Medicare Leads — The 2026 Buyer’s Guide

Medicare Leads in 2026: Every Type, What It Costs & Who Sells It

Not legal or compliance advice. Medicare marketing is regulated by CMS and states; rules change annually. Confirm your outreach program with your compliance officer or counsel.

First, the disclosure that frames everything below: Enzo sells no leads or data — it’s the dialer that works the leads you buy. That’s exactly why this page can be blunt about the lead market. Medicare agents keep asking the same three questions: what types of Medicare leads exist, what they actually cost in 2026, and which of them you’re even allowed to call. Here’s the whole map, with every figure attributed and dated.

The demand side explains the prices. 35.2 million people are enrolled in Medicare Advantage in 2026 — 55% of eligible beneficiaries — leaving roughly 29 million in traditional Medicare (KFF, June 2026). More than 14 million hold Medicare Supplement policies, per AHIP’s May 2025 report on December 2024 data. And the pipeline keeps refilling: more than 11,000 Americans turn 65 every day during the 2024–2027 “Peak 65” wave — a record ~11,400 a day in 2025 — per Census-based analysis from the Alliance for Lifetime Income. The old “10,000 a day” line undercounts it.

The CMS rules that shape the entire Medicare lead market

Medicare lead generation works differently from every other insurance vertical for one reason: for Medicare Advantage and Part D products, CMS decides how you’re allowed to reach people — and unsolicited outbound is mostly off the table. Under 42 C.F.R. § 422.2264, MA organizations and their third-party marketing organizations (TPMOs — a bucket that includes independent agents and agencies) may not make unsolicited direct contact with prospects: no telephone cold calls, no robocalls, no texts, no voicemail drops, no social media DMs, no door-knocking. The unsolicited channels CMS permits are conventional mail, print media, and email — and every email needs an opt-out.

That single rule explains the shape of the entire market. Direct mail drives T65 campaigns, web forms exist to capture permission to contact, and inbound calls and live transfers exist so the beneficiary initiates the conversation. Before you buy anything, know the rules that attach to what you’re buying:

• Permission to contact and Scope of Appointment run 12 months. A beneficiary’s request for contact or signed SOA is valid for 12 months from the signature or initial request — and permission is limited to the products and scope the beneficiary agreed to (42 C.F.R. § 422.2264(c)(3)).
• The 48-hour SOA rule is date-gated. Through plan-year-2026 marketing (through September 30, 2026), the SOA must be documented at least 48 hours before a personal marketing appointment, with exceptions for the last four days of a valid election period and beneficiary-initiated walk-ins. For CY2027 marketing beginning October 1, 2026, the CY2027 final rule (91 FR 17583, April 6, 2026) removes the waiting period — the SOA documentation requirement itself survives.
• TPMOs record sales calls. Marketing and sales calls with beneficiaries must be recorded in their entirety, including the audio of web-based calls (42 C.F.R. § 422.2274(g)). Retention for current plan-year-2026 recordings is 10 years; the CY2027 rule cuts it to 6 years — first 3 in audio, years 4–6 as audio or transcript — from October 1, 2026.
• The disclaimer is scripted. TPMOs that don’t sell every plan in an area must deliver CMS’s standardized disclaimer — verbally within the first minute of a sales call through September 30, 2026, then before any discussion of plan benefits (and without the SHIP reference) once CY2027 marketing begins.
• Lead data itself is consent-gated. Since October 1, 2024, a TPMO may share a beneficiary’s personal data with another TPMO or plan only with the beneficiary’s prior express written consent — a CMS rule that remains in force. Ask every lead vendor how they document that consent before you buy.
• Don’t confuse the two “one-to-one” rules. The FCC’s TCPA one-to-one consent rule was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit on January 24, 2025, so shared multi-seller lead-gen consent survives under federal telecom law — though prior express written consent is still required for autodialed or prerecorded marketing calls. CMS’s one-to-one data-sharing consent above is a separate rule, and it’s alive.
• Medigap is the carve-out. CMS’s marketing rules govern MA and Part D — not Medicare Supplement. Medigap marketing is state-regulated, and state-regulated does not mean unregulated: TSR, TCPA, DNC, and state telemarketing rules still apply, and a mixed MA-plus-Medigap conversation gets pulled into the CMS rules by the MA portion.

