$4,000
Cost per client — buying
Marketplaces sell you a name and a phone number today. An owned funnel takes 60–90 days to build — then every lead, every booked call, and all the data are yours. Here is the honest math on both, with the ranges the vendors quote and the caveats they leave out.
Direct answer
Buying leads is faster; generating your own is usually cheaper per client. A shared marketplace lead at ~$200 closing at 5% costs about $4,000 per client. Your own booked appointment at ~$229 closing at 20% costs about $1,145 — but takes 60–90 days to reach reliably.
Pay-per-lead marketplaces, live within days. Leads are often shared with competing advisors, and cost per client commonly lands in the thousands at typical close rates.
Meta campaigns across 25 RIAs, Q1 2026 (Clients Blackbox). Exclusive to you, with your own data and follow-up — after a 60–90 day ramp.
You are renting access to someone else's funnel. A marketplace runs the ads, captures the prospect, and sells you the contact — often the same contact it sells to other advisors. You own nothing: not the ad account, not the audience data, not the relationship history.
The three models in the market work very differently, and comparing them on price per lead alone is how advisors end up misled:
| Provider / model | How you pay | Exclusive? | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| SmartAsset — SmartAdvisor | Pay per lead, priced by prospect assets & location | Shared up to 3 advisors (some tables say 3–5) | ~$100–$300 / lead |
| Zoe Financial | Revenue-share / fee on closed business, terms by agreement | Exclusive intro curated match | No per-lead price; not publicly fixed |
| WiserAdvisor | Pay per lead, lower commitment | Varies by plan | $50–$200 / lead |
| Insurance lead vendors (US) | Pay per lead | Shared or exclusive | Exclusive $15–$60; annuity / IUL $50–$150+ |
| Insurance leads (Canada) | Pay per lead, CAD | Shared or exclusive | Life: $20–$50 shared · $75–$150 exclusive |
Marketplace prices are compiled from published comparison pages (OJay Media's SmartAsset alternatives and lead-generation comparisons) and vendor listings (EasyLead Canada; FullyAutomated) as indexed November 2026. Marketplaces do not publish fixed rate cards — treat every figure as a range to confirm with a quote. Zoe's pricing in particular is described inconsistently across sources, so it is shown here as revenue-share on closed business, not a percentage.
The demand for this comparison is driven by pain, not curiosity. Second-hand summaries of advisor community discussions (r/CFP, summarized by Prospeo) describe a recurring pattern with shared leads: contact rates under 10%, conversion under 2%, bad or fake contact details, and a speed-to-dial race against the other advisors who bought the same name. Treat those figures as directional — they come from a vendor's summary of forum posts, not an audited study — but the structural reasons are real:
You run paid campaigns — typically Google Search for high-intent local searches, Meta for demand creation with retirees and the mass-affluent, LinkedIn for business owners and executives — that send prospects to your own landing page and your own booking calendar. Every lead is exclusive, and the pixel, audience, and conversion data stay in your accounts.
The unit that matters is not the lead but the booked appointment, because that's what you actually spend evenings preparing for. The clearest published figure: Clients Blackbox reported that across 25 RIAs in Q1 2026, $727,257 of Meta ad spend produced 3,171 appointments — about $229 per booked appointment. Skyline Social's ranges show how sharply that number moves with the client you target: roughly $200–$300 per appointment at a $100k+ investable minimum, $300–$500 at $500k+, and $500–$1,000 at $1M+.
For context at the top of the funnel, WordStream by LocaliQ's 2026 benchmarks (medians across 13,474 US Google and Microsoft search campaigns, April 2025–March 2026) put Finance & Insurance at a $3.39 cost per click and a $74.44 cost per lead — but with the lowest conversion rate of all 23 industries at 2.64%. Advisor-specialist agencies quote much higher figures (Google CPLs of $80–$300, wealth-manager CPLs of $150–$400) because they count qualified, niche, local leads rather than every form fill. Both can be true; they're measuring different things, which is exactly why any single "average cost per lead" should be treated with suspicion.
Sources: Clients Blackbox, Q1 2026 appointment data; Skyline Social, cost per appointment; WordStream/LocaliQ 2026 benchmarks. Vendor-published figures are self-reported marketing content, not audited data — they agree directionally, and are presented here as ranges with attribution.
Cost per lead is a vanity metric. Cost per client is price divided by close rate — and the two models differ on both numbers, in opposite directions. Here is the comparison using mid-range published figures:
Illustrative math using the published ranges cited on this page (the framing follows the worked example used across advisor-marketing comparison sources). Your numbers will differ by niche, geography, asset minimum, and follow-up quality — use the calculator below with your own figures.
