THE SHORT ANSWER
Buying leads wins below roughly EUR 4,000 a month in media spend, because the fixed costs of a landing page, tracking and account management do not spread far enough to beat a per-lead price. Above that threshold, and with someone genuinely accountable for the account, generating your own leads is cheaper per unit and builds an asset you keep.
The fixed costs that decide the threshold
A landing page that converts at 8 percent or better, not a homepage. Building one properly is a one-off cost, and maintaining it is not zero.
Conversion tracking that survives consent banners, or you are optimising on noise.
Someone who looks at the account weekly and can tell a bad week from a bad trend.
Six to ten weeks of learning budget before the numbers mean anything.
Spread across EUR 1,500 of monthly spend, those costs dominate. Spread across EUR 8,000, they are a rounding error. That is the whole of the break-even argument.
What each route actually gives you
Buying: a known unit price, volume you can switch on and off with your capacity, no learning period, and no asset at the end. The supplier carries the auction risk.
Building: a lower unit price at scale, control over messaging and qualification, compounding organic value, and full exposure to auction swings, platform policy and your own attention span.
The hybrid that most successful contractors land on
Run your own campaigns for the core service in your densest postcodes, where you have volume to learn from. Buy exclusive leads for everything else: secondary services, edge-of-area postcodes, seasonal troughs and any month where capacity suddenly opens up.
This keeps the asset you are building while removing the pressure to make one campaign serve every commercial need, which is what usually breaks self-managed accounts.
The question that decides it faster than any spreadsheet
Who, by name, will look at the account next Tuesday? If there is no answer, buy leads. Self-managed acquisition fails on absent ownership far more often than on budget.
How Flock Leads prices this
Flock is built for the buy side of that decision: fixed volume, known unit price, no retainer:
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.
Related answers
Frequently asked questions
Can I do both at once?
Yes, and most companies past a certain size do. Keep the reporting separate so you can see which channel is actually carrying the month.
How long before my own ads work?
Six to ten weeks before figures are trustworthy, longer in a low-volume trade. Judging an account at three weeks is the most common expensive mistake.
Is buying leads a sign of a weak brand?
No. It is a way of converting cash into capacity without a lead time. The brand argument only matters if buying is your only channel forever.
What does Flock cost against running my own ads?
Flock works out at EUR 60 to EUR 75 per exclusive lead with no setup period, which is generally below what a self-managed account achieves in its first two months.
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