you keep the forecast either way.