The full rulebook — disclaimers, election calendar, the October 1, 2026 regime change — lives on the Medicare marketing guidelines page. Everything below assumes you’ll run your program past compliance.

Every type of Medicare lead, decoded

Turning 65 (T65) leads

T65 leads target people approaching their initial enrollment window, and direct mail owns the channel because mail is a CMS-permitted unsolicited touch while cold calls and texts are not. Cost is the murkiest in the market: T65 mail campaigns are commonly cited at $420–$600 per 1,000 mailers with roughly 15–30 responses per 1,000 — an effective $35–$65 per raw lead — but that range is marketing-industry lore, not vendor-published pricing. The major named mail houses, Lead Concepts (a T65 specialist of roughly 30 years, with seminar-reservation and 14-day Facebook ad add-ons) and TargetLeads, publish no rates at all — both verified quote-only as of July 30, 2026. Named as examples of the channel, not endorsements.

Medicare Advantage leads vs. Medicare Supplement leads

The two products create two different lead economies. Exclusive Medicare internet leads are reported at roughly $25–$65 each, with Medicare Advantage carrying a 20–40% premium over standard health leads (InsureLeads, 2026 — reported ranges, not one vendor’s rate card). In the aged market the order flips: Med Supp leads price above MA leads because Medigap pays ongoing renewal commissions (Aged Lead Store, 2026). For Medigap targeting, plan mix is worth knowing: Plan G is held by 39% of Medigap policyholders and Plan F by 36%, per KFF’s analysis of 2023 data. And the compliance profiles differ sharply — MA leads live inside the CMS/TPMO stack; Medigap-only leads live under state insurance and federal telemarketing law.

Real-time internet leads: shared and exclusive

Web-form leads delivered seconds after submission. The Leads Warehouse’s May 2026 guide lists real-time form leads at $20–$60; exclusive versions are reported around $25–$65 (InsureLeads, 2026). For MA marketing, the form is doing legal work as well as sales work — it’s your documented permission to contact, so confirm what products the form named and when it was signed. Speed to lead decides most of the value here.

Inbound Medicare calls

The beneficiary dials first — which is precisely why this lead type fits CMS’s unsolicited-contact rules so cleanly. The Leads Warehouse lists inbound Medicare calls at $40–$120 per call (May 2026), with the price tracking the qualification buffer you select. Supply keeps shifting: TargetLeads sunset its TargetConnect inbound call program entirely, redirecting buyers to mail and internet leads — page live as of July 30, 2026.

Medicare live transfer leads

A vendor’s screener qualifies the prospect, then warm-transfers the call to your licensed agent. InsureLeads reports Medicare live transfers up to roughly $85–$110 per qualifying call in 2026 — reported ranges vary by vendor, buffer length, and season, and no major vendor publishes a fixed Medicare live-transfer rate card. Remember that once your agent is on the line for an MA product, the TPMO recording and disclaimer obligations are yours, not the transfer vendor’s.

Aged and co-registration leads

The volume end of the market. Aged Medicare leads run $0.50–$3.00 per lead — freshest 15–30-day aged at the top, 180–365+ days at the bottom — per Aged Lead Store’s published 2026 pricing guide (spot prices on its store fluctuate). Real-time co-registration leads run $0.50–$2, and deep-aged inventory trades for pennies to $0.50 (The Leads Warehouse, May 2026). One trap worth naming: for MA marketing, check whether any permission to contact is still inside its 12-month validity window — beyond that, CMS treats your call as unsolicited no matter what the CSV says.

What Medicare leads cost in 2026: the attributed ranges

Every figure below is secondary or reported — treat the table as a negotiating baseline, not a menu.

The mechanic that matters most on calls and transfers: you’re billed per call only when the connected duration clears a threshold — commonly 60, 90, or 120 seconds, with qualification buffers running roughly 10–120 seconds (MediaAlpha’s call-acquisition documentation; InsureLeads, 2026). Two vendors quoting different prices with different thresholds aren’t quoting the same product, so model the effective cost, not the sticker.

