The best way to find B2B leads depends on how many you need each month, how many hours you can spend, and how much a wrong contact costs you. Below about 20 leads a month, referrals and hand-built lists win. Past about 100, doing it by hand stops making sense, and you are choosing between a database and a worker that finds buyers by name.
That is the short answer. The longer one is a cost per usable lead for five methods at two volumes, 50 and 200 leads a month, with the assumptions written out so you can replace them with your own. A "usable" lead is the right person, at a company that fits, with an email that works today. Every method produces some leads that are not usable, and that gap is where the money goes.
What best depends on: volume, budget and time
Three inputs drive every result below. How many leads you work in a month. What you pay in cash. And what your hour is worth, because hand-built lists are free in cash and expensive in time. For the examples I value an hour at $40. If you charge clients $150 an hour, your hand-built list is far more expensive than it looks; if your time is truly free this month, it changes the answer.
The cost formula is the same for every method: (monthly cash + minutes per lead x number of leads / 60 x $40) divided by (number of leads x usable rate). Two inputs vary by method and decide the winner: minutes of your time per lead, and the share that is usable. Both are things you can measure in an afternoon, and I show how at the end.
Five ways to find B2B leads, compared
Assumptions, labeled as such. Replace them with your own quotes and your own test results.
- Buy a database subscription: $100 a month for up to 300 contacts; 1 minute of your time to check each one; 75 percent usable.
- Build by hand from Google Maps, company websites and LinkedIn: $0; 8 minutes per lead; 90 percent usable, because you check as you go.
- Ask for referrals: $0; 30 minutes per lead (asking, thanking, following up); 100 percent usable, but you will not get 50 a month.
- Buy a list: $300 for 5,000 rows, spread over 6 months because lists go stale, so $50 a month; half a minute of filtering per lead; 35 percent usable.
- Use a worker that finds buyers by name: Rocketship's Launch is $24.99 a month for 50 leads, Frontier is $79 for 200; half a minute to review each lead; 80 percent usable.
Cost per usable lead at 50 and at 200 a month
| Method | At 50 leads a month | At 200 leads a month |
|---|---|---|
| Database subscription | ($100 + $33) / 37.5 usable = about $3.56 | ($100 + $133) / 150 = about $1.56 |
| By hand | $267 / 45 = about $5.93 | $1,067 / 180 = about $5.93 |
| Referrals | $20 each, but not reachable | Not reachable |
| Bought list | ($50 + $17) / 17.5 = about $3.81 | ($50 + $67) / 70 = about $1.67 |
| Worker that finds buyers | ($24.99 + $17) / 40 = about $1.04 | ($79 + $67) / 160 = about $0.91 |
Read the table for its shape, not its decimals. Hand-building costs the same per lead at any volume, because your time scales with it. A database gets cheaper as you use more of it. A bought list looks cheap per lead but only if the 35 percent usable guess holds, and it carries a risk the table cannot show: sending to stale addresses raises your bounce rate and can damage the sender reputation of your own domain. The worker comes out lowest here because the assumptions give it the least review time per lead; if your own review takes 2 minutes a lead, add about $1.25 to each figure. Referrals are the cheapest per lead and cannot reach volume. These are illustrations, and a 20-row test (below) replaces my guesses with yours.
How accurate the contact data is
Accuracy hides in two places. A contact can be wrong when you get it, or it can be right and then go out of date, since people change jobs. A bought list is the oldest data you can buy. A database is refreshed on the vendor's schedule. Your own hand-built list is as fresh as your last check. A worker that looks people up at the moment you ask is as current as its sources.
The lesson is to measure, not trust. See lead data you can check before paying for the checks, and how much a lead costs for a small business for the wider cost picture. A related look at the tools themselves is lead generation software for small business.
Which one fits fewer than 50 leads a month
Start with referrals and a hand-built list. At 20 leads a month, hand-building costs about $107 of your time (20 leads at 8 minutes each), and it forces you to look at each company, which sharpens who your buyer really is. Add a database only when your own research is the thing slowing you down. How to find B2B leads covers the hand-built method step by step.
Which one fits 200 or more
Above 100 a month, hand-building takes more than a day a week. A database or a worker is the sensible choice, and the question becomes what happens after the lead is found. A database gives you contacts and leaves sending, reading replies and follow-up to other tools; a worker like Rocketship's finds the buyer, emails from your own Gmail, follows up and books the meeting, so the lead and the next step live in one place. If you also need a sender, see best cold email software for what to check. Be wary of a bought list at this volume unless a sample of 20 shows at least 70 percent usable.
A simple way to pick this week
- Pick two methods that fit your volume.
- Pull 20 leads from each in one sitting, and time yourself.
- Check every lead: does the person hold that role, does the company fit, does the email pass a verification check?
- Divide minutes by leads and usable leads by 20. Those are your two inputs.
- Put them in the formula with your own hourly rate and monthly price.
The method with the lowest number at your volume is your answer this month; run the test again in a quarter. You can also ask a general assistant for help with the research, but it will name companies that do not exist, so see how to use ChatGPT for lead generation before you rely on it.
Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Launch includes 50 leads a month and 100 enrichment credits (adding a person costs 1 credit and a verified phone and email costs 5, charged only when found); Frontier includes 200 leads. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required.