Real estate lead generation companies give Realtors a shortcut to the closing table by generating leads for them. To help you choose a company that can help double your gross commission income (GCI) this year, we used our team’s combined 40-plus years of real estate experience to compare dozens of companies and find the best of the best. We evaluated pricing, features, lead quality, lead types, whether their leads are high funnel or low funnel, and exclusivity. We also included links to our deep-dive reviews so you can learn more about each one.
So grab a cup of coffee, turn off your notifications, and check out our picks for the best real estate lead generation companies for 2023:
The 8 Best Real Estate Lead Generation Companies for 2023
Company | Best For |
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Market Leader | Exclusive leads and affordable social media leads |
CINC | Hyperlocal leads |
zBuyer | Affordable leads with no contract |
SmartZip | Seller leads |
Catalyze AI | Exclusive inherited property leads |
REDX | Prospecting leads |
Real Geeks | Most affordable all-in-one lead generation system |
Zillow Premier Agent | Buyer leads |
Best Overall Real Estate Lead Generation Company for 2023: Market Leader
- Pricing for 2023: $189 + $6-$30+ per lead
- Lead Types: Buyer and seller leads
- Exclusive Leads?: Yes
- Contract Required: 6 months
- Best Features: Exclusive lead guarantee, affordable social media leads, basic CRM, automated nurturing tools
Why We Chose Market Leader
Market Leader clinched the top spot in our rankings again this quarter because of their exclusive lead guarantee and their new Network Boost program that offers affordable top-of-funnel social media leads and automated nurturing tools. It might not have the bells and whistles that competitors like Real Geeks, Chime, or BoomTown offer, but since Market Leader’s customer relationship manager (CRM) and nurturing tools are a fraction of the price, we think it’s a better choice for most agents. If you just want affordable leads and basic but effective tools to nurture them, Market Leader should be at the top of your list.
Here’s a quick breakdown of why we think Market Leader’s exclusive lead guarantee and Network Boost’s affordable leads and automated nurturing tools can be game changers for your business this year:
Market Leader Pros & Cons
Market Leader Pros | Market Leader Cons |
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Who Should Use Market Leader?
We think Market Leader is perfect for agents who want affordable leads and effective but basic tools to nurture them. Of course, like all internet leads, the money is in the follow-up. You’ll need some basic lead nurturing skills to get the most from Market Leader. So before you sign up for Market Leader or any lead generation company, take the time to read Beverly Ruffner’s lead nurturing guide: How to Build Rapport With Inbound Leads Quickly (+ Scripts)
How Market Leader Generates Real Estate Leads
To generate real estate leads, Market Leader takes the ad agency approach, placing targeted ads in places your prospects are already spending their time (Facebook and Google). These ads direct seller prospects to Market Leader’s landing page and HouseValues.com, and buyer leads to a personally branded, IDX search-enabled site.
Once a lead gives their information, it’s automatically populated in the Market Leader CRM, and then you take over with nurturing and conversion.
Market Leader Review (2023): Pricing, Features, Pros & Cons
Best Lead Generation Company for Hyperlocal Leads: CINC
- Pricing for 2023: Starting at $899 per month for solo agents, $1,299 for teams
- Lead Types: Buyer and seller leads
- Exclusive Leads?: Yes
- Contract Required: No
- Best Features: Highly customizable advertising strategy generates higher quality leads, advanced AI lead nurturing tools, behavioral messaging, home valuation tool, equity tool
Why We Chose CINC
With its sleek and stylish IDX websites, advanced CRM, behavioral messaging, and artificial intelligence (AI) texting tool trained by top-producing agents, CINC is clearly a top-shelf lead generation platform with a price tag to match. But when it comes to actually generating leads and getting them to the closing table, we believe CINC is light years ahead of similarly priced rivals like BoomTown. Seriously. It’s not even close. Here’s why: CINC launched in 2011 with a laser-like focus on one simple strategy: drive the highest quality leads possible to agents and teams.
Here’s how we believe CINC’s custom hyperlocal advertising strategy and advanced customer relationship manager (CRM) and AI nurturing tools live up to that lofty promise of better leads:
CINC Pros & Cons
CINC Pros | CINC Cons |
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Who Should Use CINC?
CINC is ideal for solo agents or teams who work in luxury markets, or those who have the money to spend on a high-end lead generation system.
