Where and how to buy quality leads for your business

Buying leads for your business is a huge gamble. If you get it right, you can build a solid pipeline, drive more conversions, and maximize your ROI. But if you get it wrong, you’re looking at a wasted budget, a damaged reputation, and poor email deliverability.

While purchasing leads can be risky, there are situations where you have no other option but to roll the dice and go with it. Your pipeline has been dry for months. You want to explore new territories or break into a new market. You’re aiming to scale your revenue exponentially. The scenarios are endless.

Regardless of why you want to buy leads, you can win a solid return on your investment and get all the benefits if you do it right.

So, we did the legwork to teach you the process of buying business leads with a solid strategy. Read our detailed guide and check out a curated list of the seven best lead-buying platforms to hit the ground running.

The 7 best platforms to buy business leads

1. Leadsforce for hand-curated and tailored leads
2. Apollo for advanced search filters
3. ZoomInfo for finding industry-wise leads
4. Lusha for ease of use and integration
5. RocketReach for accessing a massive lead database 
6. ContactOut for effortless LinkedIn prospecting
7. LeadIQ for automated and streamlined prospecting

What makes an excellent lead-buying platform? 

We know you’re putting your reputation and money on the line when buying leads for your business. We want to make the process hassle-free, transparent, and, most importantly, effortless for you. So, we compiled in-depth reviews for the seven best tools to nudge you toward an informed decision. 

Before taking you through our selection of the best tools, we’ll share the five essential factors to look for in a lead-buying platform. Let’s break them down. 

• Integration options: One of the first and most crucial factors to consider in any lead-gen platform is its integration capabilities. You should probably have an existing setup for sales, including tools like CRM, lead nurturing, email automation, and more. Your lead-gen tool should seamlessly integrate into this setup without disrupting your workflows. It’ll also make your lead generation, qualification, and nurturing efforts more accurate.
• Lead quality: The quality of data in the sales leads lists you buy is of the utmost importance. If you’re paying less to buy cheap leads from untrustworthy platforms, you’ll end up paying a much higher price by spoiling your brand image and labour hours. So, remember to vet the quality of data on every platform thoroughly. While the pricing doesn’t necessarily define the quality of leads, be sure to ask questions, do your research, and perform tests to verify the data you’ll receive as prospects. 
• Data sources: The quality of any business leads list depends almost entirely on a platform’s data sources. Sourcing data from trusted sites or databases is a sign of credibility, whereas rehashing leads from older mailing lists indicates poor-quality data. Understand how every platform handles the process of sourcing leads and determine the data quality accordingly. 
• Legitimacy: Checking a lead-buying platform’s compliance history is a must. Data providers should be registered on sites like G2 for users to drop reviews. In addition, these platforms also need to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law in Europe and other local regulations. A dubious platform won’t meet either of these two criteria, which can cost you heavily in terms of a wasted budget and damaged reputation. Buying fraud leads from a non-compliant platform could also bring you in violation of laws like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in the USA.

Looking for more tips to make your emails compliant? Watch Belkins webinar "Cold emailing compliant with GDPR, CASL, CAN-SPAM"

• Free trial: The option to try a lead-gen platform for free — for a few days or a month — is enough to show users whether the tool will work for them. No free trial is a major red flag because it indicates the company’s lack of willingness to let users try first and buy later. More importantly, you shouldn’t buy sales leads without first validating the data by running an outreach campaign for these leads specifically. 

During testing tools for our review, we studied every platform’s core value propositions and overall functionalities. Then we focused on their lead generation capabilities and looked at their data quality. Our evaluation also included considerations on cost, integrations, interface, and performance. 

After concluding these detailed assessments for every tool, we shortlisted these seven lead-buying platforms and what they’re best for. 

Best platform for hand-curated and tailored leads - Leadsforce

G2 rating: 5/5

Pricing: 14-day free trial, Starter pack available at $79/month, Booster pack available at $269/month

Leadsforce is a product by Belkins, born out of a pressing problem we wanted to solve for 900 of our clients. Several of them bought business lead lists online but failed to see tangible returns. This is where we came into the equation. Our team at Belkins offered hand-curated lists and achieved a 10:1 ROI for our customers.

But we soon realized the opportunity to automate this process, simplify it for our partners, and make it more widely accessible at a fraction of the cost. This opportunity materialized into LeadsForce, a robust platform offering manually sourced and vetted leads. We use cutting-edge AI technology to validate and match the right data to your targeting criteria and select the most relevant ones from our database of over 20 million leads. 

Key features

• Credit-based purchases: Leadsforce offers two packages of 200 and 800 leads. However, you can try either of these packages with free credits for 14 days. Once you go ahead with any package, you can also buy more leads by getting more credits at $0.30/lead and $0.20/lead in both packages. The best part? For every email that bounces, you’ll get a free credit to buy more fresh leads.
• Create and save campaigns: Source only the most relevant data matching your ideal customer profile. Search our massive database using advanced filters to create a tailored target audience and save each search as an original campaign. You can segment your searches based on seven filters: designation, region, company size, revenue, and more. 
• Major industries: Leadsforce gives you access to data for companies operating in some of the largest industries. You can create a list of leads from startups and software companies, two of the most widely growing sectors. Use your granular searches to find your ideal prospects and skyrocket your outreach results.

