Final expense leads cost calculator: cost per sale at your own rates

Choose a unit from our rate card, or type any price: a quote for a product we price on request, or another vendor's. Then enter five numbers from your own records: contact rate, close rate, average annual premium, first-year commission rate and chargeback allowance. Every rate field starts blank, because a default would be someone else's results.

It returns cost per contact, cost per sale, units per sale, commission per sale after your chargeback allowance and the break-even close rate, plus a month's spend if you enter units or a budget: costs and thresholds from your inputs, not a forecast of sales or income.

Our rate card, dated 2026-08-23, prices each unit below. The stage of the sale a price buys sets the contact rate you enter.

Transfers are billed under the five billing rules for live transfers, and presets as confirmed or kept appointments. Minimum orders: $2,500 to launch an exclusive campaign, $3,000 to launch interest-verified live transfers, 5 appointments or $1,250 for presets (whichever is higher), and no minimum spend on aged leads. Every term sits on the full final expense rate card.

Cost per sale is the price of one unit divided by the share of units that end in a sale, worked out in three steps:

1. Cost per contact = price per unit ÷ contact rate. Contact rate is the share of units you reach for a real conversation.
2. Cost per sale = cost per contact ÷ close rate. Close rate is the share of those conversations that end in a sale.
3. Units per sale = 1 ÷ (contact rate × close rate): how many units you buy for each sale.

Count a sale when the policy is issued and its first premium is paid, so declined and not-taken applications do not inflate your close rate. Record rates separately for each unit and source; a blended rate hides which one is working.

When a higher-priced unit costs the same per sale

The ratio of two prices shows how much better the higher-priced unit must perform to cost the same:

• Contact-verified vs exclusive web lead: the same cost per contact when your contact rate on contact-verified leads is $70 ÷ $50 = 1.4 times your web-lead rate.
• Interest-verified transfer vs exclusive web lead: if you close both at the same rate, the same cost per sale when you reach $50 ÷ $110 = 45.5% of your web leads. Reach fewer, and the transfer costs less per sale.
• Kept vs confirmed appointment: the same cost per kept appointment when $175 ÷ $225 = 77.8% of your confirmed appointments are kept. Below that share, buying kept appointments costs less.
• Pre-vetted vs interest-verified transfer: the same cost per sale when your pre-vetted close rate is $250 ÷ $110 = 2.3 times your interest-verified one (Guaranteed Issue), or $300 ÷ $110 = 2.7 times (Level/Graded). Run each tier separately; commission may differ too.

The break-even close rate is the lowest close rate at which a sale's commission, after chargebacks, covers the units it took to make that sale. Three inputs set the commission side:

• Average annual premium: the monthly premium × 12, averaged across your issued policies.
• First-year commission rate: the percentage of annual premium your contract pays in the first policy year.
• Chargeback allowance: the share of first-year commission you expect to lose to lapses and cancellations, from your own history and the chargeback terms in your carrier contracts.

Your chargeback allowance is not simply 100% minus your 13-month persistency. LIMRA's International Quality Award counts that rate in policies (the share of paid policies with any second-year premium received), while the “chargeback rules and timelines” in your carrier contracts (PIA Northeast's phrase) decide which lapses take commission back, and for how long. Lapses belong in this allowance; a lead claim with us covers objective defects only, within 72 hours.

1. Commission per sale after chargebacks = annual premium × first-year commission rate × (1 − chargeback allowance).
2. Break-even close rate = cost per contact ÷ commission per sale after chargebacks.
3. Break-even price per unit = commission per sale after chargebacks × contact rate × close rate: the most one unit can cost at your current rates.

The calculator returns the first two; work out the third before you compare quotes. Renewal commissions are left out, so the break-even rests on first-year commission alone.

Every input below except the price is an example chosen for easy arithmetic, not a benchmark, an average or our data. Replace each with your own.

1. Cost per contact: $50 ÷ 40% = $125.
2. Cost per sale: $125 ÷ 20% = $625, or 12.5 leads per sale.
3. Commission per sale after chargebacks: $600 × 100% × (1 − 15%) = $510.
4. Break-even close rate: $125 ÷ $510 = 24.5%.
5. Break-even price per lead at these rates: $510 × 40% × 20% = $40.80.

Cost per sale ($625) and commission after chargebacks ($510) meet at a 24.5% close rate, or at a $40.80 lead price with the other inputs unchanged.

The same inputs on a live transfer

An interest-verified transfer is billed only after at least 90 connected seconds with an interested prospect, so its contact rate is 100%. At $110 and the same example close rate of 20%, cost per sale is $110 ÷ 20% = $550, and the break-even close rate on billable transfers is $110 ÷ $510 = 21.6%. The two close rates are held equal only to isolate the contact stage; yours will differ.

Set the break-even close rate beside the close rate you have actually recorded on that unit:

• Recorded close rate above the break-even: at your inputs, each sale costs less than the commission it carries after chargebacks.
• Below the break-even: each sale costs more than that commission, and price, contact rate and close rate are what move it. On price, weigh aged leads, priced by age band, against exclusive web and contact-verified leads, or use a side-by-side comparison of every lead type. On contact rate for web leads, measuring contact rate over the first 48 hours, attempt by attempt, shows which calls earn their place. If contact rate drops on some outbound numbers, or on calls to one mobile network, while the rest hold, check whether those numbers carry spam labels before you blame the leads.
• Within a few points of it: a few sales flip the answer, so gather more conversations before you scale up or stop.

Sample size limits what a recorded close rate tells you. One sale moves it by 1 ÷ the number of conversations: 4 points across 25, 1 point across 100. A $3,000 order of interest-verified transfers at $110 each buys at most 27 billable transfers, so each sale in it moves the rate by at least 3.7 points. Judge a source on conversations counted, not leads bought.

The calculator does not return a range around your close rate, so work one out by hand with a 95% Wilson interval, a method the NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook sets out: (p + z²/(2n) ± z√(p(1 − p)/n + z²/(4n²))) ÷ (1 + z²/n), with p your close rate, n your conversations and z = 1.96. At the worked example's 20% close rate, 20 sales in 100 example conversations give 13.3% to 28.9%, a range that still includes its 24.5% break-even. While your range includes your break-even close rate, the sample has not yet shown which side of it the source is on.

The calculator prices units only. Adjust the price you enter, or your costs, for these:

• Targeting surcharges. County targeting carries a +10% surcharge and ZIP-level or tight-radius targeting +15%, capped at 30% combined. Enter the price after them.
• Discounts. Prepaid volume discounts (5% and 8% bands) and the 2% ACH discount lower the price you enter where they apply.
• The build on a first exclusive order. The $2,500 launch is a $500 build plus $2,000 of lead credit, which buys 40 exclusive web leads: an effective $62.50 per lead on that order. The build is waived when you prepay at least $5,000 or commit to 3 monthly lead orders of at least $2,000 each.
• Replaced leads. Leads with objective defects, such as a disconnected number, are replaced or credited on a claim within 72 hours (or your order confirmation's window), so measure contact rate on the leads you keep. No answer and no sale are not defects: see what gets replaced or credited.
• Your time and tools. Dialer, CRM, calling hours and the agents on seat, whose number sets the transfer volume your floor can absorb, sit outside the unit price. If you pay callers to work your leads, add a setter desk's monthly fee to your costs.

Send your licensed states, the unit you want and your monthly budget through the quote form.