Conversion Atlas by Role
Review cold-email replies, LinkedIn costs, product conversion figures, and gaps in public evidence for CMOs, developers, HR, finance, founders, and other roles.
Written and reviewed by Eric Han · Co-founder & CTO, reopt
Key takeaways
- We found no public aggregate free-to-paid or win-rate benchmarks by job role. The exception is products sold to developers at 5% versus nondevelopers at 10%.
- Company-size differences in cold-email replies (0.22–0.72%) exceed seniority differences (0.32–0.57%). Founders' higher reply rates may reflect the smaller companies they work in.
- LinkedIn role-level CTR differences (0.54–0.65%) are within the stated ±10% measurement error. CPC varies more by role, roughly $5–$8. These are grade D figures from 2020–21; use them only for direction.
- Industry and buyer role differ. HR-software trial conversion is not the conversion rate of HR professionals.
- Leave missing cells empty and measure role-specific campaigns yourself. Estimate cost per role as sample size × CPC first.
At a Glance
Missing means no public evidence was found. Industry-level values have not been substituted for role-specific figures.
| Role | Lavender mean reply rate (C) | Belkins replies per message sent (C) | LinkedIn CTR / CPC (D) | Free → paid / win |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CMO / marketing | 3.2% (no CMO-only figure) | Missing | 0.60%, $6.80 | Missing |
| Developers / engineering | 5.2% (combined with product) | Missing | 0.57%, $5.10 | 5% (by target buyer, C) |
| IT | Missing | Missing | $7.90 CPC | Missing |
| Sales | Missing | Missing | 0.58%, $5.40 | Missing |
| HR | 3.4% | Missing | 0.62%, $6.00 | Missing |
| Finance | 3.2% | Missing | 0.60%, $6.90 | Missing |
| Operations | 3.4% | Missing | 0.55%, $5.70 | Missing |
| Product | 5.2% (combined with engineering) | Missing | 0.54%, $7.30 | Missing |
| Founders / owners | Missing | 0.57% | Missing | Missing |
| C-suite | Missing | 0.42% | Missing | Missing |
The reply-rate columns use different denominators and samples, so they cannot be compared directly. They do not show that founders reply at roughly one-sixth the rate of CMOs. Figures for emails rated A by Lavender's coaching tool appear below.
Cold Email: Seniority and Company Size
Belkins 2026 aggregates 7,530,489 messages. The denominator is messages sent, excluding automatic replies and bounces. Belkins is an outbound sales agency (grade C).
- Company: 0–10 employees0.72%
- Founders / owners0.57%
- Company: 11–50 employees0.49%
- Overall0.45%
- C-suite0.42%
- VP0.32%
- Company: 10,000+ employees0.22%
The founder sample likely overlaps with small companies (author judgment). “Small companies reply more” may therefore explain the same data better than “founders reply more.”
Reply Rates by Role and Email Coaching Score
Lavender analyzed 231,818 emails from its email-coaching users (February 2026, grade C). The table compares all emails with emails rated A by Lavender's coaching tool. This A is a coaching score, not an evidence grade. The denominator differs from Belkins, so the datasets cannot be joined.
| Role | Mean reply rate | Emails rated A by the coaching tool |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering / product | 5.2% | 5.5% |
| Operations | 3.4% | 5.4% |
| HR | 3.4% | 4.3% |
| Marketing | 3.2% | 4.2% |
| Finance | 3.2% | 5.7% |
Frequently misquoted figures
HR's 7.5% in Hunter 2026 is the reply rate for recruiting campaigns sent by HR, not replies from HR professionals. Marketing's 6.2% likewise describes marketing-purpose messages, not marketer recipients. The roughly 7% CTO/COO figure in the 2023 Belkins table belongs to an older edition that the 2026 report identifies as open-based; it is not comparable with current figures.
LinkedIn Costs by Function
The B2B House combines manually collected LinkedIn forecast-tool estimates with agency campaign averages. The author states approximately ±10% error; chart images were published in 2020–21 (grade D). Do not treat role rankings as firm conclusions.
| Function | CTR | CPC |
|---|---|---|
| Business development | 0.65% | $6.30 |
| Education | 0.65% | $4.90 |
| Media | 0.63% | $5.60 |
| HR | 0.62% | $6.00 |
| Accounting | 0.60% | $5.00 |
| Finance | 0.60% | $6.90 |
| Marketing | 0.60% | $6.80 |
| Sales | 0.58% | $5.40 |
| Engineering | 0.57% | $5.10 |
| Operations | 0.55% | $5.70 |
| Product | 0.54% | $7.30 |
IT has 0.57% CTR (combined with engineering) and $7.90 CPC. By seniority, roles above manager level have 0.55% CTR and $6.40 CPC, versus 0.60% and $4.40 for junior roles. Conversion and CPL are not provided.
Products Sold to Developers
Boldstart's summary of the OpenView 2023 survey reports median free-to-paid conversion of 5% for products sold to developers versus 10% for nondeveloper products; developer tools' visit-to-signup conversion is 10%. These are founder self-reports; the sample size for developer products is undisclosed (grade C).
Differences Within Roles: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment
Yoganarasimhan et al. (2023) randomized SaaS trial length and collected 13 self-reported occupations. The group best served by a seven-day trial was mostly beginners and students and had the lowest subscription propensity. More experienced users benefited more from longer trials (grade A). This does not provide role-level average CVR, but it shows that treatment effects differ by occupation and proficiency.
Filling the Gaps
Evidence not yet reviewed
This edition does not include Lavender's interactive seniority/industry tables, Belkins 2025's job-title tables (form required), or NetLine's demand breakdown by function. For Korean role-targeted channels, we found only Remember's seniority-level click indices (2020 media kit, D), not role-level conversion. These are priorities for a later edition.
Conversion Atlas by Product
Compare conversion ranges for ecommerce categories, SaaS sales models, app subscriptions, developer tools, and AI products with denominators and evidence grades.
Korean Conversion Atlas
Locate conversion evidence from Korean companies and users, identify usable simulation inputs, and distinguish unsupported figures and missing evidence.