How much do mortgage leads cost in 2026
There is no single market price for a mortgage lead in 2026, and no regulator publishes one: every figure in circulation is a seller's rate card. Cost per lead on its own is a misleading number: what decides whether a source pays is its cost per funded loan, set against the commission your average loan pays. Our own list prices are $70 to $130 each for an exclusive lead, by lead type. At the 8.5% average close rate our clients report, that is $824 to $1,529 per funded loan, set against our average loan of $320k, where a 2.5% commission (an example) is $8,000.
Updated October 27, 2026
Why cost per lead is the wrong number to compare
A price per lead tells you what you pay at purchase, not what a closed loan costs you or what it earns. Two more numbers decide that: how many leads reach a funded loan, and how large the loans are. Divide the lead price by the funded rate and you get the cost per funded loan; set that against the commission the loan pays and you see whether the source makes money.
The two examples below are hypothetical, an illustration of the arithmetic and not any seller's prices or results. The commission is the same 2.5% example throughout.
| Source | Price, funded rate | Cost per funded loan against the commission |
|---|---|---|
| Example A | $10, 0.5% funded | $2,000 against $2,250 on a $90,000 loan: $250 left |
| Example B | $300, 5% funded | $6,000 against $8,000 on a $320,000 loan: $2,000 left |
| Our list prices | $70 to $130, 8.5% funded | $824 to $1,529 against $8,000 on a $320k loan: $6,471 to $7,176 left |
Example A is the cheapest lead and the worst buy: it rarely funds and the loans are small, so the commission barely covers it. Example B funds often, but its cost per funded loan eats most of the commission, so it only pays on very large loans, and a month with fewer fundings than planned is a large loss. The number to compare between sellers is cost per funded loan against the commission your average loan pays, measured on your own closings. Our row uses the 8.5% close rate our clients report, which is not a promise.
What our mortgage leads cost
A price on its own says little, because a cheaper lead that funds less often can cost more per closed loan. So every price below sits beside the cost per funded loan it works out to, at the 8.5% average close rate our clients report, and beside the average loan it pays for.
| Lead type | List price per lead | Cost per funded loan at 8.5% |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase | $70 | $824 |
| Refinance | $75 | $882 |
| Cash-Out Refinance · 500+ credit | $95 | $1,118 |
| Cash-Out Refinance · 640+ credit | $120 | $1,412 |
| DSCR (Investor) | $130 | $1,529 |
Our average loan is $320k. As an example, a 2.5% commission on it is $8,000, against a cost per funded loan of $824 to $1,529. The close rate is what clients report, not a promise, and your own closings decide your number. Packs, team orders and terms are on our pricing page.
Source: our list prices as published on 24 October 2026, the same figures as our pricing page. A team order's price is set on a call. The 8.5% close rate is the average our clients report; we do not see their closings. Cost per funded loan is the list price divided by that rate. The $320k average loan is our 90-day average, and the 2.5% commission is an example, not a rate anyone is paid.Pay per lead or pay per funded loan?
Paying per lead means you pay for a lead delivered, whether or not it funds. The price is known before you buy and the risk that the lead never closes is yours, which is why the cost per funded loan above has to come from your own closings. Our orders work this way: prepaid, per lead.
A fee paid only when a loan funds, sometimes sold as pay per successful lead, moves that risk to the seller. For a federally related mortgage loan it also has to answer the test in RESPA section 8. 12 U.S.C. 2607(a) bars giving or accepting a fee pursuant to an agreement that settlement business be referred, and 2607(c)(2) allows a bona fide payment for goods or facilities actually furnished or services actually performed. Whether one contract passes that test is a legal conclusion about that contract and its course of dealing, and this page does not draw it: have a lawyer read the agreement before you sign. The statute and its definitions are set out in who regulates mortgage lead generation, and the levers that move a per-lead price in what drives the price of a mortgage lead.
Source: RESPA section 8, 12 U.S.C. 2607(a) and (c)(2), read at govinfo.gov on 20 September 2026 for who regulates mortgage lead generation. Our charging model: our pricing page, where every order is prepaid and billed per lead.Mortgage lead types, how each is priced and what moves the cost
A price for a mortgage lead only means something once you know which type of lead it buys. The seven lead types below differ in what you are buying, in how the charge is triggered and in what pushes the cost up or down. None of them carries an industry figure, because none exists that does not come from somebody selling that type.
