$38.19: the median cost per purchase across about 35,000 ecommerce brands in 2025. $27.66: the average cost per lead across 726 lead campaigns. Two different conversion events, two tables below, every figure linked to its source.
Triple Whale · Full year 2025 · About 35,000 brands · Updated April 2026
| Industry | Median CPA | Source |
|---|---|---|
| All industries (median) | $38.19 | Triple Whale |
| Lifestyle and boutique | $29.99 | Triple Whale |
| Baby | $30.04 | Triple Whale |
| Books and music | $30.25 | Triple Whale |
| Media and publishing | $33.78 | Triple Whale |
| Automotive | $34.15 | Triple Whale |
| Toys, art and collectibles | $34.87 | Triple Whale |
| Apparel and accessories | $36.76 | Triple Whale |
| Beauty | $37.92 | Triple Whale |
| Food and beverage | $38.15 | Triple Whale |
| Pets and animals | $38.18 | Triple Whale |
| Health and wellness | $38.55 | Triple Whale |
| Sports and outdoors | $43.89 | Triple Whale |
| Home and garden | $46.46 | Triple Whale |
| Travel accessories and luggage | $48.37 | Triple Whale |
| Electronics | $49.48 | Triple Whale |
WordStream by LocaliQ · Data: April 2024 to June 2025 · Published September 2025
| Industry | Avg. cost per lead | Conversion rate | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| All industries (average) | $27.66 | 7.72% | WordStream |
| Restaurants and food | $3.16 | 18.25% | WordStream |
| Real estate | $16.61 | 9.53% | WordStream |
| Career and employment | $17.64 | 5.77% | WordStream |
| Arts and entertainment | $18.17 | 9.34% | WordStream |
| Attorneys and legal services | $18.17 | 10.53% | WordStream |
| Sports and recreation | $19.30 | 5.48% | WordStream |
| Education and instruction | $28.22 | 10.08% | WordStream |
| Personal services | $30.57 | 6.51% | WordStream |
| Industrial and commercial | $37.34 | 9.34% | WordStream |
| Furniture | $40.04 | 3.77% | WordStream |
| Home and home improvement | $41.26 | 5.22% | WordStream |
| Physicians and surgeons | $47.47 | 4.51% | WordStream |
| Beauty and personal care | $51.42 | 5.29% | WordStream |
| Health and fitness | $52.98 | 5.63% | WordStream |
| Dentists and dental services | $76.71 | 6.38% | WordStream |
Methodology: the figures on this page are published industry aggregates from the named sources, not Raintree client data. Triple Whale CPA is the median cost per purchase across roughly 35,000 ecommerce brands for calendar year 2025, last updated April 2026. WordStream cost per lead is the average across 726 US lead campaigns, April 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025; conversion rate is leads divided by clicks. Sources define industries differently, so compare direction and order of magnitude, not decimals.
CPA is the metric that actually touches your bank account, and it is also the one most distorted by measurement. Before comparing your number to any table, know two things: what conversion event you are counting (a purchase and a lead are not comparable) and how much of your real conversion volume Meta can even see. An account with broken tracking reports a higher CPA than it earns, then gets optimized in the wrong direction to fix a problem that does not exist.
The ecommerce table is tight: $29.99 to $49.48 across every category, with the median at $38.19. That is because CPA in ecommerce converges toward what products cost and what margins allow. The lead-gen table is wide, $3.16 to $76.71, because a lead's value varies by 100x across industries. A dentist paying $76.71 per lead on a $2,000 patient is doing better than a restaurant paying $3.16 for someone who might order a $15 lunch.
Work the funnel backward. Confirm tracking first: pixel plus Conversions API, deduplicated, with strong event match quality. Our free tracking audit checks this in about 20 seconds. Then compare landing page conversion rate to your industry, then question the offer, then the creative. Audiences come last: on today's Meta, targeting is mostly the algorithm's job and signal is yours.
Confirm it is real before scaling into it. Check that platform-reported conversions roughly match your backend numbers, that view-through attribution is not padding the count, and that the conversions are incremental rather than customers who would have bought anyway. Then compute your actual ceiling: breakeven CPA is AOV times contribution margin, and our breakeven calculator gives you the number in five seconds. A $38 CPA is excellent for one store and fatal for another. The benchmark cannot tell you which one you are.
$38.19 median cost per purchase across about 35,000 ecommerce brands in 2025 (Triple Whale). For lead generation, WordStream's 2025 study puts the average cost per lead at $27.66. The two figures measure different events, purchases versus leads, so match the benchmark to your own conversion event before comparing.
Check tracking first. A pixel-plus-CAPI setup with poor event match quality underreports conversions, which inflates measured CPA before anything is actually wrong with the ads. Then check, in order: landing page conversion rate against your industry, offer strength, creative fatigue, and audience breadth. Most CPA problems live on the site or in the offer, not in the ad account.
Published averages run from $3.16 for restaurants to $76.71 for dentists (WordStream, 2025 edition), with the all-industry average at $27.66. Anchor to your own economics instead: multiply average customer value by your lead-to-customer close rate. A dentist closing 1 in 10 leads on a $2,000 patient can pay $76.71 happily. A $500 service closing 1 in 20 cannot.
For ecommerce, breakeven CPA is average order value multiplied by contribution margin. An $80 AOV at a 40% margin supports a $32 CPA before the first order loses money. Repeat purchase rate raises the ceiling. Our free breakeven ROAS calculator does the math from two inputs.
A high CPA usually starts as a measurement problem. Run our free tracking audit to see whether Meta is getting clean conversion signal from your site, or book 30 minutes and we will read your account against these numbers with you.