The short answer
Published prices for a financial adviser lead in the UK run from about £52 plus VAT for a matched enquiry to £180 for a booked appointment. None of those figures tells an advice firm what a lead costs it. The real cost is the lead price divided by the firm's own conversion rate, so at a 2 per cent conversion a £144 lead costs £7,200 for every client won.
Key takeaways
- Unbiased publishes £52 plus VAT per accepted enquiry, RMT Direct a flat £144 a lead. Both are asking prices set by the seller.
- The lead price divided by your conversion rate is the cost per client. At £144 a lead, converting 15 per cent costs £960 a client and converting 2 per cent costs £7,200.
- Advice firms reported £6.5 billion of ongoing adviser charges in 2025 against £1.5 billion of initial charges, so most of a client's worth arrives after the year they are won.
- Those firms gained 554,279 ongoing client relationships in 2025 and lost 286,874, roughly one ending for every two won.
- Since 7 February 2024 an authorised firm needs a specific permission to approve an unauthorised lead generator's promotion, and whether it holds one is on the public register.
The assumption behind almost every lead-buying decision is that a lead has a price and the job is to find a good one. Search for what a financial advice lead costs and the answer arrives inside a minute: £52 plus VAT at Unbiased, a flat £144 at RMT Direct.
The assumption is still wrong, because a lead is not a client. What a practice pays for each client it wins is the lead price divided by the share of leads that convert, and that number belongs to the firm rather than the supplier. Two UK advice firms buying identical leads at the same price can be paying £960 and £7,200 for the same outcome.
Every published price was set by somebody selling leads
Not one price on the first page of this search was published by a firm that buys leads. All were published by firms that sell them. Unbiased, a directory matching consumers to advisers, charges £52 plus VAT for each enquiry an adviser accepts. RMT Direct publishes a fixed £144 a lead against an average fund size of £180,000.
Those pages publish conversion rates too, and the footnotes matter more than the headline. RMT Direct's 15 per cent is attributed to a sample of 319 leads measured between August 2022 and October 2023 and reported by one named buyer. That is an honest record of one firm, not a rate another practice can plan on, and reading a column of sellers' numbers as a market rate is the same mistake that makes agency price guides useless.
A lead price becomes a cost only after you divide it
The published price is the smallest term in the calculation, and the one the buyer controls least. Divided by the proportion of leads that become paying clients, it moves by a factor of seven.
| Leads converted to clients | Cost per client | Still to recover after a 1% initial charge on a £180,000 case | Years of ongoing charge at 0.5% to clear it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 per cent, the rate the seller publishes | £960 | Nothing, with £840 to spare | None |
| 5 per cent | £2,880 | £1,080 | 1.2 |
| 2 per cent | £7,200 | £5,400 | 6.0 |
A bought client is an annuity, so the payback runs in years
Advice firms reported £6.5 billion of ongoing adviser charges in 2025 against £1.5 billion of initial charges, so most of what a client is worth arrives after the year they are won. The same data puts the median charge for firms billing a percentage at 1 to 3 per cent initially and 0.5 to 1 per cent a year thereafter. Three numbers therefore decide whether a lead price works: the initial charge, the ongoing charge and the number of years the relationship lasts.
The third is the one nobody quotes, and it is measurable. Retail investment adviser firms reported 554,279 new ongoing client relationships in 2025 against 286,874 that ceased, so roughly one ended for every two gained. A lead judged on the initial fee alone is judged against a fifth of what the client is worth. Judged properly, it is a relationship the practice has to still want in year six.
Before you commit to a lead volume
Find out what the arithmetic says at your own conversion rate.
Send us the price and what you convert today. Free to your firm. The agency pays us, and only if the relationship works.
Get a recommendationTwo public registers tell you whether the lead is lawful
Since 7 February 2024 an authorised firm cannot approve an unauthorised person's financial promotion unless it holds a specific permission to do so, and that permission appears on the register of every firm authorised in the UK. A lead generator's landing page inviting somebody to seek pension or investment advice is ordinarily a financial promotion. If the generator is not authorised, an authorised firm must have approved it, and that firm now needs the permission. It is fixed by rule, as with the part of a law firm's website set by its regulator rather than its design budget.
