Will Facebook & Instagram ads actually pay off for your SaaS?
If you sell a subscription tool (loyalty, rewards, scheduling, POS, etc.) to small businesses, this calculator shows what's likely to happen if you spend a little on ads each day. Move the slider — the numbers update straight away. Built on verified SaaS benchmarks; sources at the bottom.
TRY ITMove the slider below. Everything on this page updates as you go. (If you got this as a PDF, the slider won't move — open the link in a browser instead.)
1 How much do you want to spend on ads each day?
A daily budget for Meta lead-gen ads (free-trial signups). Most SMB-targeting SaaS companies start at A$30–80/day to gather enough signal in 2–3 weeks.
A$10A$300
A$50per day
2 What does a customer pay you each month?
Your starter / most common plan price. SMB SaaS plans typically sit in the A$30–A$200/month band; pick what's closest to your entry tier.
AUD / month (e.g. A$69/mo entry plan).
3 What % of free trials turn into paying customers?
Industry medians: 15–25% if your trial doesn't ask for a credit card upfront; 40–60% if it does (OpenView + ChartMogul, 3,200 SaaS companies analysed).
5%60%
18%trial → paid
4 Here's what's likely to happen
In a typical month with these numbers — plus a 12-month view of how monthly recurring revenue (MRR) compounds.
In a typical month with these numbers
Your ads should bring in around — trial signups, of which roughly — become paying customers. That adds about — in new MRR.
Three ways it could play out:
😬If it goes badly
—
new paid / month
Trials / month—
Cost per paid customer—
New MRR added—
🙂If it goes OK (most likely)
—
new paid / month
Trials / month—
Cost per paid customer—
New MRR added—
🎉If it goes great
—
new paid / month
Trials / month—
Cost per paid customer—
New MRR added—
What "OK" really means: the middle column uses the cited Meta lead-gen cost-per-lead average (~A$27) and the SaaS trial-to-paid rate you set above. "If it goes badly" reflects what week 1–3 usually feels like while Facebook's algorithm learns who your buyers are. "If it goes great" is what mature accounts with strong creative achieve.
5 The compound effect — MRR over 12 months
A new SaaS customer isn't worth one month — they pay for as long as they stay. Toggle below to see how churn affects the curve.
Switch these on to see the realistic picture
All values from cited SaaS benchmarks (full sources at the bottom).
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) over 12 months
The grey line is what MRR would look like with zero churn. The blue line applies realistic SMB churn. The green line (if on) adds annual plans and expansion revenue.
No churn (unrealistic) Realistic SMB churn + Annual + Expansion
MRR at month 12
—
Total revenue (12 months)
—
Total ad spend
—
6 Why we believe these numbers
Four facts from verified SaaS research — sourced in the box at the bottom.
15–25%
Free trial → paid conversion for opt-in trials (no credit card). Median 24.8% across 3,200 SaaS companies. Trials that require a credit card upfront convert 5× higher (~40–60%).
Source: OpenView + ChartMogul 2026; ADV.me
3–5% / mo
SMB SaaS monthly churn band. Median sits at 2.5–3.5%; under 2% is excellent. The B2B SaaS average is 3.5%.
Average Meta lead-gen cost per lead in 2026 (US$23–28 globally, surged ~21% YoY). SaaS free-trial offers typically convert clicks cheaper than direct purchase.
Annual subscribers churn at roughly one-third the rate of monthly subscribers — across every SaaS segment.
Source: Paddle / ProfitWell
For the curious — the math, assumptions & what we ruled out
Month-1 trials & paid customers. Trials per month = monthly spend ÷ Meta lead-gen CPL (A$27 baseline)[3]. The country factor (AU 0.82) adjusts for higher AU auction costs[5]. New paid = trials × your trial-to-paid % (anchored to OpenView/ChartMogul 24.8% median for no-CC trials)[1]. CAC = monthly spend ÷ new paid customers. "Bad" = 55% of expected; "Great" = 180%.
12-month MRR with churn. Each month we add new paid customers and lose a % of existing ones to churn. No churn = linear stacking (theoretical ceiling). Realistic churn = 4% monthly cancellation (mid-range of cited 3–5%)[2]. + Annual plans = assume 30% of customers take annual billing, which churns at ~1/3 the rate[4]. + Expansion = 15% of customers upgrade at +30% of base after 6 months[2].
What this is not. Not a forecast. Real performance depends on creative, audience, landing page, onboarding quality (60–70% of annual churn happens in the first 90 days), and product-market fit. Treat ranges as planning, calibrate after 2–3 weeks of real pixel data.
What we ruled out. Anything we couldn't verify against a published source isn't in this model. We checked every benchmark by reading the source page directly, not just trusting search-engine summaries.
Paddle / ProfitWell — Annual vs monthly churn. Annual subscribers churn at ~1/3 the rate of monthly across every SaaS segment. Multiple ProfitWell reports.