B2B lead generation cost: How much to pay for leads?

Lead generation usually costs double the available budget and rarely delivers results as quickly as you’d hope. Nine months is when you can expect to see real results, not 90 days.

If you’ve worked with cold email agencies, you know the pattern. The first six months might generate 6–10 responses while your partner builds sender reputation and warms up your outreach.

The result is that many companies switch agencies every six months — right when things are about to work. They never get past the testing phase, so they never see the returns that come from sustained effort.

As you’re comparing pricing models, the real question isn’t which one feels safest. It’s the one that can sustain the 9-month journey required to build a healthy pipeline.

Retainer amounts tell you exactly how much the agency can afford to invest in that journey. A $3k retainer can’t cover experienced SDRs, proper deliverability infrastructure, or a sustainable pipeline. A $12k retainer can.

Then there are the agencies promising “AI that generates leads while you sleep.” Their low, commission-based rates are very telling: they can’t afford the upfront investment required to get you through the essential building phase.

How much you have to spend determines how much you will gain.

In this article, we’ll explain B2B lead generation pricing models, costs, and how to calculate the ROI they bring to your business.

B2B lead generation pricing models overview

Here are the most prevalent B2B lead generation pricing models:

Note: Pricing varies based on SDR location (US-based vs. offshore), number of channels, technology stack, strategic support level, and team experience.

The pricing models exist to influence your buying decision. They’re not designed to incentivize better work or results.

The retainer model dominates lead generation for mid-market and enterprise companies. It’s proven itself as the only sustainable option. Everything else is marketing.

No successful agency has built a multimillion-dollar business over 10 years using a commission-only structure or alternative pricing model. They don’t work because every lead generation company has high upfront costs — infrastructure, tools, people, and strategy. You can’t deliver consistent results without covering these costs first.

The retainer functions like a salary. You pay a fixed amount that covers everything the agency needs to execute a strategy. Some agencies add modifications such as commission bonuses or larger setup fees, but the retainer is always in place as well.

Alternative pricing models help agencies stand out. But if pricing is their main selling point, then that probably means that they can’t compete on their track record or results.

Retainer models

The retainer covers the cost of delivery. Variations in this model exist based on contract length, which signals agency reputation. If they charge for 6–12 months up front, it usually means they can because they have industry recognition.

Monthly retainer

New agencies offer monthly retainers because they lack the track record to ask for more. They compensate for missing case studies and testimonials with pricing that lowers the risk.

Monthly retainers work for startups and small businesses testing the waters. If you’re a mid-market or enterprise company needing sustained results over nine months or more, a monthly commitment signals you’re working with an unproven partner.

Quarterly retainer

Tier-two agencies typically offer quarterly retainers. They’re more established than ones that charge monthly fees, but don’t command the premium that top agencies do.

A 3-month minimum commitment is standard. It’s for solid agencies that lack elite reputations.

6-12 month retainer (paid upfront)

Premium agencies like Belkins charge 6–12 months upfront. The difference comes down to how well-known the name is.

Among established players that have been around for over 10 years, pricing is similar. What distinguishes them is their track record. Only agencies with proven results can ask for 6–12 months upfront because they can justify it with experience and results.

Contract length signals market position. Premium agencies earn longer commitments.

Retainer-plus models

Some agencies charge a base retainer plus performance bonuses or per-lead fees. The base retainer amount matters most.

Retainer + larger setup fee

A larger upfront fee covers initial work—strategy, infrastructure setup, and onboarding. Then the regular retainer kicks in.

The setup fee is a way for the agency to stay flexible on upfront costs without compromising the rest of the operation.

Retainer + commission

A base retainer with a performance bonus sounds appealing. But it only works when the retainer is substantial enough to cover major costs.

The retainer is the primary compensation, and it covers infrastructure, tools, and people. The commission is additional. Lead generation companies have to spend a lot to get their clients’ outreach up and running. The base retainer is what reduces risk for them.

