---
title: "Lead Routing Calculator"
category: Lead Gen
canonical: https://plato.ai/tools/lead-routing/
---

# Lead Routing Calculator

How much more does a lead earn when buyers are pinged in value order instead of a fixed waterfall?

Free interactive calculator at https://plato.ai/tools/lead-routing/ (runs in the browser).

## How it works

A waterfall offers every lead to buyers in a fixed order, usually highest price first, until one accepts. Enter 3 to 5 buyers with what each pays and how often it accepts, plus how many leads you lose after each declined ping, and the calculator finds the order that earns the most per lead and what the change is worth each month. The default buyers and drop-off are an illustrative example, not benchmarks.

Buyers are pinged one at a time and each accepts independently with its acceptance rate. After a decline, a share d of leads is lost (the consumer leaves or the lead goes stale), so the next buyer sees only what is left. Expected revenue per lead adds up, for each buyer in the order, the share of leads still on offer when it is pinged × its acceptance rate × its price. Swapping two neighbouring buyers shows the higher-earning order always puts first the buyer with the larger index a·p ÷ (d + (1 − d)·p), so sorting by that index gives the best of all orders (checked against every ordering of random cases). When declines cost nothing (d = 0) the index is the price, so a price-ranked waterfall is already best and every order sells the same share of leads; when every decline loses the lead (d = 1) it is price × acceptance, the expected value the article ranks by. Monthly uplift is the per-lead difference × leads per month.

`Share still on offer: q1 = 1, q(k+1) = qk × (1 − pk) × (1 − d); revenue per lead R = Σ ak × pk × qk; share sold S = Σ pk × qk; best order sorts buyers by ak × pk ÷ (d + (1 − d) × pk), highest first; monthly uplift = (R best − R waterfall) × leads per month`

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Why not just rank buyers by price × acceptance?
Price × acceptance is exactly right only when a declined lead is gone. If most leads survive a decline, a high payer that rarely accepts costs little by going first, so it can earn more there. The calculator ranks by a·p ÷ (d + (1 − d)·p), which becomes price × acceptance when every decline loses the lead and plain price when declines cost nothing.

### If declines cost nothing, does the order matter?
Not for how many leads you sell: with no drop-off every lead reaches every buyer until one accepts, so the share sold is the same in any order. It still matters for revenue, and then the best order is simply highest price first. Drop-off and latency are what make a price-ranked waterfall lose money.

### Where do the acceptance rates and drop-off come from?
From your own ping logs: each buyer's accept rate on the leads you offered it, and the share of leads that are lost or go stale between pings. Real routing predicts both per lead, so the best order can differ from one lead to the next.

### What does the calculator leave out?
Buyer caps, filters and budgets, returns, and any link between buyers' decisions. Those belong in the optimizer, as the article describes; this calculator shows the effect of order alone.

## Read the article

[Smart Routing: Sequencing Lead Offers for Maximum Yield](https://plato.ai/md/smart-routing-lead-offers.md)