Neither figure is the whole story. Kitces Research puts a typical advisor's all-in client acquisition cost at $2,551 across all channels, including the advisor's own time (Kitces 2026 study, 506 qualified respondents, 2025 data — cited here via secondary summaries, as the primary report is paywalled). That's the benchmark both models have to beat once you count the hours spent dialling shared leads or managing campaigns. Broadridge's 2024 data puts mean advisor marketing spend at about $15,908 a year (median ~$6,250) — the budget question is where that money compounds, not whether it's spent.
Move the sliders to your real prices and close rates. Nothing is saved or sent — it calculates on this page only.
Illustrative only. Excludes advisor time, software, and any management fee on the generating side, and any refunds or credits on the buying side. The point of the exercise: close rate moves the answer more than lead price does.
A note for Canadian advisors and insurance professionals: the bought-lead market is largely a US story. Zoe is US-only and fee-only; SmartAsset's model is built around US prospects. Canadian vendor data puts life insurance leads at $20–$50 CAD shared and $75–$150 CAD exclusive, and Google Ads leads at $50–$125 CAD — but the deeper point is structural: with fewer marketplaces competing for Canadian prospects, an owned funnel in CAD, aimed at Canadian moments (CPP/OAS timing, RRIF conversion, incorporated-professional planning), faces far less competition than the equivalent US campaign.
First leads within days, a usable read on cost at 2–4 weeks, and a stable cost per booked appointment at about 60–90 days. Anyone promising clients in week one is selling you the marketplace fantasy with extra steps.
That ramp is the genuine cost of the owned model, and it's why the two are often sequenced rather than chosen: buy selectively for immediate pipeline if you must, build the funnel for the economics, and let the funnel take over.
Per lead, buying looks cheaper and starts instantly — marketplace leads run roughly $50–$300 each. Per client, an owned funnel usually wins once it's running: a booked appointment from your own Meta campaigns cost about $229 in one Q1 2026 study of 25 RIAs, and at a 20% close rate that's roughly $1,145 per client, versus about $4,000 per client for a $200 shared lead closing at 5%. All figures are ranges from the sources cited on this page, not guarantees.
Comparison sources put SmartAdvisor leads at roughly $100–$300 per lead, priced by the prospect's asset level and location. Leads are shared — the same prospect can go to up to 3 advisors, and some comparison tables say 3–5. SmartAsset doesn't publish a fixed rate card, so treat any figure as an estimate until you have a quote.
Zoe doesn't charge per lead. Advisors pay a revenue-share or fee on closed business under terms set by agreement, and pricing is not publicly fixed — published sources describe it inconsistently. Zoe also matches consumers only with vetted US fee-only fiduciaries, so it isn't an option for Canadian advisors or insurance and commission-based professionals.
Clients Blackbox reported Q1 2026 results across 25 RIAs: $727,257 of Meta spend produced 3,171 appointments, about $229 each. Skyline Social reports the figure rising with the investable minimum you target — roughly $200–$300 at $100k+, $300–$500 at $500k+, $500–$1,000 at $1M+. These are vendor-published figures, not audited industry data.
Three structural reasons: the lead is often shared, so you're racing other advisors to the phone; the prospect filled in a generic form rather than responding to your offer, so intent and fit are unverified; and contact-data quality varies. Second-hand summaries of advisor forums report contact rates under 10% and conversion under 2% for shared marketplace leads. Follow-up speed matters as much as source — responding within 5 minutes is cited as making connection roughly 100× more likely than waiting 30 minutes.
Expect first leads within days, usable cost signal in 2–4 weeks, and a stable, plannable cost per booked appointment at roughly 60–90 days. Buying has no ramp — which is why some advisors buy while an owned funnel is being built, then taper marketplace spend as the funnel's cost per client proves out.
Yes. The big marketplaces are US-focused — Zoe is US-only and fee-only — so Canadian advisors and insurance professionals have fewer bought-lead options. Canadian vendor data puts life insurance leads at $20–$50 CAD shared and $75–$150 CAD exclusive, with Google Ads leads at $50–$125 CAD. Canadian follow-up also runs under CASL consent rules, which an owned funnel handles by collecting express consent at the point of capture.
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How the numbers on this page were compiled. Every figure is attributed to its source with its sample, period, and geography where the source provides them. Vendor benchmarks (Clients Blackbox, Skyline Social, OJay Media, EasyLead) are self-published marketing content — directionally consistent with each other, but not audited. Kitces figures are cited via secondary summaries because the primary reports are paywalled. Where sources disagree — and on cost per lead, they disagree a lot — this page shows the ranges rather than averaging them into a single number. Last reviewed November 5, 2026.