Commission is secondary, and it does not reduce the retainer amount.

Commission-only models (and why they don’t work)

Commission-only pricing sounds perfect at first glance. You only pay for results. In reality, it creates misaligned incentives.

No successful agency has built a sustainable business on commission-only pricing. It doesn’t work because upfront costs are unavoidable. Without a retainer to cover these costs, agencies cut corners.

Agencies that use commission-only pricing often skip onboarding and strategy development. They don’t invest in positioning, value proposition, or differentiation. Instead, they categorize clients into two groups:

1. Those they can make a commission from
2. Those they can’t

If you end up falling into the second category, they will get your project started, but will likely move on when they realize the cost of doing business is too high. You’re left with wasted onboarding time and no pipeline.

Commission-only agencies are often the ones promising AI-first and automated lead generation approaches. As a rule of thumb, if pricing feels too good to be true, it is.

Agencies with commission-only models are telling you they can’t afford the upfront investment needed to build a proper lead generation engine for your company.

What really influences agency lead generation costs (and what you get at each level)

When outsourcing to a lead generation agency, the retainer amount isn’t arbitrary. Specific factors determine what’s possible at each price point:

• Number of channels the agency covers
• Where the agency’s SDRs are based
• What technology the agency is using
• What kind of integration you need
• What level of strategic support you require

Pricing tiers snapshot

Where SDRs are based

Geography drives labor costs.

At $2,000/month, you’re either covering one channel or working with offshore teams. At $12,000/month, you’re getting dedicated US-based SDRs — the best providers in the U.S. operate in this range.

You can’t get US-based experienced SDRs at offshore pricing. Geography equals cost equals quality.

Number of channels

More channels cost more. Cheap pricing forces trade-offs.

At $2,000/month, you’re typically getting one channel. At $4,000/month, agencies either execute omnichannel while sacrificing SDR quality (junior talent working 10 accounts), or they execute one or two channels well — like cold email plus LinkedIn.

When agencies offer $4,000/month solutions, they’re making up for budget constraints with optimization. That’s where the trade-off happens.

At $10,000–$12,000/month, agencies can deliver true omnichannel support that includes email, LinkedIn, paid ads, content, webinars, and landing pages.

Why omnichannel marketing for lead generation?

Omnichannel doesn’t mean using multiple channels. It means coordinating them so each interaction builds on the last.

Here’s what that looks like: You email a VP of Operations about supply chain costs. They don’t respond, but open it twice. Three days later, they engage with your LinkedIn post on the same topic. A week after that, an SDR calls — not cold, but referencing the email and LinkedIn activity. If they still don’t convert, they see targeted ads with relevant case studies.

The email team knows what LinkedIn is doing. The calling team knows who opened emails. The paid ad team knows who engaged on social. Every response (or non-response) informs the next touchpoint.

This requires cross-functional teams—copywriters, deliverability engineers, paid ad strategists, data specialists — plus sophisticated tech infrastructure and ongoing strategic support. Learn more about our omnichannel approach.

This is why the $10K–$12K tier exists. You’re not just paying for more channels. You’re paying for the infrastructure and expertise required to make those channels work together—and to adapt when they don’t.

There’s no way around the math. Lower pricing means either one channel or multiple channels with junior talent.

Technology and tools

Infrastructure costs money. Tools determine deliverability, scale, and optimization capability. Here’s a breakdown of what kind of tech tools you get with different monthly costs:

• $2,000/month: You’re getting light LinkedIn automation with minimal strategy and maybe no appointment setting. It’s not an end-to-end solution.
• $3,000–$4,000/month: You get better SDRs and more sophisticated tools. But you still lack what premium solutions offer.
• $6,000–$8,000/month: Most established agencies use similar tools and offer similar support.
• $10,000–$12,000/month: You’re not just getting SDRs for appointment setting. You’re getting full marketing support with webinars, paid ads, social media, content, landing pages, design, and videos.