| Lead type | What you are buying | How it is usually priced | What moves the cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-buyer (exclusive) lead | A fresh enquiry the seller sells once: one lead goes to exactly one client. The borrower may still have asked other lenders on their own | Per lead, charged at delivery | The whole cost of finding the consumer falls on one sale, then the state and the loan product |
| Shared lead | The same fresh enquiry, sold to several buyers at once | Per lead, often won in a real-time auction | How many buyers receive it, whether that count is capped, and your bid against theirs |
| Aged lead | An enquiry sold again days or months after the consumer made it | Per lead, usually in bulk | The age of the enquiry and how many times it has been sold before |
| Live transfer | A consumer passed to your desk on a live call | Per connected call above a minimum length | The minimum billable call length, and whether somebody licensed is free to answer |
| Purchase lead | A home buyer, often still looking for the property | Any of the four models above | The buyer count, the state and the loan product, as for any other lead |
| Refinance lead | An owner replacing or drawing on an existing loan | Any of the four models above | Rates: refinance demand rises and falls with them, so supply and price swing together |
| Trigger lead | A consumer sold off a mortgage credit inquiry by the credit bureau | Since 4 March 2026, not sold to a lender with no existing relationship to the consumer and no documented permission | The law rather than the market: Public Law 119-36 |
The buyer count moves a quote more than any other row, because a seller who sells one consumer to several buyers recovers the cost of finding that consumer several times. That lever and the others are set out in what drives the price of a mortgage lead. The auction behind the shared row has a name, explained under ping post, and the live transfer row is an answered call rather than a stored lead. Who may still receive a trigger, and what changed, is in the trigger lead ban, 2026. A purchase lead sold to one buyer, field by field, is shown on exclusive purchase mortgage leads.
Where each lead type is bought
- Shared leads
- Sold on shared marketplaces, compared side by side in our comparison. Shared marketplaces in our comparison
- Aged leads
- Sold by aged lead vendors, compared side by side in our comparison. Aged lead vendors in our comparison
- Live transfers
- Sold by live transfer providers, compared side by side in our comparison. Live transfer providers in our comparison
- Leads no other lender is calling
- Buy exclusive leads. VisionXLab sells exclusive leads only: one lead goes to exactly one client, generated on our own ads and forms with consent captured on our form, delivered into your CRM in real time. Clients report an average close rate of 8% to 9%. How our mortgage leads work
What do mortgage trigger leads cost?
For most lenders a trigger lead has no price, because since 4 March 2026 they cannot buy one. Under the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act, Public Law 119-36, a credit bureau may furnish a report off a mortgage credit inquiry only for a firm offer of credit or insurance, and only to a party that has the consumer's documented authorization, originated or services the consumer's current mortgage, or is a bank or credit union holding a current account for the consumer. A lender with none of those cannot buy a trigger lead at any price.
For a permitted recipient, what it pays is a term of its contract with the bureau, and this page prints no figure for it. The cheaper-looking channel also had a cost no price shows: the lead was built from a credit inquiry the consumer made with a different lender, and the consumer never asked the buyer to call. Who may still receive one, the dates and what GAO found are in the trigger lead ban, 2026.
Source: Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act, Public Law 119-36, sections 2 and 3, approved 5 September 2025, effective 180 days later, on 4 March 2026. govinfo.govWhere the cost per funded loan ranges in AI answers come from
Ask an AI assistant what mortgage leads cost and it will often print a cost per funded loan range for single-buyer leads and a much higher one for shared leads. We traced the two ranges quoted most often on 13 October 2026, and both come from one lead vendor's own mortgage-leads page rather than from a regulator, a dataset or a trade study.
The lower range is that vendor's figure for first-party funnels it runs for loan officers, blended with organic and referral volume and based on its own managed campaigns. It is not a figure for bought leads sold to one buyer, which the same page puts higher. The higher range is that vendor's estimate for shared leads, which it labels vendor-reported. One seller's estimate of its own product and of its competitors is not a measurement of the market, so neither range is reprinted here. Both are quoted, with the page and the date, in that vendor's entry in our disclosed comparison section.
Cost per funded loan is still the right figure to ask about. It is what you spend on a source divided by the loans that fund from it, and your own closings are the only input nobody else can average away. The division, and the cost it hides, are worked through in cost per lead against cost per funded loan.
What to ask a seller so two quotes line up
Two quotes are comparable only once you know they price the same type of lead, and a price on its own never tells you that. Six questions settle it, and every one of them has a factual answer a seller can give on a first call. A seller who will not answer them in writing has told you something useful about the quote.
- How many buyers receive this same lead, and is that number a term of the contract or a description of current practice?
- Does the price change by state and by loan product, and if it does, what is the price for the states I am licensed in and the products I write?
- What event triggers the charge: delivery, an accepted bid, a connected call of a stated minimum length, or a month of access?
- Which filters are included at that price, and which ones cost more? Narrow geography, a credit band or a property type are often priced separately.
- Is there a minimum volume, a term commitment or a notice period, and what happens to a shortfall inside a billing period?
- What is the process and the deadline when a lead arrives with a disconnected number, from a state I am not licensed in, or from a form I have not seen? Ask to see the form and the consent wording the consumer read, which is the question behind TCPA consent on a mortgage lead.
