What would your tattoo ads need to pay for themselves?
Use your own studio numbers to estimate the contribution needed to cover a campaign. Include media spend and the management fee, then deduct artist pay and variable costs from each completed first session. This is a scenario, not a forecast of bookings or the studio’s total profit.
All amounts use one currency and one campaign period. Keep the contacts from that period together while their first appointments mature. Your service fee comes from your quote; this calculator does not publish or assume Marketing Tattoo’s fee.
What the formulas mean
Decimal and exponent notation are supported, with at most 128 characters per number and an explicit exponent from −308 to 308. Inputs and outputs must fit the finite numeric display range; nonzero values that would become zero are rejected. Counts and the required-session result must be safe whole numbers (at most 9,007,199,254,740,991). The session threshold uses exact decimal arithmetic without rounding amounts to cents. Display rounding does not change that threshold; very small nonzero outputs use scientific notation.
This model covers additional completed first sessions of new clients, not the whole studio, lifetime value, later sessions or unredeemed gift credit. It adapts the contribution and break-even approach described by the U.S. Small Business Administration. SBA does not supply tattoo benchmarks.
- K = M + F + O: media spend, management fee and other campaign costs.
- C = P − A − V: completed first-session value minus artist payout and other variable studio costs, before campaign costs and unincluded fixed overhead. For percentage payout, A = P × payout percentage / 100.
- N = ceil(K / C), with C > 0: additional completed first sessions needed to cover K, rounded up. These are not deposits or form submissions. With K = 0, N = 0.
- E = L × q / 100: scenario completed first sessions, only if you supply both unique qualified inquiries and their completion percentage. A fractional expected value is not a promise of a fraction of an appointment.
- Scenario contribution after campaign costs = E × C − K. This is not net profit or guaranteed return. Fixed overhead and taxes not included still exist.
- Only when E > 0: M / E is scenario media cost per completed first-session client; K / E is scenario total campaign cost per completed first-session client. With E = 0 there is no per-client division and contribution is −K.
If N exceeds entered spare capacity, covering the costs requires more capacity than you supplied. With no capacity input, the calculator cannot assess feasibility.
Do not count the deposit or voucher twice
A service priced at 600 with a deposit of 100 credited toward the remaining payment of 500 has P = 600, not 700. Do not add the deposit on top of the final service value. A different booking charge or refund needs treatment that matches its actual meaning.
For gift certificates, use the effective amount paid for the completed service. The original certificate sale, credit applied as a deposit and later balance are not three sales. Keep cash timing and completed service outcomes separate, and do not include future returns until observed.
The illustrative scenario
The example button loads media spend 1,000, management fee 500, other campaign costs 0, first-session value 600, artist payout 300 and other variable costs 35: K = 1,500, C = 265, N = 6. With 24 qualified inquiries and 25% completing, E = 6 and scenario contribution after campaign costs = 90. Scenario media cost per client is 166.67 and total campaign cost per client is 250. These are illustrative values, not our fee or results, and 90 is not studio net profit.
Use evidence with your assumptions
Read the two dated media-cost samples and case study and its missing downstream measurements. If inquiries are not progressing, use the booking-gap diagnostic. Actual acquisition cost needs completed first sessions from unique new clients in a matched cohort, not an assumed completion rate.