Aged leads, explained: consent, filters, and price

What an aged lead is

An aged lead is a record of a consumer who filled out a web form 30 days ago or more, sold again after the first buyers passed. Three fields define it: the form (what the person asked for), the date (when), and the vertical (insurance, solar, mortgage, home services). Age bands run 30 to 60 days, 60 to 180, 180 to 365, and 365 plus.

The consumer asked for a quote once. They did not ask you. Aged leads sit between a cold list and a fresh lead: some stated interest, little urgency. Most sales of this type are non-exclusive, so several other buyers have usually called the same person already.

How the list is built

Lead generators run forms and landing pages. Each submission goes first to real-time buyers who pay the most for speed. Records nobody bought, or that buyers already worked and released, are resold as aged inventory, often to several buyers. The source of record is the form submission itself, so the quality of the list is the quality of the form data, not of any county or government file.

A record gets older in the list as the date passes. Sellers then re-sort the same file by age band and vertical. Many also drop numbers that bounced and run a Do Not Call scrub, which one published guide budgets at $0.01 to $0.05 per lead (vendor-reported).

The consent problem

The consent on the original form may not cover you. Prior express written consent authorizes "the seller" named in the signed agreement, so a form that named one company does not authorize a different buyer who bought the record later. The form usually names the lead generator and a list of partners. Whether you are among them, and whether the consent was written, signed, and tied to that phone number, decides if you can call or text with an autodialer or a prerecorded voice.

Federal rules draw the line in three places:

• Written consent for marketing automation. Autodialed or prerecorded marketing calls and texts to a wireless number need prior express written consent (47 CFR 64.1200(a)(2)). That is a signed agreement that clearly authorizes the seller to deliver the messages and includes the phone number (47 CFR 64.1200(f)(9)).
• The Do Not Call registry. Marketing calls to a registered residential number are barred (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(2)). An established business relationship is an exception, but only with the company the consumer dealt with: an inquiry counts for the 3 months before the call, and a purchase for 18 months (47 CFR 64.1200(f)(5)). A form sent to a lead generator gives a later buyer no relationship at any age.
• Revocation. A called party may revoke consent by any reasonable method, including a reply such as "stop" (47 CFR 64.1200(a)(10)). Ask the seller to remove anyone who opted out before the file was resold, and honor any stop request you receive yourself.

What happened to the one-to-one rule

In its 2023 order the FCC ruled that a consumer could consent to only one seller at a time, and only to calls "logically and topically associated" with the form. On 01/24/2025 the Eleventh Circuit, in Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC (No. 24-10277), held that the FCC exceeded its authority because the restrictions conflict with the ordinary meaning of "prior express consent," and vacated Part III.D of the order. The court reasoned that under common law a consumer can consent to calls from multiple entities in one agreement.

The ruling removes the federal bar on a single consent naming many sellers, and the topic restriction with it. It leaves the existing written consent definition in place, so the signed agreement still has to clearly authorize the seller who calls. A consent that names other companies does not reach you. It does not decide how long a consent lasts or whether a partner list buried in a link is clear enough. Those remain fact questions in a lawsuit.

The practical standard

Keep four things for every record you dial or text: a copy of the form as it displayed, the exact consent text, the timestamp, and the IP address. If the seller cannot supply them, treat the record as a cold call and apply Do Not Call rules in full. See the TCPA explainer and the consent revocation rules.

Filters and record contents

Filter	Options	What it changes
Age band	30 to 60, 60 to 180, 180 to 365, 365+ days	Price, contact rate, and whether any inquiry relationship remains
Vertical	Life, health, Medicare, auto, mortgage purchase or refinance, solar, home improvement	Who may buy and how heavily the vertical is litigated
State	Two-letter state of the consumer	State calling-hour and consent rules that sit on top of federal law
Form type	Quote request, comparison form, survey, sweepstakes	Strength of stated intent and of the consent text
Contact fields	Name, phone, email, address, phone type	What channels you can use and what you must verify
Exclusivity	Shared or exclusive	How many buyers have already called

A usable record holds the consumer's name, phone, email, and street address, plus the form URL, the submission timestamp, the IP address, the vertical-specific answers (for example, current insurer or monthly electric bill), and the sale count. Records without a timestamp cannot be aged or defended.

