How Inflow works
This page covers the full picture: which businesses Inflow is built for and why, what it means for a lead to be qualified, how pricing works, what the guarantee actually says, and answers to the questions most people have before applying. If you want the short version first, start on the landing page.
Four conditions Inflow requires to work
Inflow is not a general lead generation service. It only produces accurate results — and accurate billing — where these four conditions hold. If your business doesn't fit all four, we'll tell you that on the application form.
Customers make a deliberate, researched decision
Inflow works where buying takes thought. A student evaluating an IELTS academy, a professional comparing accounting firms, a patient choosing a clinic — each of these involves research, comparison, and a clear moment of decision. That decision is what attribution hangs on. If your customer walks in on impulse or buys in a single click without engaging you first, the chain is too short to measure reliably.
The decision involves a trackable contact step
There needs to be a concrete action we can observe and verify — a form fill, a phone call, a booking request. This is the moment that separates a lead from a visitor. Without it, we have no objective basis for billing a lead as qualified or disputing one that isn't. Businesses that rely on foot traffic, in-person walk-ins, or purchases that happen entirely off-channel aren't a fit, because there's no verifiable handoff point to build a definition around.
Each new customer is worth meaningful margin
The economics of pay-per-lead require that a customer relationship generates enough margin to absorb the cost of acquiring them. The threshold is roughly $500 in gross margin per customer — not revenue. Below that, even modest lead prices make the math hard to justify for your business. In practice, the verticals that work best have higher-value relationships: training enrolments, professional service engagements, clinical bookings with recurring visits. The exact number gets refined in the pilot once real cost data exists.
Outcomes are verifiable within 30–60 days
Pay-per-lead pricing depends on being able to close the loop. If a lead enrolls, books, or converts, we need to know within a reasonable window — both to set accurate prices and to improve targeting over time. Long B2B sales cycles, deals that take months to negotiate, or industries where purchase decisions get deferred indefinitely are difficult to verify against within a pilot. Shorter cycles let us iterate faster and give you real cost-per-acquisition data while the pilot is still running.
What makes a lead qualified — the four tests
A lead is billable only if it passes all four tests below. The tests are written into your pilot agreement before any leads are delivered. Either party can dispute a lead within five business days; the written criteria are the arbiter.
Real and contactable
The lead has a real phone number or email address and responds to a contact attempt within 72 hours of first outreach. This is the minimum bar: a lead that can't be reached isn't a lead. The 72-hour window is the default; it can be adjusted per agreement, but something in that range is required to maintain the guarantee.
In-program or in-service
The lead wants something you actually offer. Not a related service, not a variant you don't provide — the specific program, service, or product in scope. This criterion prevents billing for leads that are technically responsive but mismatched to what you sell. The exact scope is defined in writing before the pilot starts.
Eligible
The lead meets your stated criteria: age range, geographic location, language, budget threshold, or any other qualifying factor relevant to your offering. These are defined per client at pilot scoping — Inflow doesn't impose a generic eligibility standard. If a lead clears all criteria but one, it's not billable. This is what makes the definition specific enough to dispute against.
Intent
The lead has explicitly expressed interest in buying, enrolling, or booking — not browsing, not downloading a free resource, not asking a general question. Intent is the criterion that separates a prospect from a contact. A lead who filled out a form to receive a brochure is not the same as one who asked about your next intake date. The written criteria in the pilot agreement specify what counts.
Per qualified lead. Set after the pilot reveals real data.
The default model is pay-per-qualified-lead. No retainers, no ad management fees, no charges for leads that don't meet the written criteria.
- Price is set after the pilot. The 30-day pilot produces real cost-per-qualified-lead data for your vertical. That data sets the standing per-lead price — not an estimate made before any ads run.
- The benchmark. The target is roughly 10–20% of your customer's gross margin per acquired customer. If your average customer is worth $3,000 in gross margin and one in four qualified leads converts, that points to a price range around $75–150 per lead. The actual number depends on your vertical and your close rate.
