Ask an SME owner what a qualified lead costs them, and you'll get silence. They know their ad budget. They know their sales rep's salary. But the unit cost of one contactable company — decision-maker identified, email verified — almost nobody has ever computed. Let's compute it.
Cost per lead = (rep's monthly loaded cost × share of time spent prospecting) ÷ qualified leads found per month. Typical example: €3,500 loaded, 40% of time prospecting, 25 leads found → €56 per lead. Before the first call is even made.
The in-house rep: €40-80 per lead depending on efficiency. The real hidden cost isn't money, it's time: every hour spent finding contact details is an hour not spent selling. The agency or lead provider: €30-100 apiece, with a structural flaw — those leads are often resold to multiple clients, meaning your competitors. Automation: a tool like DataCloser scans Google in real time, verifies emails and writes an opener for roughly €0.30 per qualified lead. The difference isn't the prospect's quality — it's the production cost.
At €56 per lead, a rep who 'does their own prospecting' costs more than an agency without knowing it. And the savings aren't for finding more leads: they're so your rep spends time calling prospects instead of hunting for them. Same pipeline, minus the search cost.
→ Run the math with your own numbers — free calculator, no email required