Postbeam

SEO ROI Calculator Free Tool

Know if a blog post is worth writing before you spend a dollar on it. The exact per-post math from the engine that grew our blog to 84,000 monthly visitors. No signup.

From Ahrefs or Semrush volume.

Be honest - check the SERP's domain ratings.

1-2% is a typical starting assumption.

LTV or first-year value - your call, be consistent.

$300-$600 for a professional writer.

Each refresh costs about the same as the post.

Annual ROI
246%
Worth it

Positive ROI with room for error. Sanity-check the conversion rate against a real post if you have one.

Monthly visitors29
Leads / month0.6
Customers / month0.14
Revenue / year$3,456
Content cost / year$1,000

Remember: pages that rank usually also rank for keyword variations, so real traffic often lands above this estimate - while AI overviews push it down. Treat the output as a decision aid, not a forecast.

The worked example behind the defaults

The defaults in this calculator are a real example from our own playbook: a keyword with 480 monthly searches, ranking top 5, drove about 200 visitors a month. At a 2% visitor-to-lead rate that's 4 leads; closing 25% of leads produced 1 customer a month worth $2,000 - against roughly $500 to produce the post and a refresh a year. Around 400% ROI, from one post, that keeps paying.

The two levers that matter most aren't in the arithmetic: pick keywords that are high intent and high ICP fit (a 150-search keyword that matches both beats a 10,000-search keyword that matches neither), and only fight for positions you can win - if you have low domain authority, filter to keyword difficulty under 10.

Frequently Asked Questions

SEO ROI = (revenue attributable to the content - cost of the content) / cost of the content x 100. This calculator walks the full chain: monthly searches x click-through rate for your expected position = visitors; visitors x visitor-to-lead rate = leads; leads x close rate = customers; customers x customer value = revenue. Compare that against what the post costs to write and refresh each year.
There's no universal benchmark because customer value varies wildly, but here's a real worked example from our own playbook: a keyword with 480 monthly searches ranking top 5 drove ~200 visitors/month, a 2% lead rate produced 4 leads, a 25% close rate produced 1 customer worth $2,000 - against roughly $500 to produce the post. That's ~400% ROI in the first month, and the post keeps ranking. If the math doesn't clear 100% within a year on conservative assumptions, pick a different keyword.
Start at 1-2% visitor-to-lead and adjust with your own data. Every business is different - high-intent, high-ICP-fit keywords convert far better than high-volume informational ones, which is exactly why we pick keywords on those two axes. If you have existing posts, use their real rates; if not, 1% is the honest starting assumption.
Budget $300-$600 for a professional writer to research, write, and publish a 1,500-2,500 word SEO post, and roughly the same again per refresh (plan 1-2 refreshes a year for posts that matter). If you write it yourself, cost your time honestly - founder hours aren't free.
Roughly: monthly searches x CTR for your position. Position 1 captures ~27% of clicks on a typical SERP, position 2 ~15%, position 3 ~10%, positions 4-5 ~6%, and 6-10 about 2-3%. Two honest adjustments: AI overviews are shrinking clicks on many informational queries, and a page that ranks usually also ranks for a cluster of variations - which can double or triple the traffic beyond the head term.
Yes, with adjusted expectations - our own blog fell from an 85K-visitor peak to 20-30K/month because of AI overviews and ChatGPT. But the same information-gain content now gets cited by LLMs, and in our analytics AI-assistant visitors convert at ~6x the rate of organic search visitors. Run this calculator with conservative traffic and let the conversion side carry the case.

The rest of the engine

The calculator decides which posts to write. These cover the how.

B2B SEO Strategy →

The full engine behind 84,000 monthly visitors - keywords, writers, ROI, refreshes.

AEO Checker →

Score how ready your content is to get cited by ChatGPT, Claude, and AI overviews.

Earned Media Value Calculator →

Translate organic impressions into their equivalent ad spend.

SEO Migration Checklist →

Move your site to an AI-editable stack without losing rankings.

LinkedIn ROI Calculator →

The same discipline, applied to your LinkedIn program.

All Free Tools →

The full Postbeam tool directory.

Want the whole engine run for you?

Postbeam's Content Engine turns your calls and docs into a weekly SEO blog plus LinkedIn - keyword selection, ROI math, and publishing included. We accept three new clients a month.

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