- What it covers. Ad spend, targeting, creative, lead delivery, and dispute resolution. Inflow runs the campaigns; you handle follow-up and conversion.
- What it does not include. Lead nurturing, CRM management, sales follow-up, or closing customers — those remain your responsibility. The offer is qualified leads at the top of your funnel, not a full sales process.
For larger commitments, a retainer-plus-per-lead hybrid is available: a monthly floor that covers management overhead, with a reduced per-lead rate on top. This suits clients who want predictable spend and are willing to pay a base regardless of monthly volume. Pricing on either model is not published here because it is vertical-specific — the pilot is what makes it accurate.
Pay only for qualified leads. If a lead doesn't meet the written criteria, you don't pay for it.
That is the entire guarantee at pilot stage. There is no volume commitment yet. The reason is straightforward: we don't yet have the delivery data to commit to a number. Committing to a monthly lead floor before running a single campaign in your vertical would be a guess dressed up as a guarantee, and that doesn't serve you.
Once 60 days of vertical-specific delivery data exist — real cost-per-qualified-lead, real dispute rates, real close rates — a volume floor gets added to the agreement in writing. At that point the guarantee becomes: a minimum number of qualified leads per month, or we make up the shortfall the following month at no charge.
What people ask before applying
How is "qualified" defined for my business?
The definition is written into the pilot agreement before any leads are delivered. It covers all four tests above — real and contactable, in-program, eligible, and intent — with your specific eligibility criteria filled in: the age range, geography, language, budget threshold, or whatever criteria apply to your offering.
If a lead passes all four tests, it's billable. If it fails any one, it isn't. Disputes are resolved against that written definition — not against judgment calls on either side.
What do leads cost?
Per-lead pricing is set after the 30-day pilot, once we have real cost-per-qualified-lead data for your vertical. We don't publish a rate card because the number varies — a clinic with $300 average revenue per patient prices differently than a training program with $5,000 enrolments.
The benchmark for setting the price: roughly 10–20% of your customer's gross margin (not revenue) per acquired customer. If a student is worth $4,000 in margin and one in five qualified leads enrolls, that points to a price in the $80–160 range per lead. The pilot is what reveals whether that math holds in your specific market.
What if I dispute a lead?
You have five business days from delivery to raise a dispute. Disputes are resolved by checking the lead against the written criteria in your pilot agreement. If the lead doesn't meet the written definition, you don't pay for it. If it does, the charge stands.
The purpose of writing the criteria down before the pilot starts is exactly this: disputes have a factual basis, not a subjective one.
What if you don't deliver any qualified leads?
During the pilot, the guarantee is pay-only-for-qualified. If no qualified leads are delivered, you pay nothing for leads. The pilot itself has a setup cost covered in the agreement — but you're never charged per lead for leads that don't meet criteria.
Volume guarantees — a minimum number of qualified leads per month — are added after the pilot, once 60 days of delivery data exist for your vertical. Committing to a volume number before that data exists would be guesswork, so we don't do it.
Do I have to commit long-term?
No. The structure is a 30-day pilot, then month-to-month. Either party can exit with 30 days notice. There is no penalty for ending the engagement, and all qualified leads delivered up to the termination date are payable.
The intent is that you stay because the numbers work, not because you're locked in.
What if my industry has rules around lead pricing?
Some industries have regulatory restrictions on per-lead compensation. Real estate in British Columbia is a clear example — the BC Real Estate Services Act prohibits commission-splitting and certain referral arrangements that per-lead pricing could implicate.
If your vertical has rules like this, Inflow can't operate there. The application form is designed to catch regulated verticals early, so you get a clear answer before investing time in a call.
Who runs this?
Inflow is offered through Xerad — a Vancouver engineering studio run by Farzin. The full background on Xerad, the engineering work behind it, and the operating model is at xerad.ca.
Ready to apply?
The application takes about 3 minutes. If your business fits the criteria above, you'll see a booking link for a 30-minute call. If it doesn't, the form will tell you why — on the spot, not three weeks later.
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