Separately, regulation 21B of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations has banned unsolicited direct marketing calls about occupational and personal pension schemes since 9 January 2019. A supplier offering pension leads generated by outbound calling is describing something a regulator can fine. And the Information Commissioner's Office is explicit about where responsibility sits when a list is bought in: “It is not enough to simply accept a third party's assurances that the information they are supplying to you is compliant.”
Is the supplier itself authorised?
The public register of authorised firms, searched on the legal name in the supplier's terms rather than its trading name.
If not, who approved the promotion, and do they hold the approver permission?
The same register. Required since 7 February 2024 and listed against the approving firm.
What were people told when they gave their details, and were you named?
The supplier's consent records. Indirect consent has to name you, or a precise category you fall inside.
How was the lead generated, and was a pension mentioned on a call?
The supplier's own description of its method. Paid search is lawful; an unsolicited pension call is not.
Has this supplier been fined, and under what name?
The published enforcement action list, checked against the legal entity rather than the brand.
An invoice with no VAT on it is not a lead with no VAT in it
Where the supplier belongs outside the UK, the buyer accounts for the tax rather than the supplier. RMT Direct prints its £144 with no VAT because the company is in Gibraltar. Under HM Revenue and Customs' place of supply rules the reverse charge applies to almost all business-to-business services bought from an overseas supplier.
That is neutral for a fully taxable business and not neutral for an advice practice, whose arranging work is exempt, so input tax is recoverable only in part. On the exempt portion £144 is closer to £172.80. Confirm it with whoever prepares your return, and treat it like any supplier price that will not resolve into a run rate: the headline is not the number that reaches your profit.
When an advice firm should not buy leads at all
Two conditions make this premature, and both are common.
- The firm does not know its own conversion rate. No supplier can supply the missing figure, and until it exists a lead price cannot be evaluated at all. Track thirty enquiries from any source through to signed engagement first, which costs nothing but a spreadsheet and a quarter
- The practice cannot service the clients it already has to the standard it wants. Bought leads arrive on somebody else's schedule, and a firm behind on annual reviews is buying an obligation rather than an asset
We are paid by the agency, so a page telling a managing partner to spend nothing this quarter costs us money. What we assess before recommending anybody, including where we decline to introduce anyone, is on our financial advice and wealth management page.
Frequently asked questions
What advice firms ask us about buying leads.
How much does a financial adviser lead cost in the UK?
Published prices run from £52 plus VAT for a matched enquiry to about £180 for a booked appointment. Every one was set by the party selling the lead, and none tells you what a client will cost, because that depends on the share of leads your firm converts.
What is a good conversion rate on bought financial advice leads?
There is no independent benchmark to hold a supplier to. The rates on lead sellers' own pages are footnoted to single samples reported by individual buyers, which measures one firm rather than the market. Measure thirty of your own enquiries through to signed engagement instead.
Are lead generation companies for financial advisers regulated?
Many are not authorised at all. A landing page inviting people to seek pension or investment advice is usually a financial promotion, so an authorised firm has to approve it, and since 7 February 2024 that has needed a specific permission visible on the public register.
Is it legal to buy pension leads generated by cold calling?
Unsolicited direct marketing calls about occupational and personal pension schemes have been banned since 9 January 2019 under regulation 21B of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, outside narrow exceptions. A supplier offering pension leads from outbound calling is describing something a regulator can fine.
Should an advice firm buy leads or generate its own enquiries?
Buying is faster and generating is cheaper per client once it works, so the choice turns on whether the firm can convert what arrives. A practice that cannot service its existing clients should fix that before paying anyone to send it more.
Sources and useful reading
- Financial Conduct Authority, the retail intermediary market data 2025, published 23 July 2026. Tables 21, 23 and 25 of the underlying data.
- Financial Conduct Authority, PS23/13, introducing a gateway for firms who approve financial promotions. Section 55NA of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, in force 7 February 2024.
- The Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2018, inserting regulation 21B, in force 9 January 2019.
- Information Commissioner's Office, collect information and generate leads, on due diligence before taking a bought list.
- HM Revenue and Customs, VAT Notice 741A, section 5, the reverse charge.
- Unbiased, published enquiry pricing and RMT Direct, published lead pricing and conversion footnotes, both cited as asking prices, not as market evidence.
This article is commercial decision support, not legal, regulatory, tax or investment advice. Supplier prices were recorded on 3 September 2026. The worked example is illustrative.