Ask most moving-company owners what's holding them back and they'll say leads. But the real problem usually isn't a shortage — it's what you're paying, who else got the same lead, and whether anyone called back before the customer booked somebody else. This guide is about buying moving leads without getting burned: what a lead actually is, the hard difference between shared and exclusive, what the math really looks like, and which providers are worth your money.
A moving lead is a prospective customer's request for a move — a name, a phone number, an origin and destination, a move date, and usually a rough size. Some come as data you follow up on yourself; some come as a live phone transfer with the customer already on the line. You either buy them from a marketplace or lead broker, or you generate your own through SEO, Google ads, and referrals. Most growing movers do a mix. The question is never just "where do I get leads" — it's "which leads close, at what cost per booked job, and can I answer them fast enough to win."
It helps to be precise about what you're actually buying, because "a lead" means different things from different providers. A data lead is a form submission — contact details plus move specifics — dropped into your inbox, your CRM, or an SMS. You do the calling. A live call transfer is a person already on the phone, screened and handed to you warm; it costs more but converts far better because there's no chasing. A listing-data or direct-mail lead isn't a routed inquiry at all — it's homeowner data you market to yourself, so the "lead" is a response you generate. And in a shared marketplace, the same form submission may be sold to several movers at once, while an exclusive lead is yours alone. Knowing which of these a provider actually sells is step one; the price only means something once you know what's behind it.
Shared vs exclusive moving leads: the one distinction that matters #
Almost every decision on this page comes back to one split. A shared lead is sold to more than one moving company — sometimes two, often four, occasionally more — and you're racing the others to the phone. An exclusive lead is sold to you and nobody else.
Owners feel this split more sharply than any other in the business. In their own words, the complaint is leads "sold to 5, sometimes 10 companies," at "$100–200 per lead," closing "at 15%." That's the shared-lead trap: cheap per lead, brutal per booked job.
The economics tell the story. Industry figures suggest shared leads run roughly $6–40 each and close at about 5–15%, while exclusive leads run about $20–100+ and close at roughly 25–50%. So the exclusive lead costs three to five times more up front — and often works out cheaper per actual booked move, because you're not paying for four leads to book one. Run the arithmetic with your own close rate before you assume the cheap leads are the cheap ones.
Neither model is automatically right. Shared leads let a new shop turn on volume fast and cheap, and if your speed-to-lead is genuinely quick you can win your share. Exclusive leads suit an operation that would rather pay more to compete with no one and close a higher fraction. Most movers end up running both, weighted toward whichever their booking numbers say pays off.
The tiebreaker is speed-to-lead. On a shared lead, whoever calls first usually wins — yet industry surveys suggest only about 38% of moving companies respond to a lead within five minutes. If you're not set up to answer in minutes, shared leads will bleed you, and that's an argument for paying up for exclusive or for feeding every lead straight into a moving CRM that fires an instant text and schedules the callback automatically.
What moving leads actually cost #
Per-lead price is the number providers advertise. Cost per booked move is the number that decides whether you make money. Industry figures put a healthy cost per booked move at roughly $120–300, and a sustainable marketing spend at about 10–15% of the move's value — so on a $2,500 job you can afford a few hundred dollars of leads to land it, but not much more.
Here's why the two numbers diverge. Suppose shared leads cost $25 and close at 10%: it takes ten leads — $250 — to book one move. Exclusive leads at $75 that close at 33% take three leads — $225 — for the same booking, and you spent far less labor chasing dead ends. The advertised price flipped once you divided by the close rate. That's the calculation to run against every provider below, using your close rate, not the vendor's.
Two more costs hide in the shared model. First, junk: invalid numbers, tire-kickers, and leads for a service you don't offer. Good providers filter these out or credit them; weak ones make you eat the loss. Second, the opportunity cost of slow follow-up — every minute a lead sits is close-rate you're giving to whoever's faster.
Junk is worth its own line because it's where a cheap lead quietly gets expensive. A provider that charges $15 a lead but sends one bad lead in four is really charging $20 for the good ones — before you count the labor your reps burned dialing dead numbers. This is why the credit and filtering policy matters as much as the sticker price. Some providers verify every lead by phone and SMS before delivery and credit invalid ones within days; some filter spam, robocalls, and out-of-area calls before they ever bill you; and at least one states flatly that all sales are final. Two providers with the same headline price can have very different real costs once you account for what share of leads you can actually work. When you compare the directory below, read the honest-note line as carefully as the price.
