Most lead vendor questions get answered with adjectives. Ask for numbers instead.

These are the questions to ask a lead vendor before you commit. They separate a company generating its own inventory from one reselling somebody else’s. Both can be worth buying from. You need to know which you have.

Work it in order. It doubles as lead vendor due diligence for whoever signs the contract.

1. How many buyers receive this record?

Ask for a number. “Exclusive” and “high intent” are not numbers.

Semi-exclusive means two or three buyers. If a vendor calls something exclusive, ask them to put the buyer count in the agreement.

2. Is pricing market-based or a rate card?

Most larger vendors price to demand at your filter set. A firm rate card usually means a smaller operator, or a reseller marking up inventory they bought.

Neither disqualifies them. It tells you where they sit in the chain.

3. How are the leads generated, and will you send a TrustedForm certificate with each one?

Not on request. With each lead, showing where, when, and how it was generated.

A branded application form and a generic rate-comparison page produce different people at the same price. The TrustedForm certificate is what tells them apart, and it is the record you want if a TCPA question lands.

4. Do you accept real-time rejects on duplicates I already received elsewhere?

On shared and exclusive short form, demand it. Real-time rejection, or at minimum the ability to return duplicates daily. If a vendor will not take the reject, you are paying twice for one borrower.

Live transfers and rate table leads will not offer this, and that is reasonable. On a transfer the person is already on your line. On a rate table lead they picked your rate and expect your call. You cannot reject either one after the fact.

For those two, watch the pattern instead. Track duplicate overlap by source, return rates, and overall vendor profitability, then decide from there. Some duplication is normal because borrowers shop. A high rate between two vendors is usually a sign. They are pulling from the same sources rather than generating their own.

5. What is your return policy, and what qualifies?

Get specifics. Wrong number, disconnected line, borrower says they never inquired, out of your licensed states.

Then ask the filing window. Seven days is common, so the burden sits on you. Your process has to surface a bad lead and return it inside that window. Miss it and you eat the cost.

Ask whether a longer window is negotiable. Many will move on it.

If pricing is net of returns, track your bad lead percentage by vendor. Every bad lead they send raises what you paid for the good ones.

6. How fast does a lead reach my CRM?

Seconds matter on shared inventory. Ask for latency from form submission to API delivery, not to their dashboard.

If the answer involves a CSV, you are buying aged leads at real-time prices.

7. Starting when does this record get sold again, and is there a cap?

Aged resale at ninety days is normal. Almost every generator pushes data out to the aged market by then, and a few never do. Resale starting on day two is a different product than the one you think you bought.

Ask two things. When the record becomes available again, and how many times total it can be sold. An uncapped record with a short window means you are competing with your own purchase for weeks.

8. What filters are available, and what is your inventory at mine?

Availability matters as much as price. A great number on filters with no volume behind it does not fill a pipeline.

Ask what they deliver weekly at your credit band, states, and loan amounts. What to ask before buying leads at volume comes down to this more than anything else.

9. Do you validate email and phone before matching a lead to buyers?

Ask whether validation happens before delivery or after billing. Those are different products at the same price.

A dead number is not a lead. Validating on the way out absorbs that cost. Validating on the way in passes it to you as a return you have to file.

10. For live transfers, what is the minimum billable call duration?

Ask for two minutes. Anything shorter and you are paying for connections rather than conversations.

That single term moves the economics of a live transfer buy more than the price does.

What to do with the answers to these lead vendor questions

Score the straightness of the answers, not the answers. A vendor who says “three buyers, rate card, we resell at 120 days” is telling you the truth. Price accordingly. One that answers three of these with adjectives is the risk.

Resistance is itself an answer. Vet lead vendors before buying and these lead vendor questions get you there fastest.

Whatever you buy, the source has to land on the record automatically. That is the only way to compare vendors in ninety days, and it is how we handle mortgage lead intake.

We break down which vendors sell which model in our lead vendor roundup. The platform side is in best mortgage CRM options.