Cheaper retainers mean basic and limited tools. That equates to basic and limited results.

Level of strategic support

Strategic support means not just strategy execution, but also problem-solving.

Lower-tier agencies provide light strategy and outreach support. They execute a playbook.

Premium agencies provide everything from channel to cost optimization, as well as messaging refinement to deeper CRM integration to quarterly business reviews.

If an agency doesn’t have an answer for “what happens if this strategy doesn’t work or that channel doesn’t work,” they’re focused on short-term commission, not long-term pipeline.

When cheap agencies execute playbooks, that’s all you get. That’s why premium agencies adapt your business to your industry. They’re focused on carving out your place in the market.

Team experience level

You can’t get senior talent at junior prices. At $3,000–$4,000 a month, you get more experienced SDRs and sophisticated processes. But you still lack the professional experience premium solutions come with.

Lower-tier agencies typically hire junior SDRs working with 10 or more client accounts.

Premium agencies hire experienced specialists. At $12,000 per month or more, you’re working with some of the best providers in the U.S.

Experience equals the ability to troubleshoot, optimize, and continuously increase your company’s return on investment.

How to calculate lead generation ROI

Your CFO wants the only formula that matters.

Pipeline over time

Forget meetings booked, email responses, or other vanity metrics.

The only ROI metric your CFO and CEO should look at is pipeline over time:

• Pipeline in 3–6 months
• Pipeline in 12 months
• Pipeline in 24 months
• Cost spent

The formula is simple. This is how much pipeline we built. This is how much we spent building it.

Some customers we communicate with who want 1-to-4 ROI spend $250,000 to get $1 million in pipeline. Others want 1-to-10. Tier-one software companies often target 1-to-20 — spend $200,000 to build $2 million in recurring annual business.

Pipeline generated divided by cost spent equals your ROI ratio. Everything else is noise.

Why you need 9–12 month projections

Short-term thinking leads to bad agency selection.

When you project over a longer period, you want to work with a provider who has an incentive to build pipeline over the course of a year, not just the first 90 days.

Agencies need the services, people, processes, playbooks, strategy, channel optimization, cost optimization, messaging refinement, deeper integration, and quarterly business reviews to get there.

Customers who understand this is a marathon, who stick with it, spend more, and stay patient, get results. Year over year, these results grow. By year three, four, or five, you have a growth engine successfully implemented.

Too many companies never get there. They change agencies, rotate, stop, pause, renew, and repeat the whole cycle. They don’t have the patience and consistency to stick with it.

Retainer models support long-term thinking. Commission models force short-term progress.

What to ask for budget projections

You need concrete projections to justify the spend. Ask about variables and year-over-year improvement, not just initial estimates.

Ask: Can you provide a projection for results and explain what you’re basing it on? If we change criteria — say, target CEOs instead of CFOs, or companies with 100-200 employees instead of 200–500 — how does that affect results?

Ask: How will the results from year one differ from year two, and what will they depend on? What marketing initiatives would be needed to increase the results exponentially? How much budget would be needed to double results after three months, and what would that depend on?

For example, if your ideal client profile is software companies with 200–500 people and you’re targeting CTOs, the agency might say they’ll deliver five meetings a month. Ask what factors drive that number.

You’ll start understanding the agency’s thinking and what projections are based on. It boils down to which titles respond better through which channels.

Good agencies can explain their math and point out the major variables. Bad agencies give vague promises.

Justifying lead gen spend after a bad quarter

You need to determine why the quarter failed. There are two common scenarios, and they require different approaches.

If your pipeline dried up

When the pipeline dries up, you need to move fast.

The conversation with your CFO goes like this: “We need X amount of new pipeline to convert into Y amount of closed revenue over Z months. To build that pipeline, we need to start now.”

If the time-to-hire for a BDR is three months, and we don’t have the time or budget to hire internally, we need a solution that can start next week with ramped-up staff and ready-to-use technology.

