THE SHORT ANSWER
For heat pump installers, buying exclusive leads costs EUR 90 to EUR 140 per exclusive enquiry and works out at EUR 270 to EUR 700 per signed job once you allow for 3 to 5 enquiries per customer. The quickest way to add volume for heat pump installers, and the only option here whose price you know before you spend anything.
Most channel comparisons compare cost per click. Cost per signed job is the only comparison that decides anything. This page runs buying exclusive leads specifically for heat pump installers: the modelled cost, the volume ceiling, the skill it demands, and a plain verdict at the end.
The relevant economics for this trade: a typical project is worth EUR 9,000 to EUR 18,000, the buyer is a homeowner replacing a gas or oil boiler, demand peaks September to January and bottoms out in June and July, and it takes 3 to 5 genuine enquiries to sign one customer.
The numbers, at a glance
What one exclusive enquiry costs: EUR 90 to EUR 140 at the Benelux baseline, higher in tighter auctions and lower on larger volumes
What one signed job costs: EUR 270 to EUR 700, on 3 to 5 exclusive enquiries for each customer signed
Time from a standing start to the first enquiry: a week, assuming you begin with nothing in place
Straight answer for heat pump installers: The quickest way to add volume for heat pump installers, and the only option here whose price you know before you spend anything.
How buying exclusive leads behaves in this trade
Buying exclusive leads produces enquiries whose intent is stated, because the enquiry has already been screened against your criteria before it reaches you. No build phase, no monthly retainer, no learning period, and the cost per enquiry is known before you commit.
The constraint nobody mentions in the sales pitch: the capacity to answer a phone within minutes during working hours, which is a harder bar than it sounds. For a heat pump business working a single metro, that is the thing to check before anything else.
Against that, the cost of being wrong. You pay a premium over running the campaign yourself, and you are dependent on a supplier's volume rather than your own. Skill required: Almost none on acquisition. All of it moves to follow-up speed and quoting.
The landing page decides half your cost per enquiry
A page built for heat pump work alone will convert at roughly double the rate of a homepage carrying every service you offer. Since cost per enquiry is click cost divided by conversion rate, that single change halves the figure without touching the budget.
It is also why two businesses in the same trade report costs that differ by a factor of two from the same auction. The difference is almost never the targeting. It is what happens in the thirty seconds after the click.
What a bought enquiry works out at per signed job
This calculation is shorter than the others in the family, because the first number is fixed in advance rather than discovered after a month of spending.
What the enquiry costs: EUR 90 to EUR 140 at the Benelux baseline for heat pump work, moving with the country multiplier and with the size of the package.
How many are needed per customer: 3 to 5, below a self-run campaign because screening on current heating system, insulation level, radiator type, ownership and timeline has already happened.
What a signed job costs: EUR 270 to EUR 700.
As a share of a EUR 13,500 project: 2.0 to 5.2 percent.
The premium over running the campaign yourself is real and it is roughly 20 to 40 percent. What you buy with it is the removal of the build phase, the learning period, the agency retainer and the risk of a month of wasted spend. For a business that needs work in the diary now, that trade is usually correct. For a business with a mature account and spare management time, it usually is not.
Get the rejection rules in writing before the first enquiry arrives
Wrong area, wrong job type, disconnected number, a tenant who cannot authorise work, a duplicate of something you already hold. Each should have a stated outcome and a stated window for claiming it. Suppliers who will not put the list in writing are relying on customers not tracking it, and the difference between a five percent and a fifteen percent rejection rate changes the economics of the whole arrangement.
Why the heat pump survey is the product rather than a formality
The survey is where this sale is won. It produces the heat loss figure, the emitter schedule, the cylinder position and the noise assessment for the outdoor unit, and it is the only document that lets a household compare two quotes on anything except price. Charging a modest survey fee credited against the installation filters out casual enquiries and lifts close rate materially, because a household that pays anything at all has moved from research into procurement.
Who pays for a heat pump and what they are really comparing against
The buyer is the bill payer, and the alternative in their head is not another installer. It is keeping the existing boiler for another five years, which is cheap and requires no decision. Winning means beating the do-nothing option: a running cost comparison at their actual tariff and their actual consumption, written down, alongside the grant position. Conversations that stay on equipment specification lose to inertia almost every time.
