There is no national shortfall number on this page, deliberately. Adding the gaps into one figure implies a single pot that can be filled from anywhere, and there is no such pot — these are separate cities, each limited by its own market at the price we pay there. What matters is how close each city gets, and whether it can hold 400 at all.
Only 1 of 7 running cities hold 400 in a typical week — New York. Another 4 (Boston, Chicago, Florida, Houston) have touched 400 in a single week but sit well below it most weeks. Dallas and Nashville have never reached it once — Dallas peaks at 370, Nashville peaks at 380.
The median city sits at 255 a week with a best week of 570. That is the honest expectation to carry into a new area: a typical market delivers around 255 sustained and spikes to 570 — not 400. Only genuinely large markets hold 400.
| City | Running since | Weeks | Its target | Last 4 avg | Median week | Best week | Weeks at target | Its own gap | Verdict | Cost per lead | Booking rate | Cost / booking |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boston | 2026-04-03 | 24 | 400 | 147 | 240 | 625 | 1 of 24 | 253 | Touches it | $29.59 | 10.20% | $290.18 |
| Chicago | 2026-04-10 | 23 | 400 | 235 | 255 | 472 | 1 of 23 | 165 | Touches it | $26.36 | 7.00% | $376.31 |
| Dallas | 2026-04-10 | 23 | 400 | 310 | 219 | 370 | 0 of 23 | 90 | Never reached it | $20.73 | 7.21% | $287.67 |
| Florida | 2026-04-03 | 24 | 800 (2 studios) | 489 | 771 | 1,257 | 10 of 24 | 311 | Touches it | $20.01 | 6.37% | $313.94 |
| Houston | 2026-04-10 | 23 | 400 | 252 | 308 | 570 | 8 of 23 | 149 | Touches it | $18.11 | 6.37% | $284.47 |
| Nashville | 2026-04-10 | 23 | 400 | 212 | 179 | 380 | 0 of 23 | 188 | Never reached it | $43.26 | 8.98% | $481.63 |
| New York | 2026-04-10 | 23 | 400 | 572 | 481 | 863 | 14 of 23 | at target | Holds its target | $14.00 | 8.14% | $171.90 |
Each city's gap is its own and they are never summed. Median is the middle week since that city started — a fairer read of what it sustains than an average dragged up by one good week. Booking rate and cost per booking are the settled July cohort at $22 a lead.
Judged on what the existing buckets actually do, plan a new area at 191–255 a week sustained once ramped, not 400. After up to 24 weeks of running the same product, only 1 of 7 buckets holds its own target in a typical week.
Florida is the one to look at properly, not the one to celebrate. Its 771 a week reads as a runaway success only while it is measured against a single 400. It is one state-wide buy feeding at least two studios, so its target is 800 — and it is sitting at that, not over it. If Miami is served from the same code the target is 1,200 and Florida is running at about two-thirds.
Florida's kids buy is counted here as feeding two studios (Florida + Orlando), the conservative read. Tell me the real number and I will set its target exactly — and tell me which other areas are opening and I will size each against the bucket here that most resembles it, rather than against the median.
| Week (Fri → Thu) | Boston | Chicago | Dallas | Florida | Houston | Nashville | New York | AT | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-03 → 2026-04-09 | 196 | · | · | 128 | · | · | · | · | 324 |
| 2026-04-10 → 2026-04-16 | 106 | 209 | 131 | 350 | 223 | 136 | 213 | · | 1,368 |
| 2026-04-17 → 2026-04-23 | 144 | 192 | 142 | 379 | 306 | 126 | 259 | · | 1,548 |
| 2026-04-24 → 2026-04-30 | 304 | 326 | 238 | 628 | 494 | 225 | 535 | · | 2,750 |
| 2026-05-01 → 2026-05-07 | 267 | 377 | 321 | 626 | 512 | 160 | 482 | · | 2,745 |
| 2026-05-08 → 2026-05-14 | 233 | 269 | 252 | 766 | 414 | 180 | 500 | · | 2,614 |
| 2026-05-15 → 2026-05-21 | 303 | 174 | 123 | 1,134 | 402 | 126 | 659 | · | 2,921 |
| 2026-05-22 → 2026-05-28 | 353 | 186 | 139 | 1,257 | 396 | 268 | 863 | · | 3,462 |
| 2026-05-29 → 2026-06-04 | 338 | 170 | 146 | 1,171 | 439 | 234 | 417 | · | 2,915 |
| 2026-06-05 → 2026-06-11 | 282 | 318 | 219 | 1,146 | 570 | 227 | 396 | · | 3,158 |
| 2026-06-12 → 2026-06-18 | 238 | 319 | 126 | 889 | 308 | 179 | 376 | · | 2,435 |
| 2026-06-19 → 2026-06-25 | 237 | 285 | 140 | 837 | 440 | 165 | 481 | · | 2,585 |
| 2026-06-26 → 2026-07-02 | 219 | 327 | 165 | 798 | 301 | 123 | 92 | · | 2,025 |
| 2026-07-03 → 2026-07-09 | 240 | 350 | 162 | 976 | 342 | 245 | 228 | · | 2,543 |
| 2026-07-10 → 2026-07-16 | 192 | 207 | 105 | 771 | 194 | 165 | 153 | · | 1,787 |
| 2026-07-17 → 2026-07-23 | 237 | 226 | 203 | 685 | 179 | 175 | 192 | · | 1,897 |
| 2026-07-24 → 2026-07-30 | 316 | 242 | 222 | 684 | 183 | 200 | 265 | · | 2,112 |
| 2026-07-31 → 2026-08-06 | 625 | 472 | 233 | 823 | 247 | 290 | 537 | · | 3,227 |
| 2026-08-07 → 2026-08-13 | 374 | 308 | 303 | 842 | 268 | 253 | 711 | · | 3,059 |
| 2026-08-14 → 2026-08-20 | 377 | 249 | 340 | 852 | 309 | 266 | 728 | · | 3,121 |
| 2026-08-21 → 2026-08-27 | 151 | 249 | 370 | 569 | 137 | 175 | 551 | · | 2,202 |
| 2026-08-28 → 2026-09-03 | 54 | 113 | 290 | 447 | 183 | 135 | 575 | · | 1,797 |
| 2026-09-04 → 2026-09-10 | 244 | 322 | 326 | 472 | 401 | 380 | 689 | · | 2,834 |
| 2026-09-11 → 2026-09-17 | 140 | 255 | 255 | 467 | 285 | 159 | 472 | 267 | 2,300 |
| TOTAL | 6,170 | 6,145 | 4,951 | 17,697 | 7,533 | 4,592 | 10,374 | 267 | 57,729 |
Green = at or above 400 for that column. There is no Orlando or Miami
column because kids Meta is bought state-wide in Florida — a single
#FLKIDSX code feeds them, which is why the Florida figures are so much larger than
everyone else's. Download CSV
Last four full weeks averaged 2,283 a week against 2,880 for the four before — +-21%. The dip was July, and it has recovered. Peak week remains 2026-05-22 at 3,462, so the network has already proved it can deliver more than it is delivering now. That said, the total is the least useful line here — it moves with Florida and New York, and tells you nothing about whether Dallas or Nashville is getting closer.