Where to buy Medicare leads: the 2026 vendor landscape

The vendors below are named because they publish something verifiable — a price, a mechanic, or a program change. Each is an example of its category, not an endorsement; every figure is from the vendor’s own published pages as dated.

• Aged Lead Store — aged internet leads across insurance verticals; its published 2026 guide tiers aged Medicare leads at $0.50–$3.00 by age, with no minimum order and browsable store pricing.
• The Leads Warehouse — aged Medicare/ACA leads plus inbound calls; its May 2026 guide lists inbound calls at $40–$120, real-time form leads at $20–$60, and co-reg at $0.50–$2.
• NextGen Leads — real-time shared and exclusive leads plus inbound calls, sold through a second-price auction (you pay $0.01 above the next bid); pricing is dynamic in-platform, so no per-lead figure can honestly be quoted.
• Benepath — exclusive Med Supp and MA internet leads at quote-only pricing, alongside published aged specials: $3 per aged lead and $5 for “overflow” leads a maximum of 7 days old (accessed July 2026).
• Lead Concepts — the T65 direct-mail specialist; roughly 30 years in the channel, seminar and telemarketed add-ons, quote-only (verified July 30, 2026).
• TargetLeads — T65/Med Supp direct mail and prospecting lists; sunset its TargetConnect inbound call program, with mail and lists remaining quote-only (verified July 30, 2026).
• MediaAlpha — the exchange/marketplace used by carriers and large agencies for Medicare calls and clicks; publishes call-economics documentation rather than retail per-lead prices.

The commission math behind your lead budget

Lead prices only make sense against what a sale can pay. For CY2026, CMS’s published fair-market-value ceilings for MA compensation are $694 initial and $347 renewal per member per year nationally — $781/$391 in CT, PA, and DC, and $864/$432 in CA and NJ — with PDP capped at $114/$57 and referral fees at $100 (MA) and $25 (PDP), per CMS’s June 18, 2025 compensation memo. Those are maximums: carriers may pay up to those amounts, and actual schedules are set carrier by carrier. (The CY2025 compensation reforms remain stayed by a Texas federal court, so per that memo the pre-2025 methodology governs CY2026 while the stay is in effect.)

That’s the arithmetic that justifies a $100 inbound call for an MA-focused agency — and it’s why Med Supp shops, paid on ongoing renewals instead of CMS-capped MA schedules, will pay up for aged Medigap lists. Work out your own allowable acquisition cost from your actual close rate; this page won’t invent a conversion benchmark for you.

Working Medicare leads with a dialer — where Enzo fits

Enzo sells no leads. What it sells is the calling infrastructure that turns the lead types above into conversations — and each type maps to a different workflow:

• Inbound calls and live transfers. Inbound routing puts vendor calls and transfers onto your licensed agents. Enzo’s call recording is optional — CMS’s TPMO recording and retention obligations sit with your agency, so confirm your recording and storage program with compliance before AEP.
• Real-time and PTC leads (MA). Import by CSV, schedule callbacks with campaign scheduling, and dial with preview or power mode inside the lead’s documented permission — its 12-month validity and its agreed scope. Outcomes sync back through native 2-way Follow Up Boss integration, or to GoHighLevel, Salesforce, HubSpot, and roughly 6,000 other tools via Zapier and webhooks.
• T65, Medigap, and other non-MA lists. This is telemarketing-law territory — the DNC scrub cadence, calling hours, and consent rules are summarized in TCPA for cold callers. Enzo doesn’t scrub against national or state registries, so scrub externally before upload, and note that Enzo’s internal DNC is campaign-level only — marks don’t carry across campaigns, so keep your master suppression list outside the dialer. For volume lists, multi-line dialing (5 lines per agent on Starter, up to 14 on Standard, pooled across agents) keeps agents in conversations; 35–100 managed caller IDs per seat with rotation, local and regional presence, and reputation monitoring keep a senior-heavy calling program presenting cleanly.

Pricing is published, which is rarer than it should be in this market: from $99 per seat per month billed annually ($120 month-to-month), no seat minimum, all inbound and outbound minutes included, with a $250 white-glove buildout waived on annual plans — every number is on the pricing page. The broader insurance workflow — Medicare, final expense, life — lives on the insurance dialer hub.

Buy the lead type your compliance program can