Cost guide
What does a qualified lead actually cost?
Agency retainers. In-house SDRs. Paid ads. LinkedIn InMail. Cold email. The numbers side by side, with no rounding in your favor.
Agency retainers. In-house SDRs. Paid ads. LinkedIn InMail. Cold email. The numbers side by side, with no rounding in your favor.
These are median numbers. Your mileage varies, but the order of magnitude stays the same.
Cost-per-lead is one number. Here's what you're actually signing up for.
| Channel | Monthly cost | Setup time | Cost per click | Scales without you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cold email agency | $3,000-$10,000 | 2-4 weeks | $2-$15 | Sort of |
| In-house SDR | $6,000-$10,000 | 2-3 months | $3-$10 | No |
| Paid ads (Google/LinkedIn) | $1,000+ | 1 week | $40-$150 / lead | Yes |
| LinkedIn InMail | $99-$149 | 1 day | $35-$80 per message | No |
| DIY cold email (tools + time) | $200-$500 | 1-2 weeks | $0.15-$0.50 | No |
| distribute.you | $25 to start | 30 seconds | $4-7 | Yes. No SDR, no setup. |
The old way to run cold email required three things: a domain infrastructure (separate domains, warmed inboxes), a data provider (Apollo, Clay, or similar), and a sending tool (Instantly, Lemlist). Each costs $50-$300/month. Getting them to work together without hurting deliverability took two weeks of setup.
Then there was the time cost. Writing copy, uploading leads, managing follow-up sequences. Most founders who tried it gave up before getting results. The ones who kept going spent 5-10 hours per week on it.
distribute.you handles all of that automatically. Drop in your product URL. Set a weekly budget. The system finds the prospects, writes the emails, warms the inboxes, and sends. You get notified when someone replies positively.
Every engagement has line items that don't show up on the invoice.
No, not on your side. distribute.you sends from its own managed, warmed domains, so your main domain and its deliverability are never touched. The DIY approach means buying and warming 2-3 lookalike domains over 4-6 weeks; with distribute.you there is nothing to set up.
Agencies price in labor, tools, account management, and margin. A good rep handles 5-10 clients and spends 2-3 hours per week on your campaign. distribute.you automates what consumes that labor: prospect finding, email writing, inbox management, and sending.
Every outcome includes prospect research (finding and verifying the email), personalized copy (AI reads each prospect's site before writing), and delivery through warmed infrastructure. You pay for results, $4-7 per click, $70-250 per positive reply for a sales meeting, with no seat fee, no retainer, no separate line items for data or tooling.
For B2B with long sales cycles, rarely. Paid search CPLs for B2B SaaS average $40-$200 depending on keyword competition. LinkedIn ads run $6-$15 per click with low conversion rates, putting CPL at $80-$300. Cold email's advantage is direct personalization with no platform tax on distribution.
Yes, and they complement each other well. Paid ads generate inbound intent signals. Cold email targets the same companies proactively before they search. Some of the highest-converting sequences are triggered when someone from a target account visits your site and then receives a cold email the same week.
Yes. Pause or stop any campaign immediately from your dashboard. Unused budget stays in your account for future campaigns. There is no minimum commitment.
No retainer. No 30-day ramp. No account manager to brief. First campaign runs in 30 seconds.
Get $25 free creditsInMail runs $35–80 per message and caps at 50/month. Cold email has no per-message cost and no cap.
Read the comparison →How to find your first 10 paying customers without relying on organic traffic or waiting for word of mouth.
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