How to buy MCA leads without getting burned

How much do MCA leads cost?

Wide, and the spread tells you what you are actually buying. As a market range: aged files trade for cents per record, bulk dialer data lower still, fresh or exclusive records run into dollars, and live transfers are priced per connected call in the low hundreds. When a vendor will not quote until you are on a call, it is because the price moves depending on how you sound.

The number that matters is not cost per record. It is cost per conversation and then cost per funded deal. A file at a tenth the price with a tenth the connect rate is the same campaign with more dialing.

How to evaluate an MCA lead vendor

Five questions. The answers take a minute and tell you almost everything:

1. What is the price, and what is the minimum? If this needs a call, you are being priced individually.
2. How many buyers does this record go to? The answer is a number. “Exclusive” is not a number. Ask what suppression makes it true and for how long.
3. What is the fill rate on mobile? Not “we have phone numbers” — the percentage of records with a genuine cell rather than a switchboard. Ask for the denominator and the date of the build.
4. What happens when a record is dead? Ask for the claim window, the replacement ratio and the cap, in writing, before you order.
5. Where did these come from? “Proprietary sources” means bought from someone who bought them. A real answer names the mechanism — public filings, inbound enquiry, an identified acquired file.

Are aged MCA leads worth buying?

Yes, for the right floor. Aged data is cheap because it has been worked, so the economics only close if you have seats that would otherwise be idle and a manager who measures conversations rather than cost per record. Aged is a volume play against a fixed labour cost.

It is the wrong buy if your close depends on being first, if you are paying per dial, or if you have two closers who should be spending their hours on warmer data. The mistake is not buying aged — it is buying aged and expecting fresh-data conversion.

Exclusive versus shared: which actually pays?

Shared data is not automatically worse — it is worse at the same speed. If a record goes to four buyers and you call it eleven minutes after it lands, you are effectively first. If you load it into a queue and get to it on Thursday, you are fourth and you paid for the privilege. Decide based on how fast your floor actually dials, not on how the tier is named.

The questions nobody asks, and should

• What is the duplicate rate within a single order? Paying twice for one merchant is more common than anybody admits.
• When was this scrubbed, and against what? A scrub is a date, not a permanent property of a file.
• Will you run my suppression list before delivery? A vendor who says no is telling you something.
• What is the newest record in this build, and the oldest? An average age hides a tail of very old data.

Red flags

• A sample that requires a form, a call and a follow-up before you see a single row.
• Testimonials with no company attached, or review counts that match nothing visible on the page.
• “Pre-approved”, “pre-qualified” or “credit-verified” attached to a marketing file. Those words describe a regulated product; a contact list is not one.
• A guarantee with no number in it.
• A price that drops the moment you say you are going to think about it.

What we do about all of this

Everything above is why our sample is ungated, why every product page prints what the record is not, and why ourreplacement policy says in writing what qualifies and what does not. None of it is generosity — it is the cheapest way to prove we are not the vendor that burned you last time.