Every lead generation pitch sounds roughly the same: verified leads, your ICP, fast turnaround. The pitch deck rarely tells you what happens when the list is wrong, who checked the emails, or what "verified" actually means to that specific vendor.
This is the list of questions that actually separates vendors, organized by what they reveal.
Start with the definition of "lead"
Before price, before turnaround time, ask this one first: what exactly do you deliver as a lead?
There are at least four different products hiding behind that word:
- A name and a company, unverified. - A verified email address, nothing else confirmed. - A person matched to your ICP criteria, with a written reason, contact unverified. - A person matched to your ICP, verified as reachable, with sourcing evidence attached.
These cost different amounts to produce and they're worth different amounts to you. A vendor who can't answer this precisely, or answers with marketing language instead of a specific data structure, is probably selling the cheapest version at the price of the most expensive one.
Ask what happens when a lead is wrong
This question does more work than any other on this list: if I reject a lead because it doesn't fit, what happens?
Three possible answers, in order of how much they tell you:
1. "We don't do refunds or replacements" — the vendor's incentive stops at delivery. Quality control is entirely your problem after the invoice. 2. "We'll look into it" — better, but vague enough to mean nothing under pressure. 3. "You get the credit back, no discussion needed" — the vendor's incentive continues past delivery. This is the only answer that makes their interest and yours point the same direction.
Get the answer in writing before you pay, not after the first bad batch.
Ask where the data comes from, specifically
Not "we use multiple sources." The actual sources.
If the answer is a single static database, ask how often it's refreshed. Stale data is the most common reason B2B lists underperform — a hiring signal from four months ago, a funding round that already closed, a title that changed when the person got promoted.
If the answer involves live web sourcing, ask what happens when a signal can't be verified. A good process rejects unverifiable claims. A bad one guesses and hopes.
Neither model is automatically better. What matters is whether the vendor can describe their own process accurately, in specifics, without reaching for words like "proprietary" as a substitute for an answer.
Ask how they price, and why
Three models exist: hourly or retainer, per-lead, and hybrid. Each one tells you something about where the vendor's incentive sits.
Retainer pricing means the vendor gets paid whether the month was good or not. Ask what happens in a slow month specifically — does the fee change, does the scope change, or does it just become your problem.
Per-lead pricing means the vendor only gets paid for units that meet the definition you agreed on in the first question. This is usually a better incentive match, but only if the definition was tight. A loose definition turns per-lead pricing into per-name pricing with extra steps.
Ask for the exact price per unit and what's excluded from it. "Starting at" pricing usually means the real number depends on constraints you haven't been told yet.
Ask what a bad month looks like, and ask early
Every vendor has an average month and a bad month. Only some of them will tell you about the bad one before you sign anything.
A useful version of this question: "Tell me about a client relationship that didn't work out, and why." The answer tells you more about how they handle friction than any case study will. Vendors who can only describe successes either haven't had a real client relationship yet or aren't willing to be honest about the ones that struggled.
Ask who owns the output
If you stop working with this vendor in six months, what do you keep? The list of leads already delivered should be an easy yes. The sourcing logic, the sequences, the account mapping — less obvious, and worth asking about directly rather than assuming.
This matters more with retainer models, where a lot of the value sits in institutional knowledge the vendor built up about your business. If none of that transfers, you're renting a relationship, not building an asset.
What this looks like from our side
We price per verified lead delivered — a name, title, and email that's been checked for deliverability, matched against the ICP you define, with a written reason for the match. Reject one that doesn't fit and the credit returns automatically, no ticket required.
Sourcing runs through automated agents rather than a static list, refreshed continuously rather than on a quarterly cycle. What that produces, and where it falls short, is on the pricing page along with the actual unit price.
If you want to see the answers to these questions applied rather than just stated, start a run — no card, no call.