How to Calculate Cost-Per-Enrollment for Your Insurance Call Center

Why CPE Matters More Than You Think

Cost-Per-Enrollment is different from Cost-Per-Lead or Cost-Per-Acquisition in one critical way: it captures the fully loaded cost of turning a prospect into a completed, submitted enrollment. That includes every cost your operation incurs—not just marketing spend. If your CPE exceeds the commission you earn on that enrollment, you're losing money on every sale, no matter how fast your top line grows.

The CPE Formula: Breaking It Down

At its simplest, Cost-Per-Enrollment is a ratio of total costs to completed enrollments. But the power of CPE comes from understanding exactly what goes into that numerator. Here is the master formula:

The key word is completed. An enrollment that's submitted but rejected, or started but abandoned, doesn't count. CPE measures the cost of enrollments that actually stick—policies that are issued and generate commission revenue. Let's break down each component.

Component 1: Seat Costs

Seat costs are everything you spend to put a licensed, equipped agent in a chair and ready to take calls. This is often the largest single component of CPE, and the one most call centers underestimate.

Component 2: Lead Costs

Lead costs are the most visible CPE component—and often the one that gets the most scrutiny. But raw cost-per-lead is misleading without conversion context. What matters is cost per lead that converts to an enrollment.

The example above illustrates why the cheapest lead isn't always the best deal. The $25 aged lead looks affordable, but at a 3% conversion rate, your lead cost per enrollment is $833. The $85 live transfer costs 3.4x more per lead, but converts at 6x the rate—delivering a lead-cost-per-enrollment of just $472. Always evaluate lead cost through the lens of conversion, not sticker price. For a deeper breakdown of lead types and their true costs, see our guide on cost per acquisition in insurance.

Component 3: Phone & Telecom Costs

Phone costs are often treated as a fixed overhead, but they can vary dramatically based on your call volume, dialing strategy, and technology platform. The components include:

• Per-minute charges: Inbound and outbound call charges, typically $0.01–$0.04 per minute depending on your carrier and volume. A 15-minute enrollment call costs $0.15–$0.60 in telecom alone.
• DID/phone number fees: Monthly charges for local and toll-free numbers. If you're using number pooling for publisher tracking, you may have 50–200+ numbers at $1–$3 each.
• SMS costs: Follow-up texts for appointment confirmations, SOA delivery, and enrollment status updates, typically $0.01–$0.03 per segment.
• Call recording storage: CMS requires Medicare call recordings to be retained for 10 years. Cloud storage costs for audio files add $0.50–$2.00 per enrollment over the retention period.

For most insurance call centers, telecom costs represent 3–8% of total CPE. It's a smaller component, but one that scales linearly with volume—and one that can spike if your dialing strategy generates excessive unanswered calls or short-duration connections.

Component 4: Technology Costs

Technology is the multiplier that either amplifies or reduces every other cost component. The right platform makes agents more productive, leads more likely to convert, and compliance less risky. The wrong one adds cost without adding value.

The total technology cost per seat typically runs $150–$400/month. For a 20-seat center doing 300 enrollments per month, that's $10–$27 per enrollment in technology costs alone. The key insight is that technology costs are relatively fixed per seat, so the more enrollments you produce per seat, the lower your technology CPE component becomes.

Component 5: Training & Overhead

Training costs are the most commonly forgotten CPE component, but they can be significant—especially in Medicare, where annual certification and carrier-specific training consume weeks of agent time.

• Initial onboarding: 2–4 weeks of training for new agents. At $25/hr loaded cost, that's $2,000–$4,000 per agent before they take a single call.
• Annual certifications: AHIP, carrier certifications, and state CE requirements. Budget 40–80 hours per agent per year in non-selling training time.
• Ongoing coaching: Weekly team meetings, one-on-ones, call reviews. Even 2 hours/week per agent adds up to $2,600/year per agent.
• Administrative overhead: HR, payroll processing, compliance auditing, IT support. Typically 10–15% of total personnel costs.

Training and overhead typically add 15–25% on top of direct seat costs. If you're hiring frequently due to high attrition, this percentage increases substantially because you're constantly paying to train agents who leave before generating a return on that investment. Reducing agent attrition through better tools and call center architecture is one of the fastest ways to lower this CPE component.

Real CPE Calculation: A Worked Example

Let's walk through a complete CPE calculation for a 15-seat Medicare Advantage call center operating during AEP (October 15 – December 7):

At $468 per enrollment, this center needs to earn at least that much in first-year commission per Medicare Advantage enrollment to break even. With typical MA commissions ranging from $250–$600 depending on the carrier and plan, profitability depends on both enrollment volume and retention for renewal commissions. This is why tracking CPE isn't optional—it's survival.

Industry Benchmarks: CPE by Insurance Line

CPE varies dramatically across insurance products. Factors like sales cycle length, regulatory requirements, and lead availability create wide ranges even within a single product line. Based on typical industry ranges, the following CPE benchmarks are commonly observed across insurance call centers:

8 Strategies to Optimize Your CPE

Once you know your CPE and how it breaks down by component, you can target the areas with the highest impact. Here are eight proven strategies, ordered by typical ROI:

How Technology Reduces CPE: The Compounding Effect

Technology doesn't just reduce one CPE component—it compounds savings across multiple components simultaneously. Here's how the math works when you stack technology improvements:

Tracking CPE Over Time: What to Measure and When

CPE isn't a number you calculate once and forget. It should be a living metric that you track and trend over time, broken down by multiple dimensions. Here's a framework for ongoing CPE measurement:

The most important CPE dimensions to segment by are:

• By lead source: Which vendors and channels deliver the lowest CPE? Shift budget accordingly.
• By agent: Which agents have the lowest CPE? What are they doing differently? Replicate their behaviors.
• By product line: Is your Medicare CPE subsidizing unprofitable ACA enrollments, or vice versa?
• By time period: How does CPE shift between enrollment periods? Use historical trends to forecast and budget.
• By publisher (inbound): For inbound operations, track CPE per call publisher to hold each source accountable.

CPE vs. CPA vs. CPL: Understanding the Differences

These three metrics are often confused, but they measure very different things. Understanding the distinctions is critical for making the right investment decisions:

CPE is the most comprehensive of the three, and the one that best predicts actual profitability. CPL is useful for comparing lead vendors. CPA is useful for budgeting marketing spend. But CPE tells you whether your entire operation is making or losing money on each enrollment.

Common CPE Mistakes to Avoid

Even experienced call center operators make these CPE calculation errors:

Key Takeaways

Understanding your true Cost-Per-Enrollment isn't a nice-to-have—it's the foundation of a profitable insurance call center. The formula is straightforward, but the discipline to measure all five components accurately and track them consistently is what separates the most profitable operations from the ones that can't figure out why they're not making money despite strong enrollment numbers.