How CINC Generates Real Estate Leads
Like most companies on our list, CINC uses a combination of pay-per-click (PPC) ads on Google, Facebook, and Instagram to generate buyer and seller leads. However, instead of only advertising by county or ZIP code, CINC targets hyperlocal leads in specific neighborhoods, school districts, or even gated communities, depending on the preferences of the agent. They also offer Facebook retargeting ads to stay top of mind with leads who have already visited your website.
Best Lead Generation Company for Affordable Leads With No Contract: zBuyer
- Pricing for 2023: Starting at $12 per lead; minimum spend of $400 per month
- Lead Types: Buyer and seller leads
- Exclusive Leads?: No
- Contract Required: No
- Best Features: Affordable leads, no yearly contract, free prospecting leads, mobile app, bad lead replacement, easily adjustable ad spend, Facebook mastermind group with 5,000 agents
Why We Chose zBuyer
If you just want affordable, high-quality leads without the expense and velvet handcuffs of CRMs, marketing tools, and a long-term contract, try zBuyer. zBuyer sticks to the old-school “just give me the leads!” strategy that so many agents ask us for. Here are the top three benefits we think you’ll get from zBuyer:
zBuyer Pros & Cons
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Who Should Use zBuyer?
Thanks to its scaled-down, month-to-month approach, zBuyer is ideal for newer agents who just want to buy leads without paying for expensive CRMs or IDX websites. More experienced agents who are dedicated to their CRM and don’t want or need another one can also get an excellent return on investment (ROI) from this company.
How zBuyer Generates Real Estate Leads
zBuyer uses cutting-edge analytics to uncover early indications of interest in selling or buying. The company offers targeted potential sellers a chance to discover their home’s worth and potentially a cash offer. Buyer leads are captured through the company’s site, HousingNow.com.
Potential leads must confirm their interest at several points along the way, verifying their intent—which results in higher conversion rates. zBuyer then provides the agent with the lead’s contact information in real time via the zBuyer app, email, and your customer relationship manager (CRM) of choice. While the leads aren’t exclusive, zBuyer says they work hard to “limit their exposure.” All in all, zBuyer is a low-cost, low-risk option, with excellent customer service and a strong lead generation strategy.
zBuyer Review: Lead Generation That Could Boost Your Business
Best Lead Generation Company for Seller Leads: SmartZip
- Pricing for 2023: Starting at $500 per month; average spend of $1,000 per month
- Lead Types: Seller leads
- Exclusive Leads?: No
- Contract Required: 12 months
- Best Features: Predictive analytics, smart CRM, direct mail, home valuation landing pages, CMA tool, CheckIn app
Why We Chose SmartZip
SmartZip’s near-magical ability to predict likely sellers—and their suite of marketing tools to nurture and convert them—made them our clear choice for seller leads in 2023. Here’s a quick breakdown of the two biggest benefits we think you’ll get from SmartZip:
SmartZip Pros & Cons
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Who Should Use SmartZip?
Experienced listing agents will likely see the biggest benefit from SmartZip, but any agent who takes the time to learn how to nurture seller leads for the long haul can also do well with the platform.
How SmartZip Generates Real Estate Leads
SmartZip combs through consumer data (from places like credit card companies), market data (from places like your MLS), and demographic data, and predicts which homeowners in your targeted region are most likely to sell.
Realtors who sign up with SmartZip immediately get access to the SmartZip CRM, populated with “Smart Data” for your areas. Essentially, this is a list of all the property owners in your targeted area, ranked by how likely they are to sell their home in the next year and a half.
Armed with this information, you can focus your outreach on only the most likely sellers, saving you time and money on marketing efforts and making your lead conversations more meaningful and fruitful.
Not Sure SmartZip Is Right for You? Try Offrs
Want access to the same data SmartZip uses but also need buyer leads and a suite of a la carte marketing tools? Offrs is a great option. Check out our deep-dive review of Offrs below to learn more.