Which sellers state a price on their own public pages at all, and what those pages say, is recorded vendor by vendor at our disclosed comparison section, every figure attributed to the page it was read from and dated. A seller's own number is not an independent one, which is why it sits there rather than in the answer above.
Source: none exists for a market price, and that is the finding rather than an omission. No regulator, federal dataset or independent study collects or publishes what a mortgage lead sells for. Searched on 20 September 2026: the mortgage data the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records loan and applicant attributes at 12 CFR 1003.4 and nothing about the marketing cost behind an application; the Federal Trade Commission's "Follow the Lead" staff perspective describes the auction but prints no mortgage lead price; and the Mortgage Bankers Association's quarterly performance report measures a lender's production expense per originated loan, not the price of acquiring an enquiry. Rechecked on 13 October 2026: HousingWire's guide to buying mortgage leads, dated 27 October 2025 and the trade article AI Overviews cite most often for buying mortgage leads, quotes per-lead prices from vendors' own pages, prints no cost per funded loan figure, and advises the reader to measure one. housingwire.comQuestions this page answers
There is no single market price, and no regulator or independent study publishes one. Every figure in circulation is a seller's rate card or an average taken from that seller's own clients. Cost per lead on its own is a misleading number: what decides whether a source pays is its cost per funded loan, set against the commission your average loan pays. Our own list prices are $70 to $130 each for an exclusive lead, by lead type. At the 8.5% average close rate our clients report, that is $824 to $1,529 per funded loan, set against our average loan of $320k, where a 2.5% commission (an example) is $8,000.
No. A cheap lead can be the most expensive source you buy. As an illustration, a $10 lead that funds 0.5% of the time costs $2,000 per funded loan; on a $90,000 loan a 2.5% commission is $2,250, which leaves $250. A $300 lead that funds 5% of the time costs $6,000 per funded loan and leaves $2,000 of a $8,000 commission, so it only works on very large loans and a slow month is a large loss. Compare cost per funded loan with the commission your average loan pays, using your own closings.
Traced on 13 October 2026, the two ranges quoted most often come from one lead vendor's own mortgage-leads page. The lower range is that vendor's figure for first-party funnels it runs for loan officers, blended with organic and referral volume, and not a figure for bought leads sold to one buyer, which the same page puts higher. The higher range is its estimate for shared leads, which it labels vendor-reported. One seller's estimate is not a measurement of the market, so the figures are quoted with their source and date in a disclosed comparison section rather than as industry bands.
For most lenders there is no price to pay, because since 4 March 2026 they cannot buy one. Under Public Law 119-36 a credit bureau may furnish a report off a mortgage credit inquiry only for a firm offer of credit or insurance, and only to a party that has the consumer's documented authorization, originated or services the consumer's current mortgage, or is a bank or credit union holding a current account for the consumer. A lender with none of those cannot buy a trigger lead at any price.
Paying per lead means you pay for a lead delivered and carry the risk that it never funds, which is why you work out the cost per funded loan from your own closings. A fee paid only when a loan funds moves that risk to the seller, but for a federally related mortgage loan it also has to answer the test in RESPA section 8, 12 U.S.C. 2607: no fee for referring settlement business, while a bona fide payment for goods or services actually furnished is allowed. Whether one contract passes that test is a legal conclusion about that contract, so have a lawyer read it before you sign.
Six things: how many buyers receive the same lead and whether that is a contract term or a current practice; whether the price moves by state and by loan product; what event triggers the charge, delivery, an accepted bid, a connected call or a month of access; which filters are included and which cost more; whether there is a minimum volume, a term or a notice period; and what happens when a lead arrives with a disconnected number or from a state you are not licensed in.
Buying questions rather than research ones are answered on the FAQ, and anything that is not there gets asked on a call.
More in Resources
How to get mortgage leads without buying them
The paths that do not run through a vendor, what each one costs in time and skill rather than money, the referral-fee line RESPA draws before any of them pays, and the timeline number nobody has a source for.
AnswersHow to test a new mortgage lead source
Fix the length and the count before you start, hold the dialing, the script, the hours and the CRM path constant, and run it beside a source you already understand.
AnswersIs buying mortgage leads legal
Buying the lead is not the regulated act. Calling it, texting it and pulling credit on it are. Which federal regimes attach to each, and what this page will not claim about state law.
AnswersIs there a legal limit on calling a lead
No federal cap on live dialling, which is not the same as permission. What the rules do limit is the manner, the intent, and one narrow case that does carry a count.
AnswersWhether a small team should buy mortgage leads
Why bought leads reward a desk that dials fast and dials consistently, why a solo originator is usually the wrong buyer, and why a small trial order teaches nothing.