Waterfalls trade credits for coverage
Stacking providers raises hit rate, but each additional attempt burns credits on records the first provider already missed. There's a point where the marginal provider costs more per incremental record than the record is worth — this calculator finds it.
The four costs people forget
Credit price is the smallest of them in most teams.
- • Credits burned on misses — you pay for the attempt, not the answer.
- • Bounces, which cost twice: the credit and the domain reputation.
- • Ops hours building and maintaining enrichment tables.
- • Re-enrichment as data decays, typically 2%–3% of records per month.
When to cut volume instead of cost
If cost per closed deal is climbing, halving records with a tighter ICP usually beats renegotiating credit price. Try it: cut records by 60%, raise hit rate and contact-to-meeting, and compare the two runs side by side.
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Read the guideFAQ
How do I find my effective credit price?
Divide last month's total credit spend by credits consumed — including any overage tier. Rack rate and effective rate are rarely the same number.
Is a low hit rate always bad?
No. A 50% hit rate on a razor-tight ICP can outperform 85% on a broad one. Judge on cost per meeting, not hit rate in isolation.
Should ops time really count?
Yes. Enrichment tables need building, debugging, and maintaining. A single ops person at 12 hours a month often costs more than the credits themselves.
What about data decay?
Contact data goes stale at roughly 2%–3% a month. If you re-enrich quarterly, add those repeat records to your monthly volume input.
How this calculator is built
Independently maintained
Written by Sam Doshi and the RevenueLab editorial team. We don't sell the data feeds this tool is built on.
Sourced from primary data
Benchmarks come from public AdSense / Stripe / IRS disclosures and reader-submitted data — never third-party "$X per view" claims. Full methodology.
Last editorial review
Reviewed on a rolling quarterly cycle. Dated reviews are published on the methodology record for each calculator.
Editorial standards
See our editorial policy and disclaimer. Results are estimates, not advice.