Rank and Rent Income Calculator: Price Your Site, Find Your Break-Even

How to use this calculator

Most “rank and rent calculators” multiply search volume by a click-through rate and stop there. That skips the parts that decide whether a site actually makes money: how long it takes to rank, what you pay while you wait, months with no tenant, and whether your price still makes sense to the contractor. This one includes all four.

1. Contractor’s side: enter a realistic job value and close rate for the trade. The Niche Launch Pack and our niche finder have typical job values with sources.
2. Your side: pick flat rent or pay per lead, your price, how many months you expect before the site ranks and rents, and your costs. Use the startup cost calculator for the cost numbers.
3. Read the check: if your price eats more than about half of the contractor’s profit from your leads, expect them to cancel.

How much should you charge for a rank and rent site?

Price from the contractor’s side, not from what you’d like to earn. Start with what one lead is worth to them:

Lead value = average job value × close rate. A $5,000 job closed 25% of the time makes a lead worth about $1,250 in revenue. At a 20% profit margin, that lead is worth about $250 in profit. Ten of those a month is roughly $2,500 of profit for the contractor, so a $750 to $1,000 monthly rent leaves them well ahead. Asking $3,000 doesn’t.

For comparison, contractors buying shared leads from marketplaces such as Angi/HomeAdvisor typically pay around $40 to $120 per lead depending on the trade, according to third-party estimates (LeadTruffle, 2026). Those leads also go to 3 to 8 competitors. An exclusive lead from your site is worth more than that, which is the core of your pitch.

Flat rent or pay per lead?

Many people start a contractor on pay per lead and switch to flat rent once the numbers are proven. Our pay per lead guide covers how to set that up.

What other sources claim sites rent for

Course sellers and vendors commonly quote $500 to $3,000 a month per site (for example Ippei and The Lead Guy). These are claims by people selling courses or software, not independent data, and they describe sites that ranked and found a tenant. They don’t tell you how many sites never did. Plan with your own conservative numbers instead.

The honest part

I’ve built three sites: two pay, one never ranked. That’s normal. Put a realistic “months until it ranks” in the calculator (6 is a fair middle guess for a small or mid-size city), and remember the result can be zero. Read is rank and rent worth it? before you build a second site.