The moving lead providers worth knowing #
The market splits into pay-per-lead marketplaces, managed exclusive lead-gen services, home-services marketplaces, and data-plus-direct-mail platforms. We track eight providers and lay out each one's lead types, exclusive-or-shared model, and published pricing — with the honest caveats — on the moving lead providers directory. The short version:
- Network Leads — a prepaid pay-per-lead marketplace selling local and interstate leads as data or live call transfers, offered both shared and exclusive with tiered pricing (shared from $15, exclusive from $45). No contracts, and a 7-day bad-lead credit.
- Equate Media — pay-per-lead for long-distance and local, with both exclusive (from $33 local / $69 long-distance) and shared "Premium" tiers, plus human-screened phone transfers. (This is the product formerly branded MovLeads; the old movleads.com domain is dead.)
- 99 Calls — a managed, 100% exclusive lead-gen service (SEO plus Google ads) delivering real-time inbound calls; organic leads at $24.99 each, no contract.
- Movers.com — a long-running internet lead broker covering local, long-distance, international, auto transport, and storage; exclusive offered as a package feature, priced by quote.
- USA Home Listings — not routed leads but exclusive homeowner listing data plus done-for-you direct mail; 30-day free trial, no contract.
- QuoteRunner, Bark, and Angi Leads / HomeAdvisor round out the field — a quote-only SEO/PPC network, a shared credit-pack marketplace, and a shared home-services marketplace, respectively.
Full pricing tables, models, and the honest note on each sit in the providers directory.
The types of moving leads #
Not all moving leads are the same job, and the best provider for one type is often the wrong one for another. Match the lead to the moves you actually run:
- Exclusive moving leads — sold to you alone, higher cost, higher close. The providers that genuinely sell exclusive are a short list: Network Leads, 99 Calls, and Equate Media.
- Long-distance moving leads — interstate moves, higher job value and higher lead price, priced separately from local by most providers.
- Commercial moving leads — office and business relocations, a different buyer and sales cycle than residential.
- International moving leads — overseas and cross-border moves, a specialist segment offered by only a few brokers.
Should you buy leads or generate your own? #
Buying leads is the fast path — turn on spend, get inquiries this week. Generating your own is the durable one: a moving-optimized website, Google Business Profile, Local Services Ads, direct mail to new homeowners, and a referral engine off past customers. Owned channels cost more up front in time and setup, but the leads are exclusive by definition and don't disappear when you stop paying a marketplace.
Most established movers do both — buy leads to fill the board today while building owned demand for tomorrow. If you're weighing the buy-versus-build tradeoff, the how to buy moving leads guide walks through choosing a provider, avoiding junk, and setting up speed-to-lead. Either way, a bought lead and a generated lead leak the same way if follow-up is slow — so whatever you spend on leads, make sure they land in a system built to answer them.
There's a seasonal wrinkle worth planning around, too. Roughly 60–70% of all moves happen between May and September, and lead prices and competition climb right along with demand. In peak season, shared leads get split among more movers and cost more per booked job; in the off-season, an empty dispatch board is the pain, and the cheaper leads are worth chasing harder. Smart operators shift their mix through the year — leaning on owned channels and exclusive leads when competition is fiercest, and buying more shared volume when the calendar has gaps to fill.
How to buy moving leads without getting burned #
A few rules hold across every provider on this page:
- Do the cost-per-booked-move math, not the per-lead math. Divide the lead price by your real close rate before you compare providers. The cheapest lead is rarely the cheapest booking.
- Know shared from exclusive before you pay. If a provider won't say how many companies get the same lead, treat it as shared and price it accordingly.
- Check the credit policy. Bad leads are inevitable; what matters is whether you're refunded. Some providers credit invalid leads within days; at least one states plainly that all sales are final.
- Answer fast. Speed-to-lead is the single biggest lever on a shared lead. Route every lead into a CRM that texts back instantly and schedules the call.
- Start small and measure. Buy a small batch, track close rate and cost per booked move by source, then scale the providers that pay and cut the ones that don't.
The full walkthrough — where to buy, how to vet a provider, and how to set up follow-up — is in the how to buy moving leads guide. When you're ready to compare providers head-to-head, start with the providers directory.