How Much Do Insurance Leads Cost?

Most insurance leads cost between $5 and $50 per lead in 2026 — but the full range runs from under $1 for aged, shared leads to $200 or more for exclusive commercial leads. What you actually pay comes down to three things: the line of business, whether the lead is shared or exclusive, and your geography. Below is what agents are really paying, by line, based on 27 lead vendors tracked on InSifter.

Insurance lead cost by line of business

Personal-lines leads (auto, home, renters) are the cheapest. Health and Medicare sit in the middle. Commercial leads cost the most because the premiums — and your commissions — are far larger. These are typical per-lead ranges reported across vendors:

Lead type	Shared	Exclusive
Auto	$5–$30	$30–$60
Home	$5–$30	$30–$60
Renters	$5–$22	—
Life	$1–$20	$20–$50
Final expense	$5–$30	$30–$90
Health / Medicare	$6–$35	$35–$80
Commercial (BOP, GL, WC, auto)	—	$25–$200
Aged (any line)	$0.50–$5	—

You can see exact, agent-reported costs for each individual vendor — plus close rates and quality scores — on the lead vendor directory.

NetQuote and Penguin Leads: what to compare before buying

Searches for individual vendors usually come down to the same decision: whether the quoted lead price produces enough bound business to justify the spend. Review NetQuote costs, close rates, and agent reviews and Penguin Leads costs, close rates, and agent reviews before committing. Compare the lead type, exclusivity, geography, and your own speed-to-contact — not just the advertised cost per lead.

Shared vs. exclusive: the biggest price driver

The single largest factor in what a lead costs is how many agents receive it. Shared leads are sold to three to five agents at once, so you're racing competitors to the phone — but they're cheap, often $5–$30. Exclusive leads go to you alone, cost two to four times more, and typically close at a higher rate because there's no competition. Neither is automatically better; the right choice depends on how fast you follow up and what your time is worth.

How much do life insurance leads cost?

Shared final-expense leads now run about $8–$20, exclusive real-time leads $25–$55, direct-mail response leads $25–$50, and live transfers $40–$120+ per connected call. Term life runs roughly $10–$24 shared and $18–$50 exclusive. Aged leads remain the cheap end at under $4. Vendors like Benepath specialize in exclusive life and senior-market leads at the premium end, while marketplaces like NetQuote and InsuranceLeads.com sell shared life leads in volume. As with P&C, exclusivity is the biggest price driver — and speed-to-call matters even more on life, where intent fades fast.

Cost per lead is the wrong number to obsess over

Here's the trap: a $5 shared lead isn't cheaper than a $40 exclusive lead if it takes ten of the cheap ones to close a client and only three of the expensive ones. The number that actually matters is cost per acquired client — lead cost divided by your close rate — and then whether that's less than the client's lifetime value.

If you pay $25 per lead and close 10%, your cost per client is $250. Whether that's a good deal depends entirely on your average premium, commission, and retention. We break the full math down in Are insurance leads worth it?, and you can run your own numbers in the Lead ROI Calculator.

Cheapest vs. most expensive lead sources

• Cheapest: aged leads at $0.50–$5 each. These are prospects who inquired weeks or months ago — low intent, but volume is cheap.
• Mid-range: shared real-time personal-lines leads at $5–$30 — the bulk of the market.
• Premium: exclusive real-time and warm-transfer/calls, often $30–$120.
• Most expensive: exclusive commercial leads at $25–$200, justified by much larger commercial premiums.

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