The short answer
An exclusive lead is sold to one broker. A shared lead goes to three to five brokers at once. Aged data is a lead resold months or years after it was generated. Exclusive costs the most per record and is the only one where your rep can be the first call the merchant takes — which is the thing that decides whether any of it funds — though it cannot stop a merchant who filled out other forms hearing from those brokers too.
If you have bought leads before, you already know the words. What nobody spells out is what they mean in practice — specifically, how many other people are dialling the same merchant while your rep is dialling them.
Three to five buyers is the typical shared lead, not the worst one. Some vendors reshare the same list with 50 or 100 brokers, and aged data can have been sold that many times before it reaches you. Alex’s line is that there is a time and a place for shared leads and never one for a lead shared with fifty other shops, because by then who you are calling is a merchant who has stopped answering.
Who else bought this record
So what does each one actually cost?
| Type | Buyers per lead | Typical price | Your position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exclusive | 1 | $65–$120 | First, if you call first |
| Semi-exclusive | 2–3 | $25–$65 | Second or third |
| Shared | 3–5 | $10–$30 | Fourth or later |
| Aged data | Unlimited, resold repeatedly | $0.50–$5 | Months or years late |
Those bands are what the open market runs at — they are not our quotes. And the number that matters is not in the price column. It is the last one.
A merchant fills out a funding application because they need capital now. The broker who reaches them first is having a completely different conversation from the one who reaches them fourth. By the fourth call the merchant is tired of repeating their revenue, already has two offers to compare you against, and has started to suspect their information got sold. None of that is your rep’s fault, and none of it can be fixed by a better pitch.
Exclusive fixes the buyers on your record, not the merchant’s morning. A merchant who filled out four forms is called by all four, however the lead you bought was sold — on Alex’s board it is five area codes in six minutes, and a vendor who resold yours to three buyers makes it seven. Exclusive keeps you out of that last part; being first is the only answer to the rest. They filled out four forms covers what you can do about it.
What does “semi-exclusive” really mean?
Usually whatever the vendor needs it to mean. It is a marketing term, not a defined one, so pin it down. Sometimes it means two buyers. Sometimes it means exclusive within a state, or within a vertical — which is not exclusivity at all if you and your competitor both work nationally.
The version of this that catches people out
The common failure is not a lead sold to five people on day one. It is a lead sold to you exclusively on day one, and then resold as aged data eighteen months later. Both of those statements can be true at the same time — "exclusive at time of sale" and "we also sell aged data" — and most vendors will not volunteer the second one unless you ask.
Those 40-cents-a-lead aged data ads you see on Instagram? That is somebody’s exclusive lead being sold for the fourth time. Somebody paid full price for that record once.
When is shared or aged actually the right buy?
Genuinely, sometimes it is. If any of these describe you, the cheap end is not a mistake:
- You have a big floor with idle capacity and cheap rep hours, and raw volume beats hit rate for you.
- You are testing a new vertical and want exposure before committing to per-lead pricing.
- You run a heavy long-term nurture and you are content being the fifth call in month one and the first in month six.
If none of those are you, the arithmetic points the other way — and it is not close. Your reps cost the same whichever list they dial. A $20 lead that never picks up costs more than a $60 lead that funds, because the expensive part was never the lead.
How old is “aged”, exactly?
Aged is a spectrum, not a category, and vendors lean on that. A 31-day-old record and a two-year-old record are both sold as aged, at wildly different value, often at a similar price. Ask for the generation date rather than the age bracket — a bracket lets a vendor round in their own favour.
| Age | What is likely true | Realistic use |
|---|---|---|
| 30–60 days | Still shopping or recently funded elsewhere | Worth a call; ask what changed |
| 60–180 days | Funded, gave up, or already stacked | Renewal and stacking plays |
| 180 days–1 year | Circumstances have changed entirely | Nurture list at best |
| 1 year+ | Sold many times; some businesses closed | Volume dialling, low expectations |
None of this makes aged data worthless. It makes it a different product with a different job. The mistake is buying aged data expecting it to behave like fresh, then concluding paid leads do not work.
How do vendors get away with double-selling?
Usually without lying outright, which is what makes it hard to catch. Three mechanisms do most of it:
- The exclusivity clock. Exclusive at the point of sale, then released back into the pool after 30 or 90 days. Technically true on day one, worthless by day 91.
- The aged-data second life. Sold to you exclusively, then repackaged as aged inventory a year later. Technically the vendor did not resell your lead — they resold last year’s lead, which happens to be yours.
- Reselling upstream. A vendor who buys from an aggregator rather than generating traffic cannot control who else that aggregator sold to. They may believe the exclusivity claim they are passing on to you.
What should exclusivity look like in writing?
If it is not in the agreement it is not a term, it is a hope. The clauses worth insisting on are short and no reasonable vendor should object to any of them:
- A stated number of recipients per record, and the number is one.
- No expiry on that exclusivity — not 30 days, not 12 months, not ever.
- An explicit bar on resale in aged, repackaged or derivative form.
- A replacement remedy if a duplicate is found, with the burden on the vendor once you supply the record.
A vendor who will commit to the first three and balks at the fourth is usually being honest about a system they cannot fully police. That is worth knowing and not automatically disqualifying.
Does exclusivity matter more in some verticals?
Yes, and it tracks how many brokers are chasing the same file. Trucking and construction see the heaviest competition, so being fourth in line costs the most there. In thinner verticals — specialist medical, some regional service businesses — a shared lead sometimes still reaches a merchant who has not been called, simply because fewer buyers are working that segment.
That is a narrow exception rather than a strategy. If you know your vertical is thin and you have the volume to work it, shared can be defensible. Assume it is not, unless you have evidence.