WP Daily launched WP Pros last week and I was able to get in before launch. In the interest of disclosure, I was given a limited time free account.

The real question with any service like this, is how do you decide if it’s worth $20/month (or whatever your particular cost is)? I’ll show you the math I do when marketing as it applies to WP Pros, but I do the same math on almost any business expense.

ROI

We can debate the need for a listing all we want, it’s a simple business decision for me. Did I make at least 10X the cost. Why 10X?

Lets take the $240/year cost. I’m saying that I need to make at least $2400 on it. Here is how I break that down.

$2400 – 240 = 2160 // that’s left over after initial investment

$2160 – 30% = 1512 // 30% covers taxes and a bit for a rainy day

So really if I only made $2400 on it, I’m only taking home $1512. At 10X I really only consider it a break even. I’d do it again, but I’d be on the fence about renewing. 100X would mean I absolutely renew for another year.

Of course I also evaluate the quality of clients that come through the service. If they’re all a pain in the ass, then the ROI may not be there. If they’re awesome, the dollar value needed is much less to consider it a viable thing for marketing dollars.

So watch in a year if I’m still on WP Pros and you will be able to guess if it was profitable for me or not.