Offrs Review 2023: Pricing, Features, Pros & Cons
Best Real Estate Lead Generation Company for Exclusive Inherited Property Leads: Catalyze AI
- Pricing for 2023: Starting at $360 per month for 30 leads
- Lead Types: Seller leads
- Exclusive Leads?: No
- Contract Required: Yes
- Best Features: Exclusive inheritance leads that are highly motivated to sell, software that identifies leads before competitors, month-to-month contract
Why We Chose Catalyze AI
Catalyze AI took the crown for best inheritance leads for one simple reason. They are the only company using predictive analytics and AI technology to identify highly motivated inheritance leads before they end up in probate court. They can also uncover inherited properties in trusts—something competitors like US Probate Leads and All The Leads can’t do. That means you can start marketing to highly motivated sellers before they end up getting sold as leads to other companies. Since so many agents are desperate for listings these days, getting there first gives you a massive advantage over the competition.
Catalyze AI Pros & Cons
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Who Should Use Catalyze AI?
Like SmartZip, experienced listing agents will see the biggest benefits from Catalyze AI. Newer agents might have trouble with the long conversion time and complexity of the probate process, but with a little training, they can make it work too.
How Catalyze AI Generates Real Estate Leads
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people inherit properties. Catalyze AI helps sort through more than 400 million data points to narrow these properties down to excellent leads—so excellent that Catalyze AI estimates this market represents $77 billion in property value each year.
10 Predictive Analytics Companies Real Estate Agents Need to Know About
Best Lead Generation Company for Prospecting Leads: REDX
- Pricing for 2023: Starting at $49.99 per month
- Lead Types: Seller leads
- Exclusive Leads?: No
- Contract Required: Month to month
- Best Features: Verified leads, multi-line auto-dialer, scripts and objection handlers, Vortex CRM, ad creation tools
Why We Chose Catalyze AI
With pricing starting at just $49.99 per month, REDX was our clear choice for most affordable lead generation company for 2023. If you just want leads and are willing to invest your time instead of your money, REDX might be your golden ticket to double your GCI this year. With REDX, you can choose between multiple lead types and use their tools, training, and scripts to convert them to clients. Even better, all of the leads REDX offers are seller leads. If you want to become a listing agent and are willing to pick up the phone and call them, REDX gives you the best bang for your buck.
REDX Pros & Cons
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Who Should Use REDX?
REDX is ideal for agents who want to target seller leads at an affordable price, but it’ll work well for anyone who is willing to put in the work to learn how to cold call. The included scripts will help, but it can take a few weeks of daily cold calling to see results. This platform requires more dedication than others on our list, but the results are worth it.
How REDX Generates Real Estate Leads
Instead of waiting for leads, REDX flips the script with an outbound real estate lead generation system, putting contact information (and the power to make connections) into the hands of agents, teams, and brokers.
REDX users choose the lead types (such as expired listings, FSBOs, and preforeclosures, to name a few) they want to target, and REDX provides contact information. With a constantly updated system, you’ve always got a fresh list of leads in your area so you can decide how much time you want to spend reaching out, following up, and converting them into clients.
REDX Review: Why Smart Realtors Use REDX & Power Dialer
Most Affordable All-in-One Lead Generation Platform: Real Geeks
- Pricing for 2023: Starting at $299 per month
- Lead Types: Buyer and seller leads
- Exclusive Leads?: Yes
- Contract Required: 12 months
- Best Features: IDX website, sophisticated CRM, Facebook ads tool, home valuation tool, market report landing pages, automated email drips, AI chatbot
Why We Chose Real Geeks
We chose Real Geeks as our top pick for all-in-one lead generation platform for one simple reason. It comes jam-packed with the same bleeding-edge lead generation, marketing, and nurturing tools other platforms offer at a price individual agents can actually afford. You get a sleek IDX website designed for conversion, a sophisticated CRM, automated drip campaigns and texting, top-shelf training and customer support, and even a behavioral marketing tool called Reactive Responses that can give Zurple a run for its money.
Real Geeks Pros & Cons
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Who Should Use Real Geeks?
Real Geeks is ideal for any agent who wants a sophisticated IDX website and CRM but doesn’t have the budget for pricier platforms like CINC or BoomTown.
How Real Geeks Generates Real Estate Leads
Real Geeks generates leads using a combination of Google and Bing PPC ads to drive seller leads to home valuation landing pages, or Facebook ads to drive buyer leads to an IDX website. You can also generate leads yourself with their platform using the Facebook Marketing tool to simplify the process of creating Facebook ads and save some money. Real Geeks users can also drive traffic to their IDX websites or landing pages through search engine optimization (SEO) or social media to generate leads.