Leadsforce is GDPR-aligned and CASL-compliant. This means all the data you receive is thoroughly validated and legitimate. With the promise of round-the-clock support and complete transparency in the renewal/cancellation policy, Leadsforce is one of the best lead list services. 

Best platform for advanced search filters - Apollo

G2 rating: 4.8/5

Pricing: Free plan, Basic plan at $39/user per month, Professional plan at $79/user per month, Organization plan at $79/user per month

Apollo is a sales intelligence platform with a prospecting database of over 250 million leads. Users can tailor their lead search, filter the results, and get laser-focused data using more than 200 attributes. You can also easily integrate the tool with your CRM to get real-time updates on every lead and make strategic decisions based on these insights.

Apollo also has a dedicated LinkedIn Prospector to help users search and save high-intent leads. You can directly get a prospect’s email and contact details when you add them to the lead sequence on LinkedIn. 

Key features

• Automated prospecting: You can define attributes for different user personas matching your ICP. Apollo’s AI-driven algorithm will source relevant leads to a list. You can add more weight to these lists and up your outreach game by creating automated rules for sales triggers, like a job change, a new round of funding, a company update, and more. 
• Powerful data: Apollo is more advanced than most lead-buying platforms in its data capabilities. With over 200 attributes to filter the database, it gives users the power to be precise and laser-sharp in their lead search. They also follow a 5-step verification process to carefully vet all their data. 
• Fast integration and sync: Apollo integrates quickly with your sales setup, especially with different CRM tools and LinkedIn. Once integrated, it’ll provide real-time updates on every lead’s status and activity.

Best platform for finding industry-wise leads - ZoomInfo

G2 rating: 4.4/5

Pricing: Not available on the website

ZoomInfo is a B2B database tool with multiple uses. Its SalesOS function is designed for marketers and sales reps to get their hands on relevant leads in bulk. The tool offers access to a huge database containing over 65 million phone numbers and more than 150 million verified email addresses.

On top of this, ZoomInfo also helps you collect data by tracking people searching for solutions like yours and by tracking website visitors. It doesn’t end with buying data. Once you have enough data, you can automate the next steps and design multi-touch sales cadences for a B2B email drip campaign, perform your outreach process and engage leads from the beginning. 

Key features

• Advanced intelligence: One of ZoomInfo’s core features is the advanced sales intelligence it delivers. Users can browse and filter its database to buy leads. They can also get accurate real-time analytics and work with their CRM tool to capture data organically from different sources. 
• Buyer intent analytics: ZoomInfo offers more high-quality prospects, thanks to its buyer intent analytics function. The tool can easily analyze buyer intent to qualify, and segment leads based on their chances of conversion. 
• Data enrichment: Another key feature that sets ZoomInfo apart from the other tools is its enrichment functionality. Keep your lead database clean and fresh by automatically deleting inaccurate information. The tool will capture and retain only the most high-quality data.

Best platform for ease of use and integration - Lusha

G2 rating: 4.3/5

Pricing: Free plan, Pro plan at $348/user, Premium plan at $612/user, Scale plan at custom pricing

Lusha is another B2B database platform for sales reps, marketers, and recruiters. With its primary focus on sellers, the tool can help optimize your prospecting process for outbound leads and boost your bottom line. You can buy qualified leads by narrowing your search with several targeting filters. Get the emails, direct dial info, and work numbers for your leads, and extract this information in a single click.

Its ISO 27701 certification makes it one of the safest sales intelligence to buy lead lists from. It’s also compliant with GDPR and CCPA to deliver data security and privacy. 

Key features

• Browser extension: Use Lusha’s browser extension to collect contact information quickly from anywhere — LinkedIn, Salesforce, or any website. You can view a prospect’s entire profile in a single click and save the lead to a list in your account. 
• Enrichment API: Refresh your lead database by deleting old records and removing errors with Lusha’s data enrichment API. Eliminate data silos from your workflow and work with the latest lead information to achieve greater efficiency. You can also enrich your CRM data to score leads and update your pipeline.
• Community-based data aggregation: What sets Lusha apart and builds its credibility is how it incentivizes its community of salespeople to contribute data. This open-sourced approach brings verified and updated information to all Lusha users.

Best platform for accessing a massive lead database - RocketReach

G2 rating: 4.5/5

Pricing: Essentials plan at $53/month, Pro plan at $107/month, Ultimate plan at $269/month

RocketReach is a data solutions platform offering high-quality B2B leads for sale. With verified data from over 35 million companies worldwide covering the information of 700 million professionals, the platform provides SMTP-validated emails. It validates all emails in real-time to avoid bounces when sending your outreach messages.

You’ll find up to 10 data points for every lead, including their work and personal contact numbers. Their accuracy rate is around 85%, but unlike other lead list services, they don’t offer any refunds for incorrect information. 

