Most agents pick a lead vendor the same way: a rep pitches, a card gets charged, and the quality gets discovered the hard way. A short list of the right questions up front tells you more than any sales deck. This is the checklist to run before you spend a dollar.
Whether you write Auto, Final Expense, Medicare, or U65/ACA, the traits of a good vendor are the same. Below, each question is framed so the answer itself reveals quality, plus an honest note on the tradeoffs so you can decide what actually fits your book.
Start with the model, not the price
Before you compare vendors, get clear on what you are actually buying. There are a few broad models:
- Form-fill / data leads — a consumer submitted a web form. You get contact info and dial. Cheapest per unit, high volume, but you do all the chasing and many never pick up.
- Aged or shared leads — the same record sold to multiple agents, sometimes more than once. Lowest cost, highest competition, lowest contact rates.
- Pay-per-call — instead of a form, a consumer who already expressed interest is connected to you on a live phone call, and you are typically billed only when that call actually connects. It is newer to a lot of agents, but it collapses the gap between "lead" and "conversation."
If pay-per-call is new to you, think of it as buying the conversation rather than the contact record. That distinction changes almost every question below, so keep it in mind as you work through the list. For a deeper look at how the call model works and what to compare, our buyer's guide to pay-per-call insurance leads pairs well with this checklist.
The questions, one at a time
1. Is this exclusive to me, or shared?
Ask: "Is this lead sold 1:1 to one agent, or shared across several? Can it be re-sold later?"
A confident vendor answers plainly. A shared or re-sold lead means you are racing other agents to the same person, which drags down contact and close rates no matter how good your pitch is. Exclusive (1:1) costs more per unit, but you are the only voice on the line.
Tradeoff to weigh honestly: shared leads can still pencil out at high volume if your dial discipline is elite. But if you value your time, 1:1 exclusivity usually wins. We break down the math in exclusive vs. shared insurance leads.
2. How is consent captured, and can you show me the record?
This is the one that protects your license and your wallet. Ask: "How do you capture consent, and can you produce the consent record for a specific lead if I need it?"
You want to hear about documented, verifiable consent tied to each individual lead, not a vague "they opted in somewhere." A vendor who cannot show you the trail is handing you the compliance risk. If the phrase TCPA never comes up in their answer, treat that as a red flag. Our TCPA compliance overview covers the consent questions worth asking word for word.
3. What exactly am I billed for?
Ask: "Am I charged per form-fill, per dial, per transfer, or per connected live call? What triggers a charge?"
The billing trigger tells you where the vendor's incentives point. Paying per form-fill means you carry all the risk of bad contact info and no-answers. Paying only on a connected live call moves that risk onto the vendor, because they only get paid when a real conversation happens. Get the trigger in writing.
4. Am I locked into a contract or a minimum spend?
Ask: "Is there a contract term, a monthly minimum, or a setup commitment? What happens if I want to pause?"
Long contracts and high minimums are how mediocre vendors keep you after the quality slips. A vendor confident in their leads is usually comfortable letting the leads do the retention. If you can start, pause, and scale without penalty, the vendor is betting on quality, not lock-in.
5. What is your replacement or credit policy for bad calls?
Ask: "If a call is clearly junk — wrong number, no interest, off-vertical — do I get a credit or replacement? What is the process and the window?"
Every source produces the occasional dud. The question is whether the vendor stands behind it. A clear, documented bad-call replacement policy signals they expect to be held accountable. Vague answers ("case by case") usually mean you eat the loss.
6. How fast will I get my first lead?
Ask: "Once I sign up, how quickly do calls or leads start? Days or weeks?"
Speed at onboarding hints at operational maturity. More importantly, speed to the lead matters once you are live — the faster you engage an interested consumer, the better your odds of reaching and closing them. That is true across every model, and it is why we wrote about speed to lead in insurance. Pay-per-call has a structural edge here because the consumer is already on the phone.
7. Which verticals do you actually cover well?
Ask: "Do you generate for my specific line — Auto, Final Expense, Medicare, or U65/ACA — and is the volume steady or seasonal?"
A vendor strong in Medicare may be thin in Auto. Match their strength to your book. Also probe seasonality: Medicare volume naturally concentrates around the Annual Enrollment Period (Oct 15 – Dec 7), so ask what year-round supply looks like if you need it.
8. What reporting and transparency do I get?
Ask: "Can I see call recordings, timestamps, disposition, and the source of each lead in a dashboard or report?"
Transparency is the tiebreaker. If you can review recordings and see where a lead came from, you can hold the vendor to their claims and coach your own pitch. Vendors who hide the data are usually hiding something in it.
