Shared Leads vs Exclusive Leads: The Maths Portals Hide
By Utsav Daga · Published 23 July 2026 · Updated 1 August 2026
A shared lead sold to four businesses gives you roughly a one-in-four chance before price competition starts, so a £25 shared lead often costs £100+ per won conversation. An exclusive lead from your own ad campaign may cost more up front but converts several times better, builds your own brand, and cannot be resold to your competitors.
Ask a room full of UK tradespeople about lead portals and you will hear the same stories: “they sell the same lead over and over again”, “the jobs are not even jobs”, “credits are non-refundable even if the customer never replies”. The frustration is justified — but the underlying maths is worth writing down, because it explains exactly when portals make sense and when they quietly cap your growth.
The shared-lead maths
Say a portal sells a bathroom enquiry for £25, to four businesses.
Your real odds start at one in four — before speed, price and persuasion enter the picture. So your effective cost per won conversation is £100+, paid in £25 instalments that mostly buy silence. Then, because every buyer knows they are in a contest, the first question is price, and margins follow.
Meanwhile the homeowner — who filled one form and did not consent to a bidding war — gets four cold calls in an hour. Many stop answering entirely, which is why so many shared leads feel dead on arrival. They are not dead. They are exhausted.
The exclusive-lead maths
An exclusive lead from your own campaign might cost £35–£60 for the same trade. It looks more expensive on a spreadsheet — until you finish the sum.
Nobody else has it. No race to the phone, no auction dynamics, no price-anchored first call. The homeowner saw your brand, your work, your offer — and answered questions about timeline and budget before you spent a minute on them. Conversion to booked survey runs several times higher, so cost per sold job is usually well below the shared alternative.
And there is a compounding asset: every campaign teaches your ad account what a buyer looks like, every lead grows your remarketing pool, and every job builds your brand in your postcode area. Portal spend builds the portal’s brand.
When shared leads still make sense
Honesty matters here: portals can plug a quiet fortnight, test a new service area, or keep a new crew busy. Treat them as expensive overflow, not a growth strategy. If portal fees are your primary marketing line, your growth has a landlord.
Making the switch without a gap
The sensible path is overlap: keep the portal taps on while your own campaigns exit the learning phase — typically two to four weeks — then dial the portals down as your exclusive flow proves out. We run this transition for home improvement and service businesses regularly, including the qualification and speed-to-lead systems that make owned leads convert.
Thirty minutes on a call and we will do this maths with your actual numbers — your trade, your area, your average job value. Free, and you keep the spreadsheet.
Related questions
How many businesses get the same shared lead?
Typically three to five, depending on the platform and trade. UK tradespeople report the same £25 enquiry generating £100 or more for the platform across multiple buyers — each of whom then calls the same homeowner.
Why do shared leads convert so poorly?
Three reasons: you are racing other buyers to the phone, the homeowner is pushed into price-comparison mode from the first call, and many portal enquiries were casual research the homeowner has already forgotten. Refunds for unreachable or irrelevant leads are rare.
What is the cheapest way to get exclusive leads?
Meta Ads with qualification questions is usually the lowest-cost entry point for consumer services, with Google Ads layered on for high-intent searches. The account takes a few weeks to learn, then compounds — unlike purchased leads, which reset to zero every month.