Pay-per-lead ranges from $1–$10 per raw data-vendor contact to $50–$500 per hand-qualified lead. The number alone is meaningless without the definition behind it: a $10 lead verified against a tight, written ideal-customer profile can be far cheaper in real terms than a $2 contact with a 15% match rate, once you count the rep time spent sorting the misses.
The strongest form is pay-per-verified-result: you write machine-checkable acceptance criteria, each lead is verified against them before billing, and failures are never charged. See what a qualified lead costs in 2026 and the acceptance-criteria template.