Lead Portals and Shared Enquiries: Should You Pay for Them?

A portal, directory or lead seller rings with an offer: enquiries from people looking for exactly what you sell. Pay the fee, answer the phone. What the pitch may leave out is that the same enquiry can go to several other businesses at once, so you could be paying for a place in a race without knowing how many others are running.

Should a small service business pay? Our answer: yes to one small test with an end date, once the seller has answered a few plain questions in writing. No to any long plan until your own numbers show profit after the seller's fee.

What you are paying for

Offers tend to take one of three shapes.

• A listing with enquiries: people who find you on a directory or portal can contact you.
• A pack of leads: you pay for a set number of contacts, perhaps by service and area.
• A subscription: a regular fee for a flow of enquiries or a better position.

The bigger question cuts across all three: does an enquiry come to you alone, or go to several businesses? A shared enquiry can still become a good booking, but it's likely to be harder to win. Don't assume either way. Ask the seller, and if they say "exclusive", ask what the word covers: how long, and in which area.

Eight questions to ask before you pay

Send these by email or WhatsApp so the answers stay in writing, then check them against the agreement.

1. How many businesses get each enquiry? Ask for a number or a maximum.
2. Where do the enquiries come from? The seller's own website, ads, partner sites, bought lists?
3. Did the person actually ask to be contacted? Ask by whom, and what they were shown when they agreed.
4. What counts as a lead? A filled form, a tap on your number, a phone call, a view of your listing?
5. Can bad or duplicate leads be returned or replaced? Get the rule and the time limit for claiming.
6. What happens at renewal? Does it renew on its own, and how much notice does cancelling need?
7. Who keeps the contact data? Does access end with the plan?
8. Is there any lock-in? Look for a minimum term or an exit charge.

If the answer on permission comes back vague, or any three of the others do, we'd walk away.

Run a test you can afford to lose

Set these up before any money moves.

1. Buy the shortest commitment on offer. If that's a long plan, we'd pass.
2. Limit it to one service in one area.
3. Name one person to respond fast, with alerts on their phone and a backup for days off.
4. Log every lead in the seven-column sheet from the lead tracking article, with "portal" as the source. Bad and duplicate leads go in too, so you can claim replacements.
5. Write down the end date before you start, and diarise the cancellation deadline ahead of any renewal.

Write down your pass mark too: the profit per booking you need from this source.

Judge it on profit per booking

Cost per lead flatters cheap, shared enquiries. Judge on cost per booking, then profit per booking after the portal's fee. Here's a hypothetical example, with made-up figures.

A travel desk pays ₹15,000 for a one-month test and gets 40 leads, which is ₹375 per lead. Four book, so the cost per booking is ₹3,750. If each booking earns ₹6,000 of margin before the fee, profit per booking is ₹2,250, or ₹9,000 for the month.

In the same hypothetical month, the desk puts ₹15,000 into its own search ads and gets 15 leads at ₹1,000 each. Five book at the same margin, so the cost per booking is ₹3,000 and profit per booking is ₹3,000, or ₹15,000 in all. The portal looked far cheaper per lead and still earned less per booking.

Your sheet has the bookings and margin for each source; add what each cost and run the same sum. Use the margin those bookings really brought in, because a discount given to win a shared enquiry comes straight out of it. A no-fee source such as referrals will usually win, so compare the portal with what else you could put the same money into.

Shared enquiries change your first reply

When several businesses get the same enquiry, the person may hear from all of them within the hour. Treat the thirty-minute rule from the follow-up piece as the outer limit and aim for minutes during working hours. If your existing leads already wait hours for a reply, fix that before buying more.

A clear first offer can give the person a reason to stop comparing: "We can service your AC tomorrow between 10 and 12. The visit charge is [your fee], and you see the estimate before any repair starts. Shall I book it?"

Don't compete on price alone, because someone can usually quote lower. Compete on what others may leave vague, such as what's included and who turns up. Decide your lowest acceptable price before the test and let enquiries below it go.

Permission and calling rules

Our advice: the person should have asked to be contacted, about your kind of service, before your staff ring or message them. If the seller can't show how that happened, don't buy.

TRAI's September 2026 amendment to its commercial communication regulations defines consent as voluntary permission, explicit or inferred, given by the customer to the sender to receive commercial communication about a specific purpose, product or service. Bulk messages over telecom networks bring registration steps too, set out in TRAI's advice to senders.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 sets a separate test, though its main sections were notified to start around May 2027. It allows processing on consent or for certain legitimate uses, and consent under it must be free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous, with a clear affirmative action.

So ask the seller whether the person's permission covers your business or only the portal. Then ask a qualified adviser how this applies when your staff phone a portal enquiry, and what's in force when you read this. This section isn't legal advice.

Warning signs to slow down for

None of these proves anything alone, but each is a reason to pause and ask for more in writing.

• A guarantee of bookings. A seller doesn't control how you reply or what the customer decides, so ask exactly what is guaranteed.
• Pressure to sign a long term today.
• Refusal to explain where the enquiries come from.
• An unsolicited sales call offering "exclusive" leads, with no way for you to check.

When to stop paying and when to continue

On the end date, answer three questions from the sheet. Did profit per booking, after the portal's fee, meet your pass mark? For the same money, did the portal leave at least as much total profit as the next-best source? Did first-reply times on your other leads hold up?

Continue only with three yeses, on the shortest renewal the seller offers, with a new end date. Stop paying if the first or second answer is no, even if the result was close or the seller offers a better rate for longer. If only the third is no, the portal may be costing you leads you already had, so add hands or stop.

Too few bookings to judge counts as a stop, unless you can point to a fault of your own such as slow replies. Then one more short test is fair.

FAQ

Are exclusive leads always better than shared ones?

Not always. An enquiry that comes to you alone may cost more, and the label needs checking. Run both through the same sum.

The seller says one month is too short to judge. Should I agree to longer?

Ask why. They may have a point if customers take a long time to decide, as with some coaching admissions or planned treatments. Even then, you can stop buying on the end date and keep counting bookings for some weeks afterwards.

Can we keep contacting portal leads after we stop paying?

Check the agreement and the seller's written answer on who keeps the data. Even where you still hold a number, treat the permission as limited to what the person asked about, and stop messaging anyone who says no. Ask your adviser before reusing those numbers for new offers.