How Does Pay per Lead Work? Models, Contracts and Costs

Pay per lead means you pay a lead generation company a set price for each enquiry it delivers that meets criteria you agreed in advance, instead of paying for ads, clicks or a monthly fee. The price depends on the sector, your criteria and how far the supplier takes the enquiry: Lead Pronto, for one, publishes leads from £15 and booked appointments from £130, as published on 2 November 2026.

The supplier pays for the advertising and swallows the clicks that never become enquiries. You carry the risk that a lead which meets the definition never becomes a job. That makes the contract's definition of a lead worth more of your attention than the price next to it.

This guide explains the model, whoever you buy from. Our own prices are on our pricing page.

What does pay per lead mean?

A lead is a person who has asked about a job you do and agreed to be contacted about it: a name, a phone number, a postcode and a few answers, with a record of the consent. On pay per lead you pay for each one delivered. You don't pay for the ads, the landing page or the clicks that went nowhere.

Run your own ads instead and every click costs money, enquiry or not. Our piece on cost per lead and cost per job sets pay per click against pay per lead; in short, pay per lead moves the media risk to the supplier and leaves the rest with you.

How does pay per lead work, step by step?

1. You agree the criteria. The job, the postcodes, the property, the timeframe and anything excluded.
2. You agree the price and the volume. A price per lead, usually with a daily or weekly cap.
3. The supplier runs the campaigns. It pays for the ads on Google, Meta or elsewhere, and builds the form.
4. Each enquiry is checked. Some fields, like the phone number, against something outside the form; the rest are the homeowner's own answers.
5. The lead is delivered. Into your CRM, by email or to a portal, with the time it was submitted and the consent wording.
6. You make contact. From here the risk is yours: reaching the homeowner, booking a survey and winning the job.
7. You're billed. Per lead delivered, or per lead accepted once any returns are settled.

Billing varies most. As published on 2 November 2026, PoweredLeads sells blocks paid for before delivery begins; Sales Fuel takes payment upfront, with a 50-lead minimum order; Salesfeed invoices weekly by Direct Debit. Each changes how much you have at stake before the first lead arrives.

What's the difference between pay per lead, pay per appointment and pay per sale?

They are the same idea, paid at different points on the way from a click to a signed job. The later you pay, the more risk the supplier carries, and the more each unit costs.

Pay per meeting is the business-to-business name for pay per appointment: the same model, with a sales meeting in place of a survey. A live transfer sits between a qualified lead and an appointment, with the homeowner qualified on the phone and put through to your team.

Published prices show the step between models. As published on 2 November 2026:

• Per lead against per appointment. At Lead Pronto, a booked appointment starts at £130 against £15 for a lead. The appointment costs more because the supplier has already made contact and booked it.
• Per sale. ROI Leads says its fee is an agreed share of the profit, taken only once you've won the work. AceLeads describes a joining fee and then a share of each job you win.
• Retainer. Leads Everyday charges a flat monthly fee agreed at consultation, with Google Ads spend paid separately to Google. Its terms set a two-month minimum, then 30 days' notice.

When an installer says "pay per lead", they usually mean pay per qualified lead. The word "qualified" does all the work there, and it means only what the contract says.

Pay per lead or a monthly retainer: which suits you?

On a retainer you pay an agency to run campaigns, usually plus the ad spend. The fee is the same in a good month and a bad one, so the media risk is yours. In return you see the search terms and audiences, and you may keep the ad accounts if they're in your name. Ask before you sign.

On pay per lead you pay for output. The price is known, you can cap the volume, and a quiet month costs less. You give up control: you see the ads only if the supplier shows you.

Two decision rules:

• If you don't know what a lead costs you today, pay per lead is the simpler test. You learn your contact, survey and close rates without also learning to run ads.
• If your own campaigns already produce leads below a supplier's price, a retainer that improves them may be the better spend. Make sure the ad accounts, and their history, stay in your name.

Neither is paid on your jobs. A retainer agency is paid to run campaigns; a pay-per-lead supplier is paid for leads that meet the definition. Only pay per sale ties the supplier's money to your wins, and you pay for that in the share.

What should define "a lead" in a pay-per-lead contract?

A definition you can test against any lead that arrives. Write down:

• The job. The product and the type of work: supply and fit of replacement windows, say, not repairs.
• The area. A list of postcode districts, not "within 30 miles".
• The person. The homeowner, or someone who can agree the work. Say whether landlords and tenants count.
• The timeframe. For example, wants the work done within six months.
• The checks. Which fields are verified and how, such as a phone number checked live. Everything else is the homeowner's own answer, and should be labelled so.
• The consent. Wording that names your business, stored with the time. The ICO's guidance on electronic mail marketing explains why before you text or email a lead, and our guide to buying leads legally covers calls and the TPS.
• Exclusivity. How many buyers, and for how long: Sales Fuel, for example, says its leads are exclusive for 30 days.
• Freshness. How soon after the form a lead reaches you, with times on every lead.
• Exclusions. Duplicates, commercial jobs, grant-dependent enquiries and work you don't do.

