How to pick a skip-trace vendor without getting burned

Skip-trace vendors love to publish a single number — usually a match rate, sometimes a phone count. The truth is that four numbers actually matter, and most investors only check one of them before handing over their CSV.

The four numbers that matter

• Match rate on the address → owner step (should be 80%+ for residential)
• Match rate on the owner → phone step (the one everyone quotes; 70–85% is realistic)
• Phone quality — what % of phones are mobile vs landline vs disconnected
• DNC + state DNC + TCPA-litigator scrub coverage (or not)

The three most vendors hide

A vendor with a 90% match rate on bad phones is worse than a vendor with a 70% match rate on real mobiles. Always ask: 'what percent of matched phones are mobile?' and 'do you scrub against state-level DNC, not just federal?' If they dodge, their data is probably older than they're letting on.

The third hidden number: per-record cost at your actual volume. Most vendors advertise a teaser rate on their homepage that only applies above 10,000 records a month. If you're pulling 500 records a week, you're paying the non-discounted rate. Always run the numbers on your real monthly volume, not their headline price.

Why ReLeadsPro's rate includes the skip-trace

Every list we deliver is pre-skip-traced. Phones, emails, DNC + TCPA-litigator scrub — all included in the 1-credit-per-record price. That's not a marketing trick; we do the skip-trace on our end and pay the per-record cost to our downstream providers, then pass it through at our wallet rate. It means you don't need a separate vendor, and you don't have to reconcile two bills.