Free finance leads for brokers: what 'free' really costs
Free finance leads exist in Australia, but you pay for them in time, commission or competition instead of dollars. The only channels that cost nothing per enquiry are referrals and the clients you have already settled, and those take the better part of a year to produce.
Search for free finance leads and four things come back: ABN lists relabelled as leads, trials that open a paid account, shared enquiries that are free because someone else paid for the record, and referrals priced as a slice of your upfront. None is free; each moves the cost to your hours, your commission or your contact rate.
Referral partners and settled clients genuinely cost nothing per enquiry: slow, capped by your network, and the warmest conversations you will have all year. They will not fill this quarter's diary alone, which is how brokers end up buying the worst leads at the worst moment.
Free lead lists and databases
ABNs and numbers pulled from registers. Nobody on it asked for finance. It is a cold-calling list, priced in the days you spend dialling it.
Free trial leads
A small batch handed over to open a paid account. Fair as a test. The cost is the commitment behind it, so read that first.
Free leads from apps and marketplaces
Nothing per lead usually means a fee per application, a commission share, or the same enquiry sent to several brokers. The conversation is a race.
Commission-split referrals
An accountant, agent or solicitor sends enquiries for a share of the upfront. It feels free because nothing moves until settlement; on a funded deal it is the dearest lead you buy.
Aggregator and lender referrals
Paid for through aggregator fees or your volume with that lender. Residential-heavy, inconsistent, and never yours to switch on.
Free in the only sense that matters: nobody is paid per enquiry, and nobody else is calling the same person. Four habits that make them produce:
- Diarise the expiry on every settled deal. Facilities roll off, leases end, equipment ages out. A call ahead of each date is an enquiry you created.
- Ask for the introduction at settlement. The week the money lands, a client will name their accountant and two owners they know.
- Give partners something to refer. A one-page summary of what you write and a debrief after every referral beats lunch.
- Keep the declined file. What you could not place last year on time trading or a tax position is often placeable this year.
The full comparison is in our lead generation guide for finance brokers.
Hypothetical example, round numbers, not a claim about any provider. You are handed a free list of 300 businesses and block out a week to dial it. Say one in ten answers, and one in ten of those needs finance this quarter: three conversations for 300 dials, and until you asked you knew nothing about amount, purpose or timeframe.
Spend the same hypothetical week on a handful of enquiries where the person typed their own loan amount and purpose into a form and confirmed their mobile by SMS. Fewer dials, more conversations, the fields already in front of you. Whether that is worth paying for is the calculation in our finance leads cost guide.
The cost was never zero; it moved from an invoice to your calendar.
These decide whether an offer is free or merely unpriced.
- Did this person ask for finance? A form completed this week, with amount, purpose and timeframe, is a lead. A name pulled from a register is a list.
- Who else has this record? If other brokers received it or the list was sold before, you are not first; free is how shared records are usually priced. See exclusive versus shared.
- Was the mobile verified before it reached you? Free lists never are; trial leads sometimes are. If nobody checked the number, budget for the share that will not connect.
- What does the referrer want back? A share of upfront or reciprocal referrals: both a cost, both better agreed before the first file than after. A referrer who wants your lender choice tilted their way is asking for something you cannot give.
Two things this year bear on register-scraped lists. The ACCC's report on unsolicited selling and lead generation (ACCC, July 2026) says a sale stays unsolicited unless the person knew, when their details were collected, what they were for; a name lifted from a public register was never collected for a finance call. ASIC reissued RG 234 to expressly cover lead generators and their search and social ads (ASIC, June 2026). Neither changes the maths above; both make the free list the one channel where the cost can arrive as a complaint rather than an invoice.
We are a paid channel. Every enquiry comes from our own Google and Meta campaigns in Australia, the prospect confirms their mobile by SMS code before the lead ships, it passes automated scoring and a human qualification review, and it is sold once, to one broker, never resold. Pay per lead, no lock-in contracts, no setup fees, no monthly retainers; our published contact rate is 72.5% and the average business loan enquiry is about $149,000. To test a free list against real numbers, book a call and we will quote business loan leads for what you write.