It’s straightforward. If you had one failed quarter, you’ll probably have another failed quarter. The question is whether the quarter after that will also fail, or if the partner you choose can get up and running fast enough to succeed.

Outsourcing grants speed to market when you can’t afford the internal hiring timeline.

If your pipeline quality is the problem

If you have meetings but they’re not converting, the issue is different.

It’s about who you’re targeting, and how you’re targeting,  qualifying, driving conversations, talking about your product, and optimizing.

The question becomes: “Do we have a process in place? Or are the people executing it not good enough? Can we replace them with better people or better solutions?”

This is a replacement conversation, not an addition conversation. You tell your CFO: We’re not spending more. We’re spending less, or we’re moving budget from here to there. We’re looking to increase quality and insights.

When you don’t have pipeline and need to move fast, be ready to spend. When you have pipeline but quality is the issue, it’s about better execution, not necessarily more budget.

Questions to ask when evaluating pricing models

Smart questions reveal whether an agency can actually support you through the 9-month timeline you need. Most agencies either won’t have answers or will give you answers you don’t like. Either way, it tells you everything.

How will the results from the first year differ from the second year, and what will they depend on?

This reveals whether the agency thinks long-term or just focuses on closing the deal.

Can you provide a projection for results and explain what you’re basing it on?

Good agencies can explain everything. Bad agencies usually can’t.

If we change our ICP criteria — say, target CEOs instead of CTOs, or companies with 100–200 employees instead of 200–500 — how does that affect your projections?

This forces them to show you their actual understanding of your market and channels, not just recite the pitch.

What marketing initiatives would we need to run to exponentially increase the results?

This reveals whether they think strategically about optimization or just execute a fixed playbook.

How much budget would we need to double results after three months, and what would that depend on?

Tests whether they understand what drives performance or just make up numbers.

Where are your people based? What tools are you paying for? What does your contract liability look like?

Put yourself in the agency’s shoes. If the pricing seems too good, figure out what trade-off they’re making to offer it.

Is it actually possible to deliver at this pricing, or what’s the trade-off?

Most agencies won’t have good answers, and that tells you they’re using pricing to win deals, not to compensate for outcomes.

Why the cheapest option is the riskiest

Pricing is misleading. It incentivizes the contract sale, not the results.

What’s most important is making sure you go with the agency that fits best for all the parameters you’re looking for. Then you negotiate and discuss pricing.

When you’re shopping for lead generation or appointment setting, competition for your business is fierce. The typical cost of acquisition can be thousands of dollars, and it takes months to recoup. So every agency does its best to work with customers longer. That’s the real incentive.

It’s like a job. You get the job, and if the team is right and the product is good, you do your best to stick around. Your incentive is to expand and do more things, not just get more money for the same work.

At the end of the day, if you’re buying a computer, an iPhone, or booking a hotel, you’d want the best one you can afford. It doesn’t make sense to gamble, especially when time and budget are critical. You need to place yourself in the right hands when it comes to lead generation.

You don’t buy Gong because it’s cheaper. You buy it because it’s better. Same with Salesforce or HubSpot. There are countless CRM systems, but you go with the name that’s been around for a long time, that thousands of businesses use and trust.

You can’t afford another six months of starting over. The risky choice is the cheap one, not the premium one.

How much you have to spend determines how much you will gain.

Ready to get started?

Here are several options and free resources that will help you get started on your outbound sales journey:

• Hire Belkins: If you want to discuss your current business goals and how we can help you achieve them, contact us.
• Belkins case studies: Gain insights on how we’ve generated 4,760,850 leads and millions of dollars for businesses of all sizes. Read their stories.
• Belkins Growth Podcast: Get to know our VP of Sales, Brian Hicks, and Belkins co-founder Michael Maximoff as they interview professionals on market challenges, effective sales practices, and business perspectives in various industries. Listen to the Belkins Growth Podcast.
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