Qualification criteria and rejection rules for bought heat pump enquiries
The screening here has to cover both the household and the building, because a willing buyer in an unsuitable property is a wasted survey rather than a slow sale. Specify the property criteria as tightly as the ownership criteria.
Require on every enquiry: current heating system and fuel, property type and approximate age, insulation level, radiator type, ownership, and whether the existing boiler has already failed
Reject automatically: tenants without a named landlord, properties with no viable external position for an outdoor unit, and apartments in blocks where consent has not been sought
Reject on inspection: households seeking only a subsidy assessment, and anyone unwilling to book a survey, since no heat pump sale in this trade completes without one
Ask the supplier directly: what share of their enquiries have a failed boiler, because that single figure predicts your close rate more reliably than anything else on the specification
Exclusive and shared enquiries are different products at similar prices
A shared enquiry sold to four contractors costs perhaps half of an exclusive one and converts at roughly a third of the rate, which makes it more expensive per customer and far more expensive in sales time. The apparent saving is real only for a business that answers within seconds every time and is comfortable competing on price at the door. For everyone else the exclusive enquiry is the cheaper of the two once the arithmetic is done properly.
Before you spend anything on buying exclusive leads
Compare your maximum per enquiry against the EUR 90 to EUR 140 per exclusive enquiry modelled above. If your ceiling is lower, fix conversion or job value before you touch the channel.
Commit to a fixed test volume and a fixed review date before you start, so the decision to continue is made on data rather than on hope.
Confirm who answers the phone within five minutes during working hours, by name, because every figure above assumes it.
Make sure there is a page about heat pump alone before you send anyone to it. A homepage covering everything roughly halves what follows.
How these figures were built
These figures are a benchmark model, not a survey. They combine an industry base range observed across Western European home-improvement campaigns with a country multiplier for local auction pressure. Treat them as a band to negotiate against, not a quote. Channel figures on this page carry a second layer of modelling on top of the lead-price band, since click cost and conversion rate both vary by market as well as by trade. Treat the spread as the important part rather than either end of it.
How Flock Leads prices this
Set against the model above, this is the outright price of exclusive heat pump enquiries, with no retainer and no contract term:
Starter - 10 leads for EUR 750, which is EUR 75 per lead
Growth - 25 leads for EUR 1,750, which is EUR 70 per lead
Scale - 45 leads for EUR 2,925, which is EUR 65 per lead
Pro - 70 leads for EUR 4,340, which is EUR 62 per lead
Max - 90 leads for EUR 5,400, which is EUR 60 per lead
No retainer, no contract term, and no lead sent to a second business. Unused volume rolls over under the Flock Lead Promise.
Want leads like this in your pipeline?
Flock runs the campaigns, screens the enquiries and hands you only the ones that match your service area, job size and capacity. You pay per lead, not per month.
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Related answers
Frequently asked questions
How long before buying exclusive leads produces a signed job?
First enquiries take a week. A signed job takes that plus your own sales cycle, which for heat pump work runs from a few days on urgent jobs to several months on planned ones. Judge the channel on cost per qualified enquiry early and on cost per signed job only after a full cycle has completed.
Should heat pump installers use this channel or a different one?
The quickest way to add volume for heat pump installers, and the only option here whose price you know before you spend anything. The wider point is that these are not competing options. Local search is the long-term asset, purchased leads cover the gap while it matures, and paid advertising is the accelerator you switch on once you know your numbers well enough to calculate what a click is worth.
What is the single biggest mistake in buying exclusive leads for this trade?
Buying volume before fixing follow-up. An exclusive enquiry that sits unanswered for four hours is worth a fraction of the same enquiry answered in five minutes, and the supplier gets blamed for what is a process failure.
Does seasonality change the answer for heat pump installers?
Materially. Demand peaks September to January and troughs in June and July, driven by boiler replacement deadlines and running-cost comparisons. Paid channels follow that curve and get more expensive at the top of it; local search ignores it; purchased volume can be aimed deliberately at the trough, when fewer competitors are bidding for the same households.
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