How many months until your new website pays for itself?
Using your own data or industry averages, find out how many more customers a new website or a CRO project brings you and when you recover your investment.
How your investment evolves
The charts update whenever you change any value.
12-month ROI by scenario
Conservative 0.8x · Expected 1x · Optimistic 1.2x applied to the conversion uplift
Cumulative net gain at 36 months
Below zero, you are still recovering your investment
Frequently asked questions
How is the ROI of a website calculated?
We take the additional customers generated by a higher conversion rate on your current traffic, value them using your average value per customer and your gross margin, and compare that gain with the project cost plus maintenance. The ROI is the net gain at 12 months divided by the total cost for that year.
What counts as a good ROI for a new website?
It depends on the traffic you already have: a small improvement on a lot of traffic pays back quickly, while an expensive website with little traffic can take years. Rather than chasing a figure, look at the payback period: recovering the cost in under a year is a good sign.
How long does it take for a new website to pay for itself?
It is the first month in which the cumulative gain exceeds the project cost. As a reference, agencies put the payback of a well-built website at 4 to 12 months; for small local business projects it can drop to 2-6 months. There is no independent study with a single average, so take it as guidance. By default, the calculator applies the improvement from the first month. If your website launches in phases or you hire a CRO retainer, use "Months until full improvement" in the advanced data: the improvement will grow gradually and the payback will be more realistic.
What goes into the project cost?
Everything paid only once: scoping, design, development, content migration, a CRO audit and fees. Recurring monthly costs (hosting, maintenance, licences or a CRO fee) go under "Monthly spend", in the advanced data.
What is CRO and how is it different from building a new website?
CRO stands for conversion rate optimisation: analysing how visitors behave and testing changes (copy, forms, calls to action, speed) so that more visits become customers. A new website changes everything at once; CRO improves the website you already have, step by step and with A/B tests, and it usually costs less.
You can use this calculator for both cases. For CRO, enter the audit price as the project cost and the monthly fee under "Monthly spend". If it is a retainer, also enter how many months you expect until the full improvement: tests add up gradually.
Where do the preloaded values come from?
The 15% uplift is the high end of the average improvement from a winning A/B test (12-15%, VWO via Searchlab, 2026). The 0.7% conversion rate and the 38% margin are market averages; you will find the sources in the calculation assumptions. The project and maintenance costs are indicative prices for a 10 to 25 page business website. For your case, use your own data.
Why are there three scenarios?
Because nobody can promise an exact improvement. The conservative scenario assumes 20% less than the expected improvement; the optimistic one, 20% more. That way you see a reasonable range instead of a single figure.
Do you store my data?
No. All calculations run in your browser and nothing is sent to any server.
Do you want these results for your business?
How we calculate
A transparent formula, no black boxes.
1. Extra customers each month
Neither a new website nor CRO brings more visits: they convert the visits you already have better. The scenario multiplies the conversion uplift.
2. Extra profit each month
Each extra customer is valued using your average value per customer and your gross margin.
If you enter months until full improvement, only part of it is applied each month until it reaches 100%.
Without traffic data
We start from the revenue that comes through your website and apply the conversion uplift to it. The value per customer is already included in the revenue.
3. Net gain and ROI
We subtract each month's maintenance and the one-off project cost. The ROI compares the first year's gain with everything the website costs that year.
4. Payback
The first month in which the cumulative net gain reaches zero or more.
An estimate, not a promise: results depend on your starting point, your sector and the project's execution.
Conversion uplift: the default 15% is the high end of the average improvement from a winning CRO A/B test (12-15%, VWO via Searchlab, CRO Statistics 2026). Omniconvert reports an average of 23.2% with its tool, a vendor figure that sits close to the optimistic scenario (18%). A website that already converts well has less room for improvement.
Conversion: 0.7% visit-to-customer = 4.9% visit-to-lead (Ruler Analytics 2026) × 14.6% lead-to-customer (HubSpot). It varies a lot by sector.
Gross profit: we apply your gross margin to each sale; we do not subtract fixed costs or taxes. The default 38% is the market average according to Damodaran, NYU Stern, January 2026.
Without traffic data: if you do not know your visits, we estimate that 40% of your revenue comes through the website, which is what typically comes from Google alone according to Hashmeta (SEO ROI Statistics, 2025). Adjust it if you know.
Ramp-up period: by default the improvement counts from the first month after launch, as with a new website or an audit applied all at once. With a CRO retainer the improvement arrives through successive tests: use "Months until full improvement". Traffic stays constant: the calculator does not add new visits.
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