Cost per lead agency.
UK lead gen agencies typically charge £2,000 to £10,000 a month on a retainer, or £20 to £400 per lead on a pay-per-lead basis. For a solo web designer or small studio, there is a more direct route: buy exactly the prospects you need, pay per search, and be on the phone in minutes.
What you get with every order
- £1.99 per lead for orders under 10
- £1.49 per lead for 10 or more
- Delivered instantly as a styled Excel file
- Call opener, WhatsApp message and prospect report for every lead
- Bonus leads on larger orders
- No retainer, no minimum term
Want the full breakdown? Read the agency vs pay-per-lead comparison.
What does a lead gen agency actually charge?
There is no single standard price. Agencies use four main pricing models, each with a different risk profile. Understanding which model is being proposed matters more than the headline number.
| Pricing model | Typical UK cost | Key risk | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | £2,000 to £10,000 per month | You pay whether or not leads arrive | Established studios with a consistent pipeline goal and budget to absorb slow months |
| Pay per lead | £20 to £400 per lead (varies by niche) | Quality varies. Define 'qualified' in writing before agreeing anything | Freelancers and small studios testing a niche before committing to a retainer |
| Pay per meeting | £250 to £2,000 per booked meeting | Meeting quality varies. A booked meeting is not a serious prospect | Businesses with a strong closer who only needs diary time, not the full top-of-funnel |
| Percentage of ad spend | 10% to 20% of monthly ad budget | Agency incentive is tied to spend, not results | Paid media campaigns where budget is already set and managed externally |
Agency retainers typically carry a gross margin of 30 to 60%, meaning a portion of what you pay covers overheads rather than direct campaign work. This is how service businesses operate, but it is worth understanding when comparing a £3,000 retainer against a platform that charges per delivered lead.
Retainer vs pay per lead vs pay per meeting
The model determines who carries the risk. A retainer puts it on you. Performance-based pricing shifts it toward the agency, but at a higher per-unit cost that reflects that shift.
Fixed monthly fee
You pay a set amount each month regardless of what arrives. Common range: £2,000 to £10,000 per month. Best when you need consistent volume over several months and can absorb a slow start.
Fee per delivered lead
You pay only when leads arrive. Agency pricing: £20 to £400 per lead depending on niche. Fludi Leads: £1.99 per lead (under 10) or £1.49 each (10 or more). No contract, no minimum.
Fee per booked appointment
You pay only when a meeting is booked in the diary. Common range: £250 to £2,000 per booked meeting. Higher cost per unit because the agency is handling more of the sales process.
Agency pricing vs Fludi Leads: a direct comparison
For web designers specifically, the most valuable lead signal is an established business with no working website. That filter is not something most generalist agencies are built around.
| Lead gen agency | Fludi Leads | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum commitment | 3 to 12 month contracts typical | No minimum. Pay per search. |
| Time to first lead | Weeks to months (onboarding, strategy, campaigns) | Seconds. Results appear instantly at search time. |
| Cost per lead | £20 to £400 depending on niche and agency | £1.99 per lead (under 10) or £1.49 per lead (10 or more) |
| Lead type | Varies. Often form fills or cold outbound contacts | Established local businesses with no website, verified live on Google Maps |
| Outreach tools included | Usually not included | Call opener, WhatsApp message and prospect report included for every lead |
| Transparent pricing | Requires a sales call to get a quote | Exact count and price shown before you pay anything |
Why the model matters differently for web designers
A freelance web designer does not have a sales team or a marketing budget that can absorb a bad month. Every pound spent on lead generation needs to turn into a real conversation, quickly, because you are also the person delivering the work.
Cold calling with a reason to call
Every Fludi Leads result includes a ready-to-send call opener written around the specific gap: no website, social page only, or lapsed domain. You know exactly what to say before you dial.
WhatsApp as a first touch
Every lead includes a pre-written WhatsApp message and a one-click WhatsApp link. For business owners who do not answer unknown numbers, a message that arrives with context converts better than a cold call.
