ROI & Benchmarks
Realistic close-rate benchmarks by lead type and vertical, customer acquisition cost math, time-to-first-sale expectations, lead-volume planning to hit specific revenue targets, break-even close rates, and a three-phase scaling roadmap from solo producer to agency.
ROI & Benchmarks — Questions & Answers
Benchmarks vary widely by format, vertical, and agent experience. Live transfers: 15–30% across verticals, with Final Expense and Medicare on the high end and ACA on the lower end. Exclusive real-time web leads: Final Expense 8–15%, Medicare 10–18%, ACA 4–8%, Life 5–12%, IUL 3–8%, Auto 6–12%, Home 5–10%. Aged leads (30–90 days old): 2–6% across the board. These are averages across hundreds of agents on our platform — top quartile beats them by 30–50% and bottom quartile underperforms by a similar margin. The single biggest driver of where you fall is speed-to-lead: agents who call within 5 minutes convert at roughly 2–3x the rate of agents who call within 24 hours. Script quality and follow-up cadence matter almost as much.
CAC per policy = (cost per lead) / (close rate). Worked examples at mid-range assumptions: Final Expense real-time leads at $22 and a 12% close rate = $183 CAC per policy. Medicare real-time leads at $25 and a 15% close rate = $167 CAC. ACA real-time leads at $15 and a 6% close rate = $250 CAC. Life real-time at $30 and 8% = $375 CAC. Live transfers shift the math: Medicare live transfers at $55 and a 25% close rate = $220 CAC — higher cost per transfer but dramatically higher close rate, so the end CAC is competitive. Compare these to first-year commissions — typically $300–$600 Final Expense, $700 Medicare, $400–$600 ACA, $400–$1,000 Life — to size gross margin. Most profitable agents operate at 2–4x CAC gross margin in year one and much higher on renewals.
For most agents, first sale lands in week 1 or week 2 from real-time leads. Live transfer buyers often close on day 1 because the prospect is on the phone at the moment of billing. Web lead buyers typically close their first in the 20–60 lead range — if you have bought 50 leads and closed zero, something is off and your account manager should run diagnostics with you (common issues: calling speed, script, voicemail quality, or filter too tight). For aged leads, expect first sale in the 100–200 record range given the lower base rates. Time-to-first-commission-check depends on carrier cycle time: Final Expense pays in 1–2 weeks after issue, Medicare pays CMS cycle (roughly 30–45 days after effective date), ACA pays monthly once the policy is in effect.
Rule-of-thumb reverse math: $10K/month commission at $400 avg first-year commission = 25 issued policies per month. At a 10% close rate (typical for real-time exclusive web leads), that requires 250 leads/month. At a 20% close rate (typical for live transfers), 125 transfers/month. At $22 per web lead, 250 leads = $5,500/month spend — gross of $10K commission, net of $4,500, which is an 82% gross margin on lead spend alone (before renewals, overhead, or time). The math is tighter for newer agents: if you are closing at 6% instead of 10% you need 400 leads/month, or $8,800/month spend. This is why we strongly recommend starting at 50–100 leads/month, proving you can hit target close rates, and then scaling — not the other way around.
Break-even close rate = (cost per lead) / (first-year commission). Using mid-range inputs: Final Expense real-time at $22 lead cost ÷ $450 avg commission = 4.9% break-even — you need to close 1 in 20 to cover lead cost. Medicare real-time at $25 ÷ $700 = 3.6% — 1 in 28. ACA real-time at $15 ÷ $500 = 3.0% — 1 in 33. Live transfers run higher break-evens (Medicare $55 ÷ $700 = 7.9%) but dramatically higher actual close rates, so they still clear the bar with room. Aged leads at $3 ÷ $450 = 0.7% — break-even is so low that almost any contact rate clears it. These are lead-cost break-evens only; to cover overhead, license fees, office costs, and your own time you typically want actual close rates at 2–3x break-even.
Scale in three phases. Phase 1 (0–100 leads/month): prove you can hit or beat our published close-rate benchmarks on your chosen vertical and state. Do not scale until you have two consecutive months at benchmark. Phase 2 (100–300): add a second vertical or a second state, hire your first setter or appointment-setter so your licensed time is spent on closing calls rather than dials, and add live transfers on top of web leads for a higher-margin mix. Phase 3 (300+): move to agency-style ops — multiple licensed producers under one master account, a centralized dialer, a CRM with territory routing, and defined SLAs on lead response time. Agencies that try to skip Phase 1 almost always burn cash; agencies that follow the three-phase path typically hit 10x within 12 months without quality degradation.
Yes. Our /success-stories page includes agent testimonials with named outcomes (close rates, monthly premium written, CAC), and /research contains longer-form reports including the State Insurance Market Report and the Insurance Agent Compensation Survey 2026. For prospective buyers who want specifics before signing up, your account manager can share (under NDA) a redacted performance snapshot from anonymized agents matched to your profile — same vertical, same license states, similar buying volume — so you can see real close rates, return rates, and ROI for agents most like you. We do not publish aggregate averages as "guaranteed" performance because the variance between top and bottom quartile is large enough that an average is misleading for any individual buyer.