In short
An insurance lead cost calculator turns a price per lead into a cost per policy. Enter two lead sources side by side with your own contact, quote and close rates, and this tool shows what each policy costs, whether it pays back in year one or over its life, and which source is cheaper where it counts.
Example inputs. The numbers filled in below are made up to show how the math works. They are not market prices or industry averages. Replace each one with your own.
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What this calculator answers
A vendor quotes a price per lead because that is the number it controls. Whether a source makes you money depends on what a policy costs and whether its commission pays that back. The calculator answers three questions for each source:
- What does one policy from this source cost me?
- What return, or ROI, does it earn in the first year, and over the years the policy stays on the books?
- What is the most I could pay per lead and still break even?
Compare two vendors, shared against exclusive, fresh against aged leads, or a vendor against your own pipeline, entered with a price per lead of 0 and its cost as other monthly cost.
Many vendors quote only in private. Two published data points, as listed in September 2026: the InsureLeads rate card prices exclusive web leads at $35 for auto and $50 for final expense, and EverQuote says its shared auto leads typically cost $4 to $5 less than its exclusive ones. Our breakdown of how much insurance leads cost covers more vendors.
Where to find your own rates
Your real rates are in your agency management system or CRM, as long as each lead carries a source. Pick one source, set the date range to the last 90 days, and count four things:
- Leads. Every record the vendor billed you for. If the vendor credits returned leads, use the net price per lead.
- Contacted. Leads where someone on your team had a real conversation. A voicemail does not count.
- Quoted. Leads that received at least one quote.
- Issued. Policies bound or issued, not applications submitted.
Contact rate is contacted ÷ leads. Quote rate is quoted ÷ contacted. Close rate is issued ÷ quoted. Leave out leads from the last two weeks, which have not had time to finish.
If your system has no lead-source field, add one before you buy another lead. Without it every vendor looks the same, and the lowest price per lead wins every argument.
A worked example with the example inputs
These numbers come from the made-up example inputs above, not from market data.
Both sources get $2,000 a month. Source A sells shared leads at $20, so you get 100. Source B sells exclusive leads at $40, so you get 50. We gave B the higher rates, 60% contact, 60% quote and 30% close against A's 30%, 50% and 25%, because that is the usual case for exclusive leads.
Both produce 30 conversations a month, so both cost $66.67 per contact. The gap opens further down. A turns its 30 contacts into 15 quotes and 3.75 policies, and B turns its 30 into 18 quotes and 5.4 policies. A policy costs $533 from A and $370 from B. The lead that costs twice as much is $163 cheaper per policy.
Neither pays back in year one. A $1,500 premium at 12% commission earns $180 per policy in the first year, so each dollar spent on A earns back 34 cents that year and each dollar on B earns back 49 cents. Over three years on the books a policy earns $540. At that horizon A roughly breaks even and B returns 46%.
The result is fragile. Drop B's contact rate to 40%, or its close rate to 20%, and A wins by $22 per policy. That is why the rates have to be yours.
Why cost per policy beats cost per lead
Cost per lead measures what the vendor charges. Cost per policy measures what you pay for revenue, and the two often disagree. A lead nobody answers is not cheap. You paid for it, and the leads that did convert carry its cost.
Cost per policy also folds every leak in the funnel into one figure. Slow follow-up lowers your contact rate. A record sold to several agencies lowers your close rate, because you are one of several agents calling. That makes it the number to negotiate with.
The staged costs show where the money goes. If cost per contact looks fine and cost per quote jumps, the leads answer the phone and do not qualify. If cost per contact is already high, fix speed to lead before you blame the vendor. Our comparison of exclusive and shared insurance leads covers that trade-off in depth.
What the calculator leaves out
- Chargebacks. If the carrier claws back commission when a policy cancels early, count only the policies that stay.
- Premium changes. Premium is held flat across renewals.
- Your time, unless you add it. Enter it, with the software a source needs, as other monthly cost.
- Timing. Commission in year three counts the same as commission today.
These change the winner only if they hit one source harder than the other. Check that before you trust a close result.
How the math works
Each source is calculated from its own inputs only.
- Spend = price per lead × leads per month + other monthly cost
- Contacts = leads × contact rate
- Quotes = contacts × quote rate
- Policies = quotes × close rate
- Leads per policy = leads ÷ policies
- Cost per contact, per quote and per policy = spend ÷ contacts, quotes or policies
- First-year commission per policy = average premium × first-year commission rate
- First-year commission per month = policies × first-year commission per policy
- First-year return on spend = (first-year commission per month − spend) ÷ spend
- Break-even close rate = spend ÷ (quotes × commission per policy)
- Most you can pay per lead = (first-year commission per month − other monthly cost) ÷ leads
- Lifetime commission per policy = premium × first-year rate + premium × renewal rate × (years on the books − 1)
- Lifetime return on spend = (policies × lifetime commission per policy − spend) ÷ spend
A blank field or a zero rate shows n/a for everything that depends on it, rather than a wrong number.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good cost per acquisition for insurance leads?
It depends on what a policy pays you. A cost per policy below the first-year commission pays back inside a year. One below the lifetime commission, meaning the first year plus renewals for as long as the policy stays, pays back eventually. Above both, the source loses money on every policy. Enter your premium, commission rates and retention above to see both lines for your book.
How do I calculate cost per policy for insurance leads?
Divide what you spent on a source by the policies it produced in the same period. From rates alone, divide the price per lead by contact rate × quote rate × close rate. With the example inputs, a $20 lead at 30%, 50% and 25% gives $20 ÷ 0.0375, or $533 per policy. Count issued policies, not submitted applications.
Are exclusive leads cheaper per policy than shared leads?
Only when their conversion advantage beats their price premium. Divide the exclusive price by the shared price. Then divide the share of exclusive leads that become policies by the same share for shared leads. If the second ratio is bigger, exclusive wins. For scale, EverQuote says its shared auto leads usually cost $4 to $5 less than its exclusive ones. More in our exclusive vs shared guide.
What contact rate should I expect from purchased leads?
We do not publish one, because we have not found a measured figure worth repeating. Most ranges online come from lead sellers, and InsureLeads' own calculator calls its ranges planning bands, not measured client outcomes. Measure yours instead: contacted leads ÷ leads received, by source, over the last 90 days.
Why is the first-year return negative on a source that makes money?
Because a policy that renews can pay commission again every year, so a source can lose money in year one and still pay back later. Enter years on the books to see lifetime commission and lifetime return. If your carrier pays a different rate on renewals than in the first year, enter that rate too, or the lifetime figures will be off.
If no source you can buy pays back at your rates, the other route is a pipeline that produces leads nobody else is calling. We build and run that outbound for insurance agencies, and the list stays yours. Our guide to leads for insurance agents compares every route, bought and built.