A shareable prospect report
Every lead gets a branded prospect report showing their Google presence, reviews, and gap. Share it in the first conversation to make the pitch concrete rather than abstract.
Common questions about cost per lead agencies
Answering the specific questions web designers ask before choosing between an agency retainer and a direct pay-per-lead approach.
Most UK lead gen agencies price between £2,000 and £10,000 per month on a retainer, or £20 to £400 per lead on a pay-per-lead basis depending on niche. Appointment-setting services are often priced on top, running from around £250 to £2,000 per booked meeting. These numbers carry a margin of 30 to 60% for the agency's overheads, which is worth factoring in when comparing retainer rates to direct alternatives.
Depends on how 'qualified lead' is defined in the contract. A pay-per-lead model puts delivery risk on the agency, which sounds appealing, but agencies that are paid per lead regardless of conversion quality tend to optimise for volume. For B2B web design specifically, the most valuable signal is whether a prospect actually needs what you sell: an established business with no website is a fundamentally warmer lead than a cold contact who filled in a form. That specificity is hard to buy from a generalist agency.
A retainer is a fixed monthly fee you pay regardless of results. Performance-based (pay per lead or pay per meeting) means you only pay when the agency delivers something measurable. Retainers suit businesses that need sustained volume and can afford slow months. Performance-based models suit smaller operations testing a niche before committing, or those who want the agency to share the delivery risk. Most agencies offering performance-based pricing will build a margin into the per-lead cost that covers their risk, so the headline price per lead is usually higher than a retainer divided by average lead count.
For most freelance web designers and small studios: yes, as a starting point. A retainer locks you in before you know whether a niche or location has enough relevant prospects to justify the cost. Pay per lead lets you test first: buy a small list, make calls, see what converts, then decide whether the volume justifies a longer-term arrangement. The risk is that per-lead pricing from agencies can be high (£20 to £400 per lead) if the quality is inconsistent.
Some platforms offer a monthly subscription that gives a fixed number of leads each period, usually at a lower per-lead rate than buying individually. This can work if you have a predictable outreach cadence and always use your allocation. If you do not, you end up paying for leads you do not use. Fludi Leads is pay-per-search with no subscription: you buy exactly what you need, when you need it, and nothing carries over or expires.
The most direct method is searching Google Maps by industry and location and manually checking each listing for a website link. This works but is slow and produces a raw, unfiltered list. Fludi Leads automates this: search any niche and city, and it returns only the businesses that have no website, no social page, or a website that has since gone offline. Every result is verified live at search time, not pulled from a stale database.
The honest answer is that most effective outreach for web design involves some degree of direct contact, because the buyer rarely searches for a web designer until they already have a site. The dead-website angle changes that: a business whose site is currently offline has an active problem today. WhatsApp messages work as well as calls for this use case, and every Fludi Leads result includes a ready-to-send WhatsApp message alongside the phone number.
Free tools like Google Maps let you find no-website businesses manually, which costs only time. Fludi Leads speeds this up significantly and adds verified filtering, outreach scripts and prospect reports, at £1.99 per lead for smaller orders or £1.49 each for 10 or more. Given that a single web design project typically starts at £1,000 or more, recovering the cost of a lead list from one converted call is straightforward.
Lead gen pricing falls into four main structures: monthly retainer (fixed fee, ongoing), pay per lead (fee per delivered contact), pay per meeting (fee per booked appointment), and percentage of ad spend (agency management fee tied to campaign budget). Most agencies use one as a primary model and add the others as optional extras. For solo web designers, pay per lead or pay per search is the lowest-commitment starting point because you control spend precisely and can stop at any time.
Manual outreach from Google Maps is free but time-consuming. Referrals are free but unpredictable. A targeted pay-per-lead search for businesses without websites, at under £2 per lead, gives you a verifiable pool of warm prospects quickly. The cheapest approach in terms of cost per converted client depends on your conversion rate: a focused list of highly relevant prospects at £1.49 each will usually outperform a cheaper but generic list where most contacts are not a fit.