Lesson 2: Cost per cold email lead and ROI
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In this lesson, you’ll learn why cold email is one of the most cost-stable lead generation channels.
Discover how setup costs dropped from $5,500 in 2021 to just $400 today, and why cold emailing offers better price predictability than ads. You’ll also see how stable contact costs make revenue forecasting easier.
If you’re aiming for affordable, scalable outreach – this is the lesson to watch before diving into cost per lead and ROI in the next session.
In this lesson you’ll learn:
- How the total cost of running a cold email campaign has dropped from roughly $5,500 in 2021 to around $400 today for the same 10,000 prospects
- Why cold email offers stronger price predictability than paid ads, where costs can spike 10x depending on competition for ad space
- How pricing has shifted from per-mailbox fees to unlimited mailbox models, and from expensive unverified lists to cheap, pre-verified prospect emails
- That a properly planned cold email setup gives you stable, foreseeable acquisition costs – which directly translates into more predictable revenue
Alright in this lesson I will deep-dive into:
- cost stability
- cost per lead
- and return on investment
for the cold email lead generation channel.
We will go through those topics in three, back to back, lessons.
This lesson focuses on the price stability of cold email.
Almost everything has gotten more expensive -> but cold emailing has gotten cheaper.
Follow me along and …
I will show you how in 2021 you had to pay $5500 for a setup that today costs around $400.
But first let’s go into price stability.
A more stable price per acquisition is = better predictability of your revenue.
If you want to have your cold email infrastructure with backup
- your price to reach a prospect is similar.
How to make this happen? -> we will cover that in the technical setup lessons, so don’t worry.
Another point in terms of stability, is the price per contact or prospect.
In cold email you can basically contact anyone that has an email address.
In cold email the price to find a prospect’s email address is quite stable.
Especially, if you compare this to ads.
In ads you may have sudden spikes in prices, sometimes even 10x more.
This is especially true for very competitive or niche segments
Also with ads…
Price can dynamically change depending on how many people compete for the ad spot.
All of this does NOT happen with cold email.
You have stability in price – and with that better predictability.
Better predictability of your cost = better predictability in your revenue.
Let’s get back to the example setup I mentioned in the beginning.
In 2021 to get 10 mailboxes you paid about $500 for your sequencer (~$50 per mailbox).
Today, sequencers like Woodpecker offer unlimited mailboxes.
Now the bigger part of the price change is the price per prospect email.
In 2021 you may have paid $0.5 per verified prospect email.
For 10.000 that would be $5k, just for the list.
Today, in Woodpecker, you get 10.000 prospect emails for just $219.
They are also already verified!
Now if we put it all together in 2021 to contact 10.000 prospects you needed to pay:
- $500 for the mailboxes
- $5000 for 10.000 prospect emails
Which in total is the $5500 I mentioned in the beginning.
Today in Woodpecker to contact 10.000 you pay:
- $188 to send to 10.000 prospects – you can connect unlimited mailboxes
- $219 to find 10.000 prospect emails
In total you are at around $400.
Of course in both cases you would also need to get mailboxes.
This actually also got cheaper and in Woodpecker you can get a mailbox for as low as $4 per month.
So, I showed you that:
- the price to run cold email campaign is quite stable – with a properly planned setup
- the price to contact a prospect is gotten much cheaper than – compared to 2021
You could say in terms of price… cold emailing is more accessible than ever.
But, let’s dive into the price per lead now.
We will first go through a minimalistic setup.
So see you in the next lesson!