CPL

Pay per lead

You pay for an inquiry.

Somebody's name, number and job, delivered to your phone. Here is what the provider is promising, what it is not, and the arithmetic that tells you whether the price is fair.

Part 01 CPL

What the money actually buys

One inquiry, delivered under agreed rules.

With pay per lead you skip the click and buy the contact. Somebody fills in a form, or asks for a quote inside an app, and their details land in your inbox or your phone. You are charged for the delivery of that request, not for the work that might follow it.

CPL

Cost per lead

The amount you pay for one inquiry. A click buys a visit. A lead buys a name, a number and usually a short description of the job.

Picture this

A homeowner wants a lock changed after a break in. They fill in a form on a marketplace app. Four seconds later your phone buzzes with their name, their number, their postcode and the words lock replacement, urgent. That is the product. What it is worth depends entirely on whether you are the first to ring and whether anyone else got the same message.

Step by step

The life of one paid lead

01 They describe the job A form on a marketplace, a social ad, or a provider's own landing page.
02 The provider checks it Trade, area and contact details are validated against the filters you set.
03 It is sold To you alone, or to you and several competitors at the same moment.
04 It bills The charge is for delivery under the agreed rules, not for the job. You are charged now
05 The race starts On a shared lead, whoever calls first usually takes it. Minutes matter, not hours.
06 You quote A real number, or a real range, before they lose interest.
07 Credit, or not Wrong number or duplicate can usually be credited. Losing the job cannot.

The provider controls the first four steps. You control the three that decide whether the money comes back.

You will see this model on marketplaces like Thumbtack and Yelp, on social platforms through lead forms, and through networks that specialise in one trade. Their billing is not identical, so never assume a platform charges per lead just because your neighbour says it does. Some charge per lead, some per message, some per booking, and some sell subscriptions on top.

Remember

You are buying the chance to speak to someone. The conversation is still yours to win.

Part 02 CPL

Exclusive or shared, and why it changes everything

The same inquiry, sold once or sold five times.

This is the first thing to establish and the thing owners most often discover too late. An exclusive lead is sent to you alone. A shared lead is sold to several businesses, commonly three to five, sometimes more, and all of you receive the same person at roughly the same moment.

ExclusiveShared

Who else gets it

Exclusive Nobody, under the provider's terms

Shared Typically three to five competitors

Price per lead

Exclusive Often two to three times higher

Shared Cheaper per lead

What wins the job

Exclusive Your quote and your service

Shared Largely who calls first

Where it goes wrong

Exclusive You pay a premium for a weak lead

Shared You pay for people already booked by someone faster

Reported conversion for exclusive leads runs far ahead of shared in published industry figures, which is the reason for the price gap. Treat any specific percentage as directional, not as a promise.

Shared

What shared really means for your day

Three other businesses receive the same homeowner. The person who answers within a couple of minutes usually takes the job. If your team cannot respond in minutes, shared leads will cost you money without returning much of it.

You might say

“The cheap ones looked like better value.”

The honest answer

Per lead, they are. Per customer, often not. Work it out on cost per booked job, not cost per inquiry. A $20 shared lead you win one time in ten costs $200 a customer. A $60 exclusive lead you win one time in three costs $180.

Part 03 CPL

What you are charged for, and what you can get back

Credits are real, and narrower than people expect.

Every serious provider has a return or credit policy, and every one of them draws the line in the same place: they charge for delivering an inquiry that met the agreed conditions. Losing the job is not a fault in the product. A disconnected number usually is.

Usually creditable

Wrong or dead numbers, duplicates of a lead you already bought, obvious spam, a job type you do not offer, an address outside the area you set.

Usually not creditable

They did not pick up. They went with someone cheaper. They stopped replying. They were only checking prices. They booked and then cancelled.

THE MATH CPL

20 shared leads at $25$500
Answered your call13
Wanted a real quote6
Booked the work3
Credited back2 leads, $50

Real cost per customer $150

Example numbers. Note what the credit did and did not do: it removed $50 of waste and changed nothing about the seven people who never picked up.

How to keep the credit window open

Learn the deadline, often 24 to 72 hours, and report inside it
Report the lead the same day rather than saving them all for month end
Log the call attempt, because most policies require you to have tried
Keep the reason factual: wrong number, duplicate, outside area, wrong trade
Check the credit appeared on the next invoice instead of assuming it did

You might say

“I called them and made no money. Why am I being charged?”

The honest answer

Because the charge is for the inquiry meeting the agreed conditions, not for you completing a sale. That is worth knowing before you sign, not after. If the majority of leads are genuinely unusable, that is a conversation about the source and the filters, not a credit request.

Part 04 CPL

Speed decides more than price

The first useful reply usually takes the job.

Lead buying is judged on cost per lead, which is the wrong measure. The thing that separates a profitable lead account from an expensive one is almost always response time, especially on shared leads where you are racing three other businesses to the same phone.

A response routine that pays for itself

1 Call inside five minutes, not five hours. First useful contact usually wins
2 If they do not answer, send a short text that names your business and the job they asked about
3 Try again the same evening, at a different hour than the first attempt
4 Give a real number or a real range on the first call, even if the final price needs a visit
5 Follow up once more after two days, then stop and mark it closed

Same leads, different result

Two garage door companies buy from the same source at the same price. One answers in the van within minutes, the other returns calls at the end of the day. The first books roughly one in three. The second books roughly one in ten and concludes the leads are junk. The leads were identical.

Remember

On a shared lead you are not competing on price. You are competing on who picks up.

Part 05 CPL

Work out what a lead is worth to you

Start from profit, then set the ceiling.

Before you compare prices, decide what you can afford. Take the profit you keep on an average job after labor, materials and overhead. Decide what share of that you are willing to hand to marketing. Divide by how many leads it takes you to win one job. That number is your ceiling per lead.

The calculation, once

1 Average job value, say $600
2 Profit you keep after costs, say $220
3 Share you will spend to win it, say a third, so about $73
4 Leads it takes you to book one job, say 5
5 Your ceiling is roughly $14 a lead at your current close rate

The last input is the one you control. Improve the close rate from one in five to one in three and the same ceiling becomes $24 a lead, which puts better and more exclusive sources within reach. That is usually a faster win than negotiating the price down.

LTV

The repeat customer changes the sum

If a homeowner calls you again, or refers a neighbour, the first job is not the whole return. Be careful here: only count repeat work you can actually evidence from your own records. Assumed loyalty is how people talk themselves into paying too much.

Ask before you pay

? Is this lead exclusive to me, or shared, and with how many businesses?
? What is checked before a lead is sent and billed?
? What is the credit policy, what is the deadline, and what never qualifies?
? Can I set my own area, job types and daily cap?
? Can I pause delivery immediately, and does anything keep billing while paused?
? Is there a contract term, a minimum spend, or a subscription on top of the per lead price?
? Can I see the last month of leads in my trade and area before I commit?

Remember

Decide what a customer is worth to you first. Then you are buying against a number instead of a sales pitch.

Keep reading

The other ways you can be charged

Most owners are paying two or three of these at once without ever comparing them on the same page. Here is the rest of the set.

CPC

Pay per click

You pay for a visit.

Read it → Call

Pay per call

You pay for a conversation.

Read it → CPA

Pay per appointment

You pay for a meeting or a booking.

Read it →

Back to the plain guide → Get your free audit →