The arithmetic of why a lower unit price frequently produces a higher cost per client, and the places the money actually leaks.
Figures in this article describe the wider market and are drawn from the third-party sources listed at the end. They are not Lead Foundry results, and nothing here is a projection of what any individual broker will achieve.
The argument for cheap leads is arithmetic: at a quarter of the price you can buy four times as many. The argument fails on a variable that does not appear on the invoice.
At the time cost, which is constant per record regardless of price. A properly worked lead consumes roughly 35 minutes across a six-attempt cadence whether it cost NZ$20 or NZ$150.
So buying four times as many records means four times the calling hours, and for most brokers those hours do not exist. Salesforce research puts the share of a sales professional's time spent actively selling at around 40%, and for a broker the rest is compliance files and applications.
The sentence that settles it: You can buy four times the records. You cannot buy four times the hours. The constraint the cheap option consumes fastest is the one you cannot buy more of.
Not usually because a supplier is generous. Cheap supply is cheap because something that costs money to do was not done.
| What was skipped | What it saves the supplier | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Exclusivity | They sell the record several times | A contact race decided in minutes |
| In-flow verification | Every gate reduces sellable volume | Numbers that reach nobody |
| Immediate delivery | Batching is cheaper to operate | Records that are hours old on arrival |
| Owning the source | No brand to build or maintain | No one who can fix a bad page |
| Rich intent capture | Shorter forms convert better for them | A record you cannot read |
Each row is a rational decision by the supplier and a transferred cost to the buyer. The invoice records the saving and not the transfer.
Only the first is visible in a spreadsheet. The other three are real and land somewhere other than the line item.
When your constraint is volume rather than capacity. A firm with a dedicated calling team and a dialler can convert a low contact rate into a viable business, and the economics are genuinely favourable for that operation.
Two firms can look at identical supply and reach opposite correct conclusions, because their binding constraints differ. The mistake is a solo adviser adopting the reasoning of a call centre.
It depends on whether your constraint is volume or calling capacity. A firm with a dedicated calling team can make low-contact-rate supply work as a volume business. For a solo adviser or small firm, cheap records consume the same 35 minutes each while producing fewer conversations, so they usually cost more per client.
Because something that costs money was not done: the record is sold to several buyers, verification was skipped or run after the fact, delivery is batched rather than immediate, the supplier does not own the source, or the form captured very little. Each is a saving for the supplier and a transferred cost to you.
On cost per booked appointment rather than cost per lead, with adviser time included at roughly 35 minutes per record. Run both in the same week rather than in consecutive months, and work both through an identical cadence, otherwise you have measured your own enthusiasm rather than the supply.
Not automatically, which is why the questions matter more than the number. A higher price should buy something specific: permanent exclusivity, verification inside the form flow, delivery within minutes, and richer intent capture. If a supplier cannot name what the premium buys, the premium is not buying anything.