Guides
The School Enrollment Funnel: Seven Stages, What Each Costs, and Where Families Drop Out
A school enrollment funnel is the path a family follows from first hearing about your school to a student sitting in a seat. It has seven stages, and the stage marketing can measure most cleanly is the submitted application. Across 20 Taylor Wiz charter school accounts, from October 2025 to September 2026, a submitted application cost $113 in Meta ad spend over the full year, $103 from October through July, and $247 in September. This guide shows each stage, what it costs, and where families drop out.
The handoff happens at the submitted application.
Source: Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.
$113
cost per submitted application over the full year (Benchmark 2026)
Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.
$103
from October through July
Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.
$247
in September
Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.
20
charter school accounts
Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.
What is a school enrollment funnel?
The funnel is the sequence of steps between a family who has never heard of your school and a student who is enrolled and attending. Every step loses some families, so each stage is counted separately.
| Stage | What happens | What to count | Who runs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Awareness | A family sees an ad, a search result, a referral, or your sign | Families reached | Marketing |
| 2. Inquiry | The family raises a hand: a form, a call, or a text | Inquiries | Marketing |
| 3. Conversation | A person talks with the family | Families reached by a person, time to first contact | Parent outreach |
| 4. Submitted application | The family completes the application | Submitted applications | Marketing and parent outreach |
| 5. Offer or admission decision | The school runs its lottery or review and makes offers | Offers made, offers accepted | The school |
| 6. Enrolled and attending | Registration is complete and the student is in a seat | Students enrolled and attending | The school |
| 7. Re-enrolled | The family returns the next year | Students who return | The school |
Charter schools in a lottery state add a lottery between stages 4 and 5, and the school's authorizer sets the rules. See Charter School Lottery and Application Timeline.
Which stages can marketing control?
Taylor Wiz runs stages 1 through 4, and the school runs stages 5 through 7. We run the advertising, our outreach team contacts every inquiry within 15 minutes during business hours, and the team works each family until an application is submitted. Then the school takes it from there: the lottery, offers, registration, and enrollment. See Parent Outreach and Paid Advertising.
That is why Taylor Wiz reports cost per submitted application. It is the last stage we control and can verify, and it sits far past a lead. See Leads vs. Enrollments.
What does each stage cost?
A submitted application cost $113 in Meta ad spend across 20 Taylor Wiz charter school accounts over the full year, and $103 from October through July. The figures below cover October 2025 to September 2026, 150 school-months, and $184,990 in Meta ad spend. None of the 20 accounts is a private school. The method is in the Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.
Meta ad spend per submitted application, 20 charter school accounts, October 2025 to September 2026.
Source: Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.
View the data
| Period | Cost per submitted application |
|---|---|
| October to March | $103 |
| April to July | $103 |
| August | $151 |
| September | $247 |
Timing changes the cost. September cost more than twice as much as October through July. A school that waits until the school year starts to fill its funnel pays the highest price for the same application.
Schools differ more at the application stage than at the lead stage. Across the middle half of the 20 schools, a Meta lead cost $22 to $42, about 2x apart. A submitted application cost $80 to $346, about 4.3x apart. Twelve of the 20 schools paid under $150 per application, and the median school submitted 7 applications a month. In 20 of the 150 school-months, a school had none. A cheap lead does not tell you what an application will cost.
Method. Total Meta ad spend divided by applications marked submitted in our CRM, counted only in months with at least $300 in ad spend. Applications are counted in the month their status changed to submitted, so an application finished after a month ends lands in the next month.
Where do families drop out of the funnel?
Families leave at every stage. These are the five places schools most often lose them, and the first thing to check at each.
- Before anyone talks to them. A family who inquires and hears nothing for a day often inquires somewhere else. Taylor Wiz contacts every inquiry within 15 minutes during business hours, by the next business day otherwise, and never later than 48 hours. Measure your own time to first contact. See How Taylor Wiz Uses AI in Parent Outreach.
- At the application. Count the clicks from your homepage to a submitted application, and test the application on a phone. A form that works on a desktop and fails on a phone loses families you already paid for. See Enrollment Websites.
- At the open house. A visit that ends without a next step leaves the family to decide alone. See School Open House Marketing.
- After the lottery or the offer. An offer is not an enrollment. In school year 2018-19, about 16,000 students got a match on Results Day in My School DC, the common lottery for DC Public Schools and public charter schools, and about 8,800 of them enrolled at the school they were matched to (DC Deputy Mayor for Education). That is about 55%, calculated. Across about 25,000 applications, 84% received a match or offer, 57% accepted, and 43% declined. This is one city's multi-school lottery from 2018-19, not a benchmark for your school, and the report cautions that application counts overstate demand. The lesson holds anywhere: track offers accepted, not just offers made.
