Shared vs exclusive vs aged insurance leads

Shared, exclusive and aged are really just labels for who else gets the same person’s details and when they get them. They sound simple enough until you read how each lead company uses them, because every company writes its own rules and a shared lead from one can mean a single other agent while at another it means four. Some exclusive leads turn into shared leads after 30 days. An aged lead may have been sold before or it may not have been, and you usually have to dig to find out which.

Everything below comes from the rules the 23 lead companies we cover publish for their buyers, as of October 2026.

The short version

Type	Who else gets the lead	Typical tradeoff
Shared	Up to three to five agents, depending on the company	Lower price, a race to call first
Exclusive	Only you from that source, at least for a set period	Higher price, no other buyer from that source
Aged	Earlier quote requests sold again later	Much lower price, more dials per contact
Live transfer	The shopper is put on the phone with you	Highest price per unit, the contact is already made

17 of the 23 lead companies sell exclusive leads and 15 sell shared leads. 11 sell both. Seven sell aged leads.

Shared leads: how many agents is “shared”?

A shared lead goes to more than one buyer at once, so what you want to know is how many of you are getting it, and most companies put a cap on that number.

Company	Most agents per shared lead	What the company says about the average
EverQuote	3, one per carrier	1.7 on average
SmartFinancial	3, one per carrier
QuoteWizard	4	From about 1 (renters) to about 3 (health), depending on the line
MediaAlpha	4, no more than one agent per carrier
Hometown Quotes	4
Benepath (shared health)	5	3 on average
AWL		2 to 4 agents on average

“One per carrier” is the part captive agents care about. You won’t be up against another agent from your own company on that lead, though agents from the other carriers can still be calling the same person.

With shared leads speed is pretty much the whole game. Whoever gets the shopper on the phone first usually has the best shot at the sale, so call within minutes every single time, because a lead that sits in your inbox for an hour is a lead you paid for so someone else could talk to them first.

Exclusive leads: exclusive for how long?

An exclusive lead goes to just one buyer from that company, but it is only exclusive through that source. Shoppers often request quotes on more than one site, and if this one did, other agents may be calling too. In practice it can be a shared lead you paid more for.

So work exclusive leads with the same urgency as shared leads. Call within minutes, every time.

Most companies that sell exclusive leads mean exclusive for good. A few set a time limit.

Caboom Leads, for example, sells its real-time leads as exclusive for 30 days (60 days for annuity leads). After that, a lead can enter its shared pool unless you mark it sold and submit its results form. If you’re still working a lead after a month, check your seller’s rules before assuming no one else will call.

Exclusive leads cost more, so the math only works if you close more of them. Compare them on cost per sale, not cost per lead. Our lead cost page has a calculator for this.

Aged leads: what happened before you bought it

Aged leads are quote requests that are days, weeks or months old, sold again at a lower price. The useful question is what happened to the lead before it reached you.

• Sold before: most aged leads were sold as real-time leads first. Caboom Leads describes its aged leads as shared and possibly sold before. InsureLeads says its aged leads aren’t exclusive unless the record has genuinely never been resold.
• Contacted but not sold: GOAT Leads says its aged leads haven’t been sold before but may have been contacted by other agents.
• Resold over time: aged-lead sellers such as iLeads can sell the same record again and again.

Expect more dials per contact with aged leads, and some of those shoppers have already bought a policy. They work when you have a dialer, staff hours to fill and a script built for a cold-ish call. For a solo agent who already struggles to work fresh leads, they make less sense.

Live transfers and appointments

With a live transfer or an appointment the company makes the first contact for you, and the lead almost always goes to one agent. On a live transfer they put the shopper on the phone with you. On an appointment they book a time for you to call. Of the 23 companies we cover, 14 sell live transfers and four sell appointments.

What to ask before you buy is what makes a call billable (a minimum call length, for example) and what happens when the shopper hangs up on you or turns out not to qualify. Those rules vary from company to company a lot more than the prices do.

Which one should you buy?

Start with how many leads you can really work in a day, because that answer narrows things down faster than price does.

Shared and exclusive leads both need a call within minutes. If you can’t get to them that fast yet then fix your speed to contact first and buy leads after.

• You want the lowest cost per lead: shared leads, and for a lot of agents they end up being the cheapest path to a sale too.
• You want fewer buyers from the same source: exclusive leads. They cost more and they only pay off if they close enough more often to cover it, so test them before you lean on them.
• You have a dialer and spare hours: aged leads can fill the gaps without costing you much.
• You’d rather talk than dial: live transfers or appointments.

Whatever you pick, test it before you commit any real money. Buy a small order from two or three companies that fit your line and work every lead exactly the same way, then look at what each one cost you per sale. Our guide to testing a lead company walks through setting that up.

Frequently asked questions

Are exclusive leads worth the higher price?

Only if they close often enough that your cost per sale comes in under what you pay per sale on shared leads. Your line and your sales process play into that and so does how fast you call (probably more than anything), so there’s no reliable answer for your agency until you’ve tested both.

Can a company sell me a lead that another agent already bought?

Yes, if it was sold to you as shared or aged. Shared leads go to several agents at once and most aged leads were sold at least once before. An exclusive lead shouldn’t have been, although some companies let exclusive leads slide back into a shared pool after a set period. Keep in mind exclusive only covers that one seller, the shopper may well have asked a few other sites for quotes too.

What does “one per carrier” mean on a shared lead?

No two agents from the same insurance company get that lead, which keeps captive agents from competing with each other on it. The total number of buyers stays the same though, that’s still whatever the company’s cap is.