One published example of a definition you can test: PoweredLeads says an accepted solar lead is a homeowner who asked for a quote and consented to a named installer contacting them, inside your agreed postcodes, who owns the property, with a real name, address and phone number it verified before delivery (as published on 2 November 2026). Each of those tests can be checked against the lead in front of you.

What should a pay-per-lead contract cover?

Agree these before the first lead arrives. Our 10 questions to ask a lead generation company cover where leads come from and how they're checked; this list is about the paperwork.

The small print differs. As published on 2 November 2026, Sales Fuel doesn't offer mid-order pauses or cancellations, while PoweredLeads refunds a paid balance for undelivered leads if you stop.

What does pay per lead cost? A worked example

Here is one way to compare the models on cost per job. The numbers are invented for illustration, not POCKLA's prices or results or any other supplier's. Replace them with yours.

The assumptions:

• You buy 100 qualified leads at £40 each, and your team reaches 70, books 25 surveys and wins 8 jobs. That is 4 leads per survey and 12.5 leads per job.
• An appointment supplier charges £150 per booked survey, and its surveys close as well as yours: 8 jobs from 25.
• A retainer costs £1,000 a month plus £3,000 in ad spend. In a good month the ads bring 120 enquiries and you win 10 jobs; in a poor month, 50 enquiries and 4 jobs.
• A pay-per-sale supplier takes £800 from each job you win.

What the table shows is where the risk sits, not which model is best:

• Appointments only win here because their surveys were assumed to close as well as yours. Your break-even appointment price is your price per lead times your leads per survey: £40 × 4 = £160. Below that, appointments are cheaper per job if they close as well; above it, they're dearer.
• The retainer swings from £400 to £1,000 a job on the same fee. That swing is the media risk you take back.
• Pay per sale costs the most per job here, but a month with no wins costs nothing. It suits a firm that would rather give up margin than risk cash.

To run it with your own numbers, take three months of your own leads and work out leads per survey and leads per job. Our guide to cost per job has the formula and the levers that move it.

Is pay per lead legit?

The model is: it's a standard way to buy enquiries, and many UK suppliers publish their prices and terms. Whether a particular supplier is legitimate is a separate question, and most of it can be checked in an afternoon:

• Look the company up on Companies House. Through GOV.UK you can see a company's registered address, its current and past officers, its filed documents and any insolvency information, free.
• Check the ICO's register of fee payers. The ICO says every organisation that processes personal information must pay it a fee unless exempt, and its register is public. A lead seller handles personal information all day. If it isn't listed, ask why.
• Ask for the consent wording and the ads. Our supplier checklist covers what a good answer sounds like, including the ASA's advice on grant claims.
• Get the returns policy in writing. What counts as bad, how long you have, and what you get back.
• Start small. Prepaying is common. Prepaying for a large block before you've tested a small one is a risk you can avoid.

Walk away from a supplier that won't put the definition of a lead in writing, won't show you an ad, or whose consent wording says "partners" rather than your business name.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of pay per lead?

The advantages: you don't pay for clicks that never enquire; a known price per lead makes spend easy to cap; with no minimum term you can change volume quickly; and nobody in-house has to run campaigns.

The disadvantages:

• You see the ads, search terms and audiences only if the supplier shows you.
• "Qualified" drifts if the definition isn't written down.
• A lead may be sold to more than one firm; see exclusive vs shared leads.
• If you're good at ads, your own cost per lead may beat any supplier's price.
• The homeowner may remember the supplier's brand, not yours, unless the follow-up is in your name.

When is pay per lead the wrong choice?

Buying leads isn't always the right move. Don't, or not yet, if:

• You can't call new leads within the hour. An enquiry cools fast; see speed to lead.
• Your diary is already full for months. Leads you can't survey are spend with no return.
• Your margin per job is below your likely cost per job. Run the worked example with your numbers first.
• Referrals and repeat work already fill your capacity. Paid leads make most sense when you have room to grow.

Which pay per lead companies sell to UK contractors?

We've compared the suppliers, from their own websites, in a round-up of UK lead generation companies and by sector: solar, double glazing, conservatories, heat pumps, insulation, flooring and home extensions. Each one sets out exclusivity, published prices, contracts and bad-lead terms.

Where POCKLA fits

POCKLA sells qualified web leads on pay per lead, with no setup fee, no monthly fee and no minimum term. The indicative bands per qualified web lead are £20–£50 for solar, windows and doors, conservatories, air source heat pumps and flooring; £20–£80 for insulation; and £100–£300 for home extensions. They're ranges, not quotes. Your exact price is agreed on a call, from your criteria, area and volume, and every band is on our pricing page.

For solar, windows and doors, conservatories, air source heat pumps, flooring, insulation and home extensions, every lead is exclusive to one buyer and invalid numbers are returned, with no time limit. Each lead is followed up on WhatsApp or by SMS and delivered into any CRM or POCKLA Desk, where call analytics are free. Live transfers are available too, with no public price.

What we can't set is your close rate. That's the number this guide keeps coming back to, whoever you buy from.