Real Geeks Review: An In-depth Look at Features & Pricing
Best Lead Generation Company for Buyer Leads: Zillow Premier Agent
- Pricing for 2023: Starting at $300 per month
- Lead Types: Primarily buyer leads
- Exclusive Leads?: No
- Contract Required: No
- Best Features: Millions of buyers start their home search on the platform, warmer leads than some competitors, behavioral insights on buyers
Why We Chose Real Geeks
Agents love to complain about it, but when it comes to generating buyer leads, Zillow Premier Agent is in a class of its own. In 2023 the platform accounted for a mind-boggling 44% of all real estate traffic online. Love them or hate them, the cold hard truth is that most of your future buyers will be on Zillow. It’s not a matter of if, but when. But we didn’t pick Zillow as the best source for buyer leads just because they happen to dominate the market. Here is a closer look at the three main benefits we think you’ll get from buying leads on Zillow:
Zillow Premier Agent Pros & Cons
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Who Should Use Zillow Premier Agent?
Zillow Premier Agent is a good platform for newer agents who just want to work buyer leads without getting locked into long-term contracts.
How Zillow Premier Agent Generates Real Estate Leads
Zillow sells display advertising next to listings in specific ZIP codes to its clients (known as Premier Agents). Zillow transfers leads to the Zillow CRM or into whatever CRM you’re using, and the nurturing and conversion is up to you.
Is Zillow Premier Agent Worth the Cost?
Real Estate Lead Generation Companies FAQs
What are real estate lead generation companies?
Real estate lead generation companies leverage technology, advertising skills, and professional staff to generate leads for Realtors, teams, and brokerages. The most common way these companies generate leads is by placing ads on social media platforms and search engines to capture a buyer or seller’s contact information. They then sell this contact information to real estate agents who work to convert them into clients.
There are three main categories of real estate lead generation companies:
- Full-service lead generation companies that run all advertising, prequalifying, and lead nurturing campaigns for you.
- Companies that only provide lead generation websites, CRMs, and other tools to help you generate leads on your own.
- Companies that just sell leads with no websites, CRM, or nurturing tools.
Regardless of which kind of lead generation company you choose to hire, the goal is the same: to fill your database with leads.
How much do real estate leads cost?
In 2023, real estate leads cost anywhere from $5 to $100 each when purchased from a lead generation company. Since solo Realtors only close a small percentage of the leads they buy, most pay between $300 and $1,000 per month for leads. Teams and brokerages using the lead team model often pay $5,000 or more per month to purchase enough leads for their agents.
Here is a quick breakdown of the seven factors that influence the price of leads:
- How quickly the lead needs to buy or sell a home
- The cost of software and services that lead generation companies bundle with their leads
- Whether the lead is exclusive or non-exclusive
- The price point of the home the lead is trying to buy or sell
- The state, city, and neighborhood the lead is being sold in
- Whether or not the company prequalifies the lead
- The number of other agents competing for the same lead
What are exclusive leads?
An exclusive lead is a buyer or seller that a lead generation company sells to only one agent. Of course, this doesn’t guarantee that the lead has not already been contacted by, or worse, is already working with another agent. It also doesn’t guarantee the lead is not being sold to multiple agents by other lead generation companies. It just means the individual company selling the lead is not selling it to other agents. This is a crucial distinction that too many agents miss.
Some lead generation companies actually take the time to prequalify each exclusive lead they sell to understand their real estate goals, verify their contact information is correct, and make sure they are not already working with another agent. As you might imagine, these companies charge much higher prices than those that sell unverified leads.
Is it better to buy high-funnel or low-funnel leads?
I recommend agents buy a mixture of high-funnel and low-funnel leads to grow their businesses. Here’s why: High-funnel leads might not need to transact for six to 12 months, while low-funnel leads might need to buy or sell a home much faster. Does this mean low-funnel leads are better than high-funnel leads? Absolutely not. In fact, most experienced agents prefer high-funnel leads because there’s less competition. This gives the agent an opportunity to be the first agent these leads talk to—a crucial advantage in today’s slower market. However, since low-funnel leads will get you to the closing table faster, it’s important to have them in your database too, so you can generate income while waiting for your high-funnel leads to warm up.
