Most founders compare the wrong number. They look at cost per click, or cost per lead, and pick a channel. The number that decides your budget is cost per meeting. And the channels do not price the same way.
With paid search you rent intent. Someone types a query. They already want something. You pay the auction price for that click, and it is fairly predictable. High floor, low ceiling. You rarely pay nothing, and you rarely pay tiny.
Cold email works the other way. You do not rent intent. You make it. The price per contact is fixed and small. Whether that contact turns into a meeting is on you, not the channel.
Here are rough industry numbers for one booked meeting. Google Search for B2B runs about $200 to $400. LinkedIn Ads sit higher, often $400 to $1,500. Cold calling lands around $100 to $300, mostly in rep time.
Cold email is a different shape. My contact cost is about $0.41. That is the worst case: the smallest, most expensive bundle, $49 for 2,000 connects, which gives me roughly 120 verified contacts. Bigger bundles cost less. So the spend per meeting is not close. Even a weak cold email campaign undercuts paid search by a wide margin.
| Channel | Cost / contact | Contact → meeting | Cost / meeting (spend only) | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold email (Sellvance) | ~$0.50 (your connect × 16.7) | ~0.8% baseline, ICP-matched ~1.5–3% | ~$17–$125 | Baseline rate sourced; your real rate replaces it |
| LinkedIn DM (Sales Nav + tool) | ~$0.50 | ~1–2% (then volume-capped) | ~$25–$75 | Est. |
| Cold calling (SDR) | ~$20 / conversation | ~10–20% conv→meeting | ~$100–$300 | Est. from SDR economics |
| Google Search (B2B) | ~$5–$9 / click | demo-request → held meeting | ~$200–$400 | WordStream — strong; $500–$3,000 in crowded categories |
| LinkedIn Ads | ~$6–$15 / click | lower CVR than search | ~$400–$1,500 | Weaker — directional |
The wide range for cold email has one cause. The meeting rate is the whole game. Same list, wrong offer, you get zero. Same list, right offer at the right time, you beat every paid channel. The contact is cheap. The relevance is the part you pay for, and you pay for it with your own work.
Move the sliders below. Set your contact cost and your meeting rate. See where cold email lands next to the paid channels.
Cost per booked meeting
This is the part that matters. A cold email campaign that flops costs $49 and an afternoon. A Google campaign that flops costs your full ad budget, and it is gone. Same failure, very different bill.
So you run many small tests. Try an offer. Try a tighter ICP. Kill the ones that book nothing. Put money behind the two or three that work. The low price per contact is nice. The cheap learning is the real edge. You are not buying clicks. You are buying chances to find the combination that lands.
One warning. A zero can mean two things. The offer was wrong, or the email never reached the inbox. Both look identical in your numbers. Check deliverability first. Then judge the offer. Otherwise you will throw away a good idea that simply went to spam.