Vendor reportFlywheel, 2026

Online learning is the cheapest education segment to advertise in, and its top performers pay roughly a third of the average on both leads and customers

Channel validation

Metric	Top performers	Average
Cost Per Lead ($)	10	35
CAC ($)	63	190

Online Learning benchmarks: CPL and CAC — top performers vs average (USD)

Reader Note:: Top performers reach $10 a lead against the $35 average and $63 a customer against $190 — so a little over a quarter of the average on leads and a third on customers, not a third on both. Against the other segments the gap is wider still: career prep averages $150 and $2,500, higher education $300 and $9,000. The benchmarks blend Flywheel's own client data with third-party research and unnamed industry conversations, and the report does not say how much comes from each.
Evidence:: Expert judgment
Vendor interest:: Moderate — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:: Aggregated Flywheel client data, plus third-party research and industry insider conversations; no sample size or selection details disclosed.

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Hearing how someone who knows the field reads it, and deciding what to check yourself.

Not for

Anything that needs a measurement. Nobody counted or tested this.
This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
The source never says how this number was measured.
This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.
The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.

4.4x

How much better an AI search visitor converts compared to an organic search visitor, on average

of Google searches that showed an AI summary ended with a click on a link inside that summary (US, March 2025)

20% of Gen Z and 17% of Millennials discover new brands through influencer endorsements, vs 12% of Gen X and 5% of Boomers

Share of each generation who discover new brands via influencer endorsements
Generation	Share who discover brands through influencers (%)
Gen Z	20%
Millennials	17%
Gen X	12%
Baby Boomers	5%

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Online learning is the cheapest education segment to advertise in, and its top performers pay roughly a third of the average on both leads and customers

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