A shared lead costs less than an exclusive one, and every rep who has worked both knows it closes less often. The argument that follows is always about whether the discount is big enough, and it is always conducted without anyone writing down what “big enough” means.
It has a definition. The shared lead has to clear a bar, and the bar is set by your own close rate on each kind. This page derives it, works an example, adds the cost the invoice leaves out, and says when shared genuinely wins. It runs the same arithmetic as how to price a bought lead along a different axis — that page finds the most a lead can cost; this one compares two leads that cost different amounts.
The bar
Compare on cost per closed job, because that is the only unit on which a cheaper lead that closes less often and a dearer one that closes more often can be ranked.
Cost per closed job = price per lead ÷ close rate per lead
A shared lead is the better buy when its cost per closed job is lower than the exclusive lead’s. Rearrange that and you get the most you should pay for a shared lead, given what you pay for an exclusive one:
Max shared price = exclusive price × (shared close rate ÷ exclusive close rate)
In words: the shared discount has to be at least as deep as the shared close-rate drop. If a shared lead closes at half the rate of an exclusive one, it has to cost half as much or less to be worth the same money. If it closes at a third of the rate, a 50% discount is a loss dressed as a saving.
A worked example
The figures below are round numbers chosen to make the arithmetic legible. They are illustrative, not market prices or benchmarks — substitute your own quotes and your own measured close rates.
Suppose an exclusive lead is quoted at $100 and closes at 6% per lead on your team. Cost per closed job: $100 ÷ 0.06 = $1,667.
A shared lead from the same vendor is quoted at $40, sold to four buyers. On your team it closes at 2%. Cost per closed job: $40 ÷ 0.02 = $2,000. The 60% discount did not clear a 67% close-rate drop, and the “cheaper” lead costs $333 more per job.
Run the bar the other way: at a 2% shared close rate against 6% exclusive, the most a shared lead is worth is $100 × (0.02 ÷ 0.06) = $33. At $40 it is overpriced by a fifth. At $30 it would be the better buy — narrowly, and before labour.
Now move one input. If your team answers shared leads within a couple of minutes and closes them at 3% instead of 2%, the bar rises to $50 and the $40 lead clears it. Same vendor, same prices, opposite decision — which is why the answer lives in your dispositions and not in a vendor comparison.
The cost the invoice leaves out
The example above stops at the invoice, and the invoice is where shared leads look best. Two costs sit outside it.
Response capacity. Shared leads are won by speed — the homeowner is fielding several calls, and the first competent one usually gets the appointment. Winning that race reliably means someone is at the phone when leads arrive, which is a person you are paying whether or not leads arrive. Put that labour into the shared lead’s cost per closed job. For a team that already has a setter idle, it is nearly free; for a two-person shop where the closer is also the answerer, it is the cost of the jobs the closer was not sitting while they raced.
The homeowner’s experience. A household that has had four calls in an hour is not in the state of mind the form-fill implied. Reps working shared leads report more hostility and more “I already went with someone” — neither of which shows in a close rate until it does. This is not a cost you can put a number on; it is a reason to treat the measured shared close rate as a ceiling rather than a floor.
The related question of how many buyers, over what window, and whether the record is resold again later is a contract question rather than an arithmetic one. How to buy solar leads covers what to get in writing and the red flags in resold data.
When shared wins
The arithmetic does not always come out for exclusive, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Shared clears the bar when:
- You are reliably first. A small team where one person answers inside a minute or two, all day, can post a shared close rate close enough to exclusive that the discount wins easily.
- Volume is the constraint, not close rate. A closer with empty afternoons and a strong sit-to-close is better off with three shared sits than one exclusive sit, even at a worse rate per lead, because the alternative was an empty afternoon.
- The vendor caps the buyer count and honours it. A lead shared with two buyers is a different product from one shared with six, and the bar moves accordingly. Get the number in writing.
- You are testing a market. Shared leads are a cheap way to learn a new territory’s close rate before committing to exclusive pricing or to building a list there.
And shared loses when the team cannot answer fast, when the closer is the answerer, or when the measured shared close rate is a third or less of exclusive — at which point almost no discount short of free clears the bar.
Measure it, do not assume it
Every number in the formula is a rate you can only get from your own team, and only if shared and exclusive leads are tagged separately from the day they arrive. Blend them and you will measure a single close rate that describes neither, and the bar cannot be computed at all. Tag at creation, cohort by the month the lead arrived, and measure at install rather than signature — attribution for door-to-door teams has the discipline, and what is a good close rate in solar explains why “close rate” needs a denominator before it means anything.
Six weeks of tagged leads gives you the two close rates. Then the argument at the top of this page takes thirty seconds and ends with a number.
Where Scout Data fits
Disclosure: Scout Data is our product. We sell homeowner data rather than leads, which puts us on the third side of this trade — the list you build yourself. List Builder assembles homeowner audiences from property signals with phones matched by name to the owner on title, scrubbed against the do-not-call registry and priced per record. Nobody is racing you to a form-fill, because there was no form-fill; the labour to work the list is yours.
Whether that beats either kind of bought lead is the same arithmetic on a third row: cost per closed job, fully loaded with the setter hours. A team with nobody to work a list should buy leads. A team with a setter and idle hours usually should not. The cheapest tier of bought lead, and when it wins on the same arithmetic, is covered in aged solar leads.
Frequently asked questions
Are exclusive solar leads worth the extra cost?
Only if the shared alternative’s discount is shallower than its close-rate drop, and that is a calculation rather than a preference. A shared lead is worth buying when its price divided by its close rate is below the exclusive lead’s price divided by the exclusive close rate — cost per closed job, not cost per lead. Run it on your own rates; the answer flips between teams.
How many companies receive a shared solar lead?
It varies by vendor and is the first question to ask in writing. Common arrangements sell the same record to several buyers at once, and some resell it again after a window. The number matters because your close rate on a shared lead is roughly your odds of winning a race against that many competitors, all of whom received the record at the same moment you did.
When do shared leads make sense?
When you can answer them faster than the other buyers, reliably, and the cost of the person who does that is in your model. A small team with someone at the phone all day can win the race often enough for the discount to clear the bar; a team that calls back in the evening usually cannot. Shared leads reward response capacity, and response capacity is a cost.
What is the difference between a shared lead and an aged lead?
A shared lead is sold to several buyers at once; an aged lead is one that was generated some time ago and has usually already been worked by earlier buyers. A lead can be both. They are priced on different axes — exclusivity and time — and the arithmetic on this page runs along the first; the aged solar leads guide runs it along the second.