Key features

• Bulk lookups: Whether you bought a sale lead list from an external partner or sourced them from RocketReach, you can enrich your data and find any missing links in a single click. The tool automatically appends all contact information and updates vital information for a massive lead database. 
• Easy integrations: Add RocketReach to your current setup by easily integrating with any CRM. You can also connect project management tools to design automated workflows and enhance productivity. 
• Optimize outreach: RocketReach goes a step beyond helping you buy leads online. You can use the Compose feature to fine-tune your outreach messages, schedule them for the highest engagement time slots, segment leads, and track performance through in-depth analytics.

Best platform for effortless LinkedIn prospecting - ContactOut

G2 rating: 4.6/5 

Pricing: Free plan, Personal plan at $29/month, Sales plan at $99/month

ContactOut is an email finder tool that helps you buy targeted leads at scale. With a lead database of over 250 million professionals, this email search engine works with a simple two-click process — search for your target buyers and click on a result to reveal these details. Plus, you can use the browser extension to find the information directly from LinkedIn.

ContactOut is among the most seamless LinkedIn prospecting tools because you can search and save your ideal lead profiles directly in your main database. Use multiple features to effectively organize this data and export it effortlessly. 

Key features

• Powerful dashboard: Your ContactOut dashboard is your secret weapon for winning at prospecting. You can save your filtered searches, create segmented lead lists, and track activity from a single place. 
• Browser extension: Its browser extension allows you to access updated data and collect leads effortlessly from LinkedIn. Integrate it with Sales Navigator to get deeper visibility into your target markets and add verified prospects to your outreach campaign in a single click. 
• Automation capabilities: ContactOut goes beyond offering sales leads with its automation feature. You can run multi-stage outreach campaigns via email on autopilot. The tool lets you personalize messages and track performance to see what’s working.

One of the biggest downsides of ContactOut is its outdated and inaccurate database. With no refund policy for incorrect data, this can be quite frustrating for users. Also, the tool doesn’t match other lead list companies’ automated workflows. You have to manually perform the task of extracting bulk leads. 

Best platform for automated and streamlined prospecting - LeadIQ

G2 rating: 4.2/5

Pricing: Free plan, Starter plan at $75/user per month, Pro plan at $130/user per month, Enterprise plan at custom pricing

LeadIQ is a prospecting tool designed to build a customized marketing leads list for every user and streamline the sales process. Capture accurate information about your ideal prospects and let the tool draft/optimize personalized messages. LeadIQ constantly enriches its database to offer verified and updated data. Sync all this data with your CRM tool and run start-to-finish campaigns directly from your dashboard.

Key features

• Tailored insights: Once you’ve bought a list of your ideal lists, get real-time updates and custom insights for every prospect. LeadIQ brings you the latest information on sales triggers and activities that can shorten your sales cycle. 
• Credible sources: LeadIQ mainly relies on its licensed partners for collecting lead information. That means their database is vetted and verified for use. The company also accepts contributions from its community of users for updated details. 
• Automate prospecting: Besides buying leads for business, LeadIQ can help you save hours on admin work with its automation capabilities. It eliminates manual effort in prospecting and removes inefficiencies from the process.

Get well-prepared before buying leads with these 4 tips 

Now that you have a complete review of our top seven lead-buying companies, let’s walk you through four key tips before buying marketing leads.

• Sharpen your ICP: Your ICP data should guide your lead search from the outset. It’s the most significant factor for filtering through lead databases, finding relevant prospects, and qualifying leads effectively. Instead of leaving this to guesswork or half-baked attributes, be crystal clear about your ICP and accelerate your sales cycle by reaching out to the right people. 
• Evaluate your budget: Create a dedicated budget before you buy a lead list online. Your company might already have a budget for customer acquisition. But this includes the cost of marketing, outreach, nurturing, and closing. Break down this overall budget to allocate a fixed amount for buying leads. This will simplify your search for the ideal lead-buying platform.
• Estimate your team’s capacity: Evaluating your capacity for outreach is a non-negotiable factor before purchasing leads. If your teams are already at capacity and you overload them with thousands of prospects, you’re only setting them up for failure. This will also inevitably waste your money since this data quickly becomes outdated.
• Prepare your email infrastructure in advance: Almost all the leads you buy will be frozen cold. They’re unaware of your brand, allowing you to make a solid first impression. So, build a flawless email outreach strategy and workflows to personalize your messages before buying this data. Take this time to train your team to avoid most common cold email mistakes, build good relationships with prospects, and effectively close deals. 

Is buying leads worth it? 

Buying leads can be a double-edged sword — you can either surpass all revenue targets by closing deals in bulk or suffer from inefficient prospecting, wasted resources, and minimal returns. It’s up to you to strategize and execute your plans with the right outlook to taste success in every attempt.

Bookmark this exhaustive guide on how to buy leads and create a foolproof system for buying this data online.

Looking for experts to dig deep and curate leads with the highest precision? Our experts at Belkins can do the job for you. Connect with our team to understand our meticulous process of finding and vetting leads. Book a call with us today.