What to check before paying

1. Consent artifacts. Request the form, consent text, timestamp, and IP for a sample of 25 records. Open the form URL and confirm the text matches.
2. Duplicate sales count. Ask how many buyers got each record. Shared inventory sold to many buyers gives low contact rates and more complaints.
3. Phone type. Ask whether numbers were checked against carrier line-type data. Landlines and wireless numbers carry different rules for automation.
4. Your own scrub. Run the numbers against the Do Not Call registry yourself within 31 days of calling (47 CFR 64.1200(c)(2)(i)(D)).
5. Geography. Compare the form state to the phone area code, and match the property to your market with the homeowner counts.

Price benchmarks and what a sale costs

Published ranges are vendor-reported and differ by seller. One published guide gives these ranges per record:

Vertical	30 to 90 days	90+ days
Insurance	$1.50 to $5	$0.50 to $3
Mortgage	$4 to $20	$2 to $8
Solar	$5 to $30 (30+ days)	Not listed

A second published guide lists lower figures: life insurance $2 to $4 at 30 to 60 days and $0.25 to $1 at 365 plus; solar $2 to $5 and $0.25 to $1 over the same bands; mortgage purchase $3 to $6 and $0.50 to $1.50. The first guide reports a contact rate below 25% and conversion of 1% to 3% on leads over 30 days old.

Worked example, using an illustrative price inside those ranges:

• 1,000 records at $2.00 each is $2,000. Add a $0.05 scrub per record, $50. Total $2,050.
• At 1% conversion, 10 sales: $205 per sale.
• At 3% conversion, 30 sales: $68.33 per sale.

Compare that to the value of one sale, not to the record price.

Who uses aged leads and how

Insurance agents call aged life, health, Medicare, and auto leads at volume. Solar and roofing sales teams work them by phone before door knocking, and drop any record that fails scrubbing. Mortgage originators work refinance and purchase records, where timing is tied to rates and a purchase. Home service companies use them to fill gaps between campaigns.

A common sequence is a call soon after delivery, a voicemail, then email. For text, use only records where you hold written consent that names you. See cold calling and prospecting and SMS text prospecting.

Compliance and penalty exposure

A private plaintiff can recover $500 per violation ($500 is the cap for Do Not Call claims), and a court may raise that up to three times for willful or knowing violations (47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3) and (c)(5)). Each call or text is a separate violation. A 1,000-record file called twice carries a theoretical $1,000,000 at $500 per call, before any trebling. Do Not Call claims require more than one call in 12 months, and the statute gives a defense for reasonable procedures built and followed with due care.

Buyers carry the risk of what they dial. The seller's warranty does not cover your calls. Keep records, honor stop requests, scrub, and call during legal hours.

For lists built from public records instead of form fills, see the homeowner list, new mover list, high equity homeowner list, and B2B contact list. The lists hub shows all types.

Next step

Check how many records in your market have a stated home and a mobile number with counts.

Questions people ask

Q01Are aged leads worth it?

Often, for buyers who call at volume and price the record low. Published ranges show conversion of 1% to 3% on leads over 30 days old, so cost per sale depends on call capacity and on whether you can legally dial the record at all.

Q02What is the difference between aged leads and a cold list?

An aged lead has a form, a date, and a stated interest in one vertical. A cold list has none of those. The form record is also your only possible consent evidence, which a cold list cannot offer.

Q03Can I text an aged lead?

Only with prior express written consent that clearly authorizes you, signed and tied to that phone number. A form that named other sellers and not you does not meet that test, however the record was priced. Without the artifact, treat a text as a violation risk.

Q04How old is too old to buy?

For Do Not Call purposes, an inquiry creates a business relationship only with the company asked and only for 3 months, so a resold record past 90 days carries none. After that, age mainly lowers price: one guide lists life insurance at $2 to $4 per record at 30 to 60 days and $0.25 to $1 past 365 days.

Q05What should I ask a seller before paying?

Ask for the form URL, the exact consent text shown, the timestamp and IP of each submission, how many buyers received the record, and how phone type was checked. A seller who cannot supply these is selling a cold list.

Sources

1. Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, No. 24-10277 (11th Cir. 01/24/2025), opinionmedia.ca11.uscourts.gov
2. 47 U.S.C. 227, Telephone Consumer Protection Act (statutory damages)law.cornell.edu
3. 47 CFR 64.1200, delivery restrictions (consent, DNC registry, relationship windows, revocation)law.cornell.edu
4. Aged leads vs fresh leads economics, price and contact rates by age band (published 11/05/2025, updated 01/20/2026) (vendor-reported)leadgen-economy.com
5. Aged lead pricing guide by industry (published 02/19/2026, updated 08/03/2026) (vendor-reported)workagedleads.com