Lead generation for mortgage brokers
Mortgage broker lead generation. The borrower who picked you, not a rate table.
A borrower on a rate site fills out one form and gets matched with several lenders. You pay to be in that race, then compete on speed and rate. Here is how the two biggest rate marketplaces say they work, and what your own funnel does differently.
- Ad management at 10% of budget, $600 CAD or $450 USD low end
- $0 setup, no contract
- 30-day guarantee on every engagement
The marketplaces selling you borrowers
One borrower, many lenders on the same form. Sourced from the marketplaces' own partner pages, terms and media kit, as published in September 2026.
LendingTree: a request built to be shared
LendingTree's partner page describes a borrower completing one form and reviewing loan offers, plural. Its Terms of Use also let LendingTree match that one request to other kinds of products. You reach those requests through its Canopy Lender Portal, and what you pay shifts with the loan product, the borrower's credit band and how exclusive the request is. No single public rate exists.
Bankrate: you pay once the borrower hands over contact details
Bankrate's media kit offers cost-per-lead, cost-per-click and cost-per-call structures, and states that mortgage advertisers pay for leads only after a consumer works through its funnel and chooses to share contact information. Your listing sits on a rate table, so the borrower is comparing your rate against every other advertiser in view.
What “shared” means at 9 p.m.
When the same purchase or refinance request reaches several lenders, the first friendly call usually wins the file. A broker who replies the next morning is paying for leads that another lender already booked.
What the marketplaces cannot sell you
Renewals and referrals. A client whose term is up, or a realtor partner who trusts you, never goes near a rate table. Those files come from your own database and your own name in search, and they cost far less to win. Most brokers underinvest here because the marketplace bill arrives every month and the renewal list sits quietly in a spreadsheet.
What an owned funnel changes for a broker.
A pre-approval path on your own site
A short form that asks purchase price, down payment, timeline and whether they already hold a pre-approval. The borrower gets a clear next step, and you get a file that came to you alone. No other lender got the same submission.
Google Ads on the searches that matter
“Mortgage broker near me”, “mortgage renewal [city]”, “first time home buyer mortgage”, “self employed mortgage”. We run them in your licensed province or state only. Our fee is 10% of the budget you approve, $600 CAD or $450 USD at the least, and we add nothing to the click cost.
Compliance built into every page
Your licence and brokerage details show where your regulator expects them: FSRA in Ontario, BCFSA in British Columbia, or NMLS numbers in the US. Rates in ads carry the disclosures they need, or we leave rates out of the ad and send people to a page that explains them.
Renewal and referral follow-up
We connect the site to your CRM (Velocity, Finmo, Salesforce, or what you run) and set up reminders ahead of each client's term end, plus a simple thank-you and ask for realtor partners. Renewal and program pages bill at $50 CAD or $38 USD per page, minimum ten monthly.
The first 30 days.
01
Week 1: cost per funded deal
We line up what you paid LendingTree, Bankrate or other lead sellers last year against files that funded. That becomes the bar every new channel must clear.
02
Weeks 2 and 3: build and launch
The pre-approval page, a renewal page, tracked numbers, and one Google Ads campaign in your core market. Each lead lands in your CRM with the search term that produced it.
03
Week 4: the acceptance test
We send a fake borrower through the form. The file should show in Velocity or your CRM right away, the borrower should get a text, and cost per lead should read by campaign. If not, the month is on us.
Mortgage broker lead generation: FAQ.
LendingTree's own pages describe matching a borrower with multiple offers, and pricing varies with exclusivity. Ask your rep in writing how many lenders will see each lead type before you fund your account.
Only when your owned funnel beats them on cost per funded deal. Many brokers keep a small marketplace budget for volume while search and renewals grow. We report both side by side each month so the decision is based on funded files, not on how busy the phone feels.
You can, but rate ads carry disclosure rules in both countries and go stale fast. We usually keep ads about the service and put current rates on a page you control.
Yes. Campaigns run only where you are licensed, and pages name the right regulator for your province or state.
For ads, a fee equal to 10% of budget, with $600 CAD or $450 USD as the monthly low end. For SEO, $50 CAD or $38 USD a page and at least ten pages. Websites are priced once, $1,500 to $20,000+. No setup fee, no contract.
Win the borrower before the rate table does.
Share your market and what you spend on leads now. A plan built on our posted fees lands in your inbox the next business day.