# What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is something useful a business gives away free in exchange for an email address: usually a short guide, a checklist or a workbook, delivered as a PDF. It exists to start a relationship with a reader you can write to again.

Updated 29 October 2026. Web page: https://chapbook.ink/glossary/lead-magnet/

## What makes one work

A lead magnet works when the reader can name the problem it solves before they open it, and finish it in one sitting. A specific promise ("five pricing mistakes and the first fix for each") does more than a general one ("everything about pricing"), because the reader can tell at a glance whether it is for them.

It also has to be worth the address. The reader is paying with their inbox, so the guide should leave them able to do something they could not do before, and make the next step with you obvious.

## Common formats

- **A short guide** of a few thousand words that answers one question.
- **A checklist or a workbook** the reader fills in as they go.
- **A collection** of your best articles or newsletter issues, in one designed file.

The usual delivery is a PDF: it keeps its layout, opens on any device and needs no app.

## Lead magnet or ebook?

The file can be the same. A lead magnet is free and gated behind a sign-up; an ebook is sold, through a store or your own site. Many authors do both: a short lead magnet that collects readers, and a longer book those readers buy.

## Made with Chapbook: Five Pricing Mistakes

Five Pricing Mistakes: A ten-minute read for founders, by Jane Founder. Lead magnet, 3,735 words, 17 pages. A sample generated from one brief and exported unedited; it is not a customer's book. Read every page: https://chapbook.ink/examples/lead-magnet/

The brief:

> The five pricing mistakes that cost early software companies customers, and what to do instead. Promise: In ten minutes you will recognise which of the five mistakes you are making and know the first step to fix each one. Reader: A technical or product-minded founder who set the price by copying a competitor or guessing, and suspects it is wrong. Voice: Short paragraphs, concrete examples with realistic fictional companies, no invented statistics or studies; reason from mechanics and examples.

The outline the planner proposed:

1. Introduction (291 words)
2. Mistake 1: Copying a competitor (558 words)
3. Mistake 2: One tier for everyone (588 words)
4. Mistake 3: Never asking (608 words)
5. Mistake 4: Anchoring on your costs (641 words)
6. Mistake 5: Never revisiting the number (606 words)
7. What to do instead (411 words)

## Questions

### What is the difference between a lead magnet and an ebook?

A lead magnet is given away to collect an email address; an ebook is usually sold. The same file can be either; what differs is the price and the sign-up.

### How long should a lead magnet be?

Long enough to keep its one promise and short enough to finish in a sitting. In Chapbook a lead magnet is 1,000 to 10,000 words.