- Between enrollment and the first day. A family can accept a seat and still not show up. Confirm enrollment in writing, and count students who are in a seat on your count day, not students who said yes.
How do you calculate yield and cost per enrolled student?
Yield is the share of submitted applications that become enrolled, attending students. Divide your enrolled and attending students by your submitted applications for the same group of families. Then divide the cost per submitted application by your yield.
Taylor Wiz does not see stages 5 through 7, so you supply the yield. Here is the math at four yields, using $113:
Ad cost per enrolled student, at $113 per submitted application.
Source: Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026.
View the data
| If this share of submitted applications enroll | Ad cost per enrolled student |
|---|---|
| 40% | $282 |
| 50% | $226 |
| 60% | $188 |
| 70% | $161 |
What this table does not include. Staff time, open houses, printed materials, and any cost other than Meta ad spend. The full method is on Cost Per Enrolled Student.
We did not find a verified public benchmark for stage-to-stage rates in K-12 schools, such as inquiries that become applications. That is why the next section shows how to measure yours.
How do you build your own funnel report?
A monthly funnel report takes one table and about an hour.
- List the seven stages down the left side.
- Count each stage for the same group of families. Use the month a family first inquired, not the month the status changed, so the stages line up.
- Divide each stage by the one before it. The results are your stage rates.
- Add the cost. Divide your ad spend by inquiries, then by submitted applications.
- Compare months. A stage rate that drops from one month to the next shows you where to look first.
- Write down what changed. A new ad, a new form, a staffing change, or a new lottery date explains most swings.
Compare yourself to yourself first. Your own stage rates over time tell you more than any average from another school.
What does Taylor Wiz do for your enrollment funnel?
- Meta advertising. Facebook and Instagram campaigns aimed at families in your enrollment area, timed to your application window.
- Parent outreach. Our outreach team contacts every inquiry within 15 minutes during business hours, by the next business day otherwise, and never later than 48 hours. They work with each family until an application is submitted.
- Enrollment websites. Inquiry and application paths built to convert on a phone.
- Creative and video. Ads and video that show your school the way families experience it.
- Reporting. Submitted applications and cost per submitted application, by month and by ad.
Your school takes it from there: lottery, offers, registration, and enrollment. We report submitted applications because that is the step we control.
Frequently asked questions
What is a school enrollment funnel?
It is the path from a family's first contact with your school to a student enrolled and attending. This guide uses seven stages: awareness, inquiry, conversation, submitted application, offer or admission decision, enrolled and attending, and re-enrolled.
What are the stages of a school enrollment funnel?
Awareness, inquiry, conversation, submitted application, offer or admission decision, enrolled and attending, and re-enrolled. Charter schools in lottery states add a lottery before the offer.
What is a good conversion rate at each stage?
We did not find a verified public benchmark for stage-to-stage rates in K-12 schools. Track your own rates month to month and compare yourself to yourself.
What does a submitted application cost?
$113 in Meta ad spend across 20 Taylor Wiz charter school accounts over the full year, October 2025 to September 2026, and $103 from October through July. September cost $247. The method is on Cost Per Enrolled Student.
How do I calculate cost per enrolled student?
Divide your cost per submitted application by your yield, the share of submitted applications that become enrolled, attending students. At $113 and a 50% yield, the ad cost per enrolled student is $226.
Where does Taylor Wiz's part of the funnel end?
At the submitted application. Your school handles the lottery, offers, registration, and enrollment, and we report submitted applications because that is the step we control.
How much does Taylor Wiz cost?
Pricing is scoped to each school on a strategy call, based on your enrollment goals and your market.
Does this apply to private schools?
The stages are the same. The cost figures come from charter school accounts, so private schools should use them as a reference point only. See Private School Marketing Agency.
Find out what a seat actually costs you
Bring your current enrollment numbers and ad spend. We will map your funnel from inquiry to submitted application and show you where families are lost.
Written by Will Rodriguez, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Reviewed for accuracy against the Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026 and the cited public sources.
- Published
- Last updated
Sources
- Taylor Wiz Charter Enrollment Marketing Benchmark 2026: Meta ad spend and submitted applications across 20 charter school accounts, October 2025 to September 2026, pulled October 1, 2026
- Taylor Wiz, Leads vs. Enrollments (per-school cost per Meta lead and per submitted application)
- Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education, District of Columbia, EdSight Waitlist Report, Part 1 (December 12, 2019; school year 2018-19 My School DC data)