Pay per lead vs. retainer
You do not have to pick between these. Your business already has.
Most comparisons of these two models argue about which is better. That is the wrong argument, because the fit is already settled by how your customers buy. If a person at your business closes the inquiry, pay-per-lead is the one built for you. If your customers buy on their own, managed advertising is. This page will tell you which, in about a minute.
Does a person at your business close the inquiry, or does the customer buy on their own?
Two models, two different businesses.
These are not two ways of buying the same thing, and they are not tiers of one service. They exist because businesses convert customers in two fundamentally different ways — and yours already works one of those ways.
We build the campaign, write the ads, carry the ad spend, and deliver real people who asked to hear from you. You pay for the leads — not the advertising it took to find them.
- You define what qualifies before anything launches
- The cost moves with what you receive, not with a calendar
- Three tiers: a lead, a booked appointment, or a live transfer
- No ad budget of your own to manage
Who it fitsContractors, clinics, law firms, insurance and mortgage agencies, salons, med spas, gyms — anywhere a conversation wins the work, including appointment-booking businesses.
Campaigns built for how your customers actually decide — capture the ones searching, create demand in the ones who are not, bring back the ones who left. A monthly management fee plus your own ad budget.
- The campaign itself is the product, built and run as one thing
- You own the accounts’ results and your customer data, exportable
- Measured in orders and covers, not impressions
- Spend scales up or down as you decide
Who it fitsRestaurants, retail, e‑commerce, hospitality — businesses where the sale closes itself and there is no inquiry for anyone to work.
Side by side.
What actually differs, in the terms that matter when you are deciding.
| What differs | Pay per lead | Managed advertising |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | Qualified inquiries, priced per lead | A campaign, built and operated for you |
| What you pay for | The leads that reached you | A management fee, plus your ad budget |
| Who carries the ad spend | We do | You do — and you control it |
| Where the risk sits | Mostly with us: no leads, no invoice | Shared: the spend runs whether or not a month performs |
| What you control | The qualification standard and the filters | Budget, creative direction and the accounts |
| How it is measured | Leads, appointments or transfers delivered | Orders, covers, revenue — your own units |
| Best when | A person on your side closes the sale | The customer completes the purchase alone |
What the table does not show is the rate. It is quoted for your market and written into your agreement before you decide anything — never taken off a menu, and never the thing that decides which of the two you are. How pricing works.
Any word in that table you would rather have defined plainly — qualified lead, live transfer, retainer, attribution — is in the glossary.
The honest trade-offs.
Both models have a real cost. Anyone selling you one without naming the downside is selling, not advising.
We own the campaign, the creative and the accounts, because we carry the spend. If hands-on control of the ad account matters more to you than not carrying the risk, say so on the first call — it may mean we are not the right shop for you, and we would both rather know that early. What it would not mean is moving you to managed advertising instead: that model is built around customers who buy on their own, so it has nothing to offer a business whose work starts with an inquiry.
What your area produces depends on your market and your filters. We talk in ramps and ranges and adjust once real numbers exist. A precise weekly volume promised before anything runs is a number someone made up.
The budget goes out whether or not a given month performs. That is the trade that comes with your business type — and it is a real risk. A business that cannot absorb a slow month should say so on the first call. Pay-per-lead would not solve it either — that model is built around a person closing the inquiry, and it has nothing to work with when the customer buys alone. Better said out loud in the first fifteen minutes than discovered in month three.
Campaigns learn. The first weeks are the machine finding your market, and judging it on week one is the most common way a good campaign gets killed early.
What if you are somewhere in between?
Some businesses genuinely contain both shapes — and then they run both models, one per shape. That is not upgrading or mixing tiers — it is two different parts of a business, each served by the model built for it. Three cases we see often:
The dining room sells itself — managed advertising. Private events and catering are inquiries a person closes, so that part runs pay-per-lead. One business, two shapes, each served the only way it can be.
Retail orders close themselves; wholesale accounts are a conversation. Same split, same reasoning — and the same absence of a choice in either half.
Then that is the first call, and it is fifteen minutes. If the honest answer is that neither model fits you well right now, we will say so — we publish who we are not for.
We could not upsell you if we tried. Which model fits is a property of your business, not a preference either of us holds — so there is no version of this call where we talk you into the pricier one. The question at the top of the page is the whole test, and you can answer it yourself.
“It’s nice to see people walking in and asking for the promotions that are being advertised. It gives us feedback on our marketing.”
A restaurant: the customer buys on their own, so there is no inquiry for anyone to work — which is what makes managed advertising the fit, rather than anyone’s preference. Read the client stories · what we count and publish.
Straight answers.
What people ask once they know which one they are.
Which one is cheaper?
It is not really a head-to-head, because only one of the two is built for your business — so the other one’s price never enters into it. The number that is worth knowing is the most you can afford to pay for an inquiry, whichever model you fall into: the free calculator works it out in about ninety seconds, and then any quote, ours or anyone else’s, can be judged against your own figure.
What happens when a lead is bad?
You do not pay for it — and what counts as bad is written down before anything runs, so it is never an argument about feelings. Returnable: invalid or disconnected contact details, an exact duplicate, or a record that misses the qualification criteria you set at kickoff. Not returnable: the person did not answer, changed their mind, did not buy, or did not keep the appointment — those are sales outcomes rather than defects, and a seller who credits them is pricing that into what you pay in the first place. You file the return on the credit request form with the lead’s reference number and the evidence, inside seventy-two hours of delivery unless your agreement sets a different window; we answer within five business days with a credit against future fees or a replacement. Two things worth knowing up front: an invoice stays payable while a request is open, and returns are capped at ten percent of a month’s volume. That cap is a buffer, not a target — if you are anywhere near it the qualification criteria are wrong, and fixing them is our job, not yours.
Can we switch to the other model later?
Not as an upgrade or a downgrade — these are not two rungs on a ladder, they are two different builds. The only thing that moves a business from one model to the other is the business itself changing shape: adding a sales team that closes inquiries, or dropping one. If that happens, we revisit it and put the new terms in writing before anything changes.
Do you do both for the same client?
Only when the business genuinely contains both shapes — the restaurant with a private-events arm is the clearest example, and then each part runs the model that fits it. What we will not do is add the second model to a business that has one shape, because it makes the invoice bigger.
Who owns the leads and the data?
Your customers and your numbers are yours, exportable, always. The machine that produces them — the ad accounts, the pixel, the creative — is ours to run, and that is stated plainly in the agreement rather than left to be discovered.
What about a website, or software we need built?
That is neither model — it is project work, quoted on scope with a defined finish line. Plenty of clients do a build first, then run whichever of the two models their business falls into to feed it.
Fifteen minutes settles it.
Tell us how your customers actually buy and we will tell you which one you are — including if the honest answer is neither.