That said, your optimal ratio of high-funnel to low-funnel leads may depend on your experience as an agent. If you’re a newer agent, we recommend buying more low-funnel leads. Yes, they are more expensive, but since you won’t have a large database of leads to nurture or referrals to work like experienced agents do, low-funnel leads will help you generate income and experience quickly. Experienced agents have the luxury of buying more affordable high-funnel leads since they are far more likely to have large databases filled with leads and are far more likely to get referrals.
How do most Realtors get leads?
Most (successful) real estate agents diversify their lead generation so that their business doesn’t live or die by a single source. Paid lead generation, referrals and repeat business, and organic social marketing are some great examples of where real estate agents get leads.
Having a plan for your overall real estate lead generation strategy is important. If you need help with this, make sure to check out our article on creating a custom real estate lead generation plan. It even has some useful templates to get you started.
Are real estate lead generation companies worth it?
If you can get a high enough return on your investment, paid lead generation strategies are absolutely worth it. Think about it: If someone told you that you could earn a $15,000 commission by writing a $5,000 check, you’d do it, right? Assuming the number of hours you need to put in to get that commission won’t be worth more than $10,000 of work, the numbers pencil out.
What’s a good price per lead in real estate?
In most markets, the maximum price a real estate agent should be comfortable spending per lead is $200. I know, that seems high, but do a little mental math with me, and I’ll show you it’s not.
Let’s say you get 10 leads a week from a real estate lead generation company, and one of them turns into a client. Now, let’s assume you’re converting 75% of those clients into sales. This means that you’re closing three transactions every month as a result of 40 total leads.
For 40 leads a month, you’re paying $8,000 (40 x $200). With the typical home selling for more than $300,000, those three sales are grossing you $27,000 in commission income (presuming a 3% side). That nets you $19,000 before splits and taxes.
Of course, this price changes based on your conversion rates, the typical sale price of a home in your market, and your typical commission. But for most agents, $200 per lead is a great benchmark.
Methodology: How We Chose the Best Real Estate Lead Generation Companies for 2023
To evaluate the real estate lead generation companies in this article, we relied on our team’s 40-plus years of experience in real estate. We also looked at the following criteria that we know from experience are important for choosing a lead generation company:
Pricing
When choosing a lead generation company, it’s crucial to understand exactly what you’re paying for. For example, many companies we looked at offered low monthly fees, but never mentioned that leads weren’t included in that cost.
This is why pricing was the first criterion we used to evaluate our picks. We looked at the average price per lead for both buyer and seller leads, monthly ad management fees, minimum required ad spend, onboarding fees, and pricing for mandatory tools like CRMs, IDX websites, and automated lead nurturing.
Features
Almost all of the companies we looked at offered CRMs, IDX websites, automated lead nurturing, AI chatbots, or in some cases, all four. Before choosing a company, it’s crucial to understand that you cannot purchase leads from most of these companies without paying for these tools. These all-in-one lead generation systems can cost as much as $1,000 per month—and that’s often without leads.
Since most lead generation companies today won’t sell you leads without bundling them together with other tools, we evaluated the tools they offered. Switching to a new CRM or IDX website just to get leads can get expensive (not to mention the logistical hassle). We made sure they were worth the money and effort. For example, if a company offered an IDX website, we evaluated the design quality, lead capture, and other features.
Lead Quality
We also considered the quality of leads each service provided. While lead quality can be tricky to measure, we evaluated each company’s reputation in the industry, how they generate and qualify leads, our own experience closing leads, and reviews from active Realtors and brokers. Of course, since so many new agents make the mistake of buying leads they don’t have the skills to convert, we tried to only look at reviews from experienced agents and brokers and agents we know personally who have bought leads from these companies.
Lead Type
Since new agents primarily work buyer leads and more experienced agents work sellers, we tried to include companies that offer both buyer and seller leads as well as companies that specialize in seller leads.
High-funnel vs Low-funnel Leads
Another important factor to consider when buying leads is where they are in the sales funnel. Since we know agents need a healthy mix of high-funnel and low-funnel leads to grow their businesses, we chose companies that offer both as well as companies like Catalyze AI that specialize in high-funnel leads.
Exclusive vs Non-exclusive Leads
The last criteria we used to evaluate the companies we looked at was whether or not they offered exclusive leads. While exclusive leads are often only exclusive with the company you buy them from, they are still easier to convert than non-exclusive leads.
Bringing It All Together
Did we miss a real estate lead generation company you want to learn more about? Have experiences with the ones we’ve selected? Comment below!