Measured out of our CRM: a settled July cohort (2026-07-01 → 2026-07-31, bookings observed to 2026-08-31) matched lead → booking, with recycled piles and R-suffix re-works excluded from every denominator. Cost per booking is simply cost per lead ÷ booking rate.
This is deliberately not measured on a recent 10-day window. A lead booked on day 5 has not booked on day 2, so a fresh window has roughly a third of its bookings missing and inflates every cost per booking — unevenly, depending on which day each family's leads happened to arrive. The only figure here not taken from our own data is the per-lead price.
The kids comparison that matters: we buy 9,509 Kids Meta leads converting at 7.34% — $303.25 a booking — and 7,258 Kids Google leads at the same $22.26 converting at 1.75%, which is $1,272.15 a booking — 4.2× the cost for the same product. Nearly as many kids leads are bought on the bad half as the good one.
| Family | Supplier | Leads | Booked | Booking rate | Cost / lead | Cost / booking | vs best |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alan — Google (3CX) stale price | Alan | 2,579 | 172 | 6.67% | $15.86 | $237.86 | 1.0× |
| Adult Meta (Instagram) | Blue Rooms | 4,682 | 334 | 7.13% | $17.28 | $242.23 | 1.0× |
| Kids Meta (Insta/FB) | Blue Rooms | 9,509 | 698 | 7.34% | $22.26 | $303.25 | 1.3× |
| Lead Pronto | Lead Pronto | 6,444 | 310 | 4.81% | $15.81 | $328.66 | 1.4× |
| Adult Snapchat | Blue Rooms | 2,428 | 129 | 5.31% | $26.43 | $497.46 | 2.1× |
| Alan — everything else stale price | Alan | 5,207 | 148 | 2.84% | $15.86 | $558.13 | 2.3× |
| Adult Google | Blue Rooms | 3,933 | 104 | 2.64% | $18.40 | $695.84 | 2.9× |
| Kids Google | Blue Rooms | 7,258 | 127 | 1.75% | $22.26 | $1,272.15 | 5.3× |
| Adult Google PMax | Blue Rooms | 3,135 | 51 | 1.63% | $27.85 | $1,711.96 | 7.2× |
| Adult Google Demand Gen provisional | Blue Rooms | 1,122 | 7 | 0.83% | $26.37 | $3,176.05 | 13.4× |
| Organic (website) | Organic | 395 | 26 | 6.58% | no price | — | — |
Kids families are highlighted. assumed price — Snapchat had no supplied price; Neil set it to the Meta $22.00, which is charitable: our own per-campaign spend for Apr–Jun had Snap at $13.40 against adult Meta's $9.35. stale price — Alan's cost sheet stops in June, the supplier logins lapsed ~23 Jul. provisional — Demand Gen did not exist in July, so its rate is a maturity-corrected August estimate off a handful of bookings; treat it as a direction, not a number.
Meta kids only — the #…KIDSX codes and nothing else. Google kids
(KX, KPX, KDX) is deliberately excluded: it is a different product at a
different price converting at roughly a quarter of the rate, so folding it in would answer a question about what
Meta can supply with volume Meta never delivered.
Fresh only. 1,129 recycled KIDSXR re-works are excluded — those
people already came in once, and counting them again inflates a "leads collected" number.
Weeks run Friday → Thursday, the same boundary as Lead Flow and the Blue Rooms CPL reconciliation. Using calendar weeks here would put the same day in a different bucket from every other weekly number in the business.
Data through 2026-09-17. The final row is a part week and is greyed out and excluded from every average.
1 · It will not net surplus against shortfall. Neil, 31 Aug 2026: "you cant shift surplus, that's not how it works." Lead supply is a property of each local market at the price paid there. Florida delivering 489 a week is a fact about Florida, not a reserve that can be pointed at Nashville. So this report carries no national shortfall figure at all — every city is measured against 400 on its own, and the gaps are never added together.
2 · It will not judge supply on a still-maturing booking rate. The conversion figures come from a settled July cohort, because a lead booked on day 5 has not booked on day 2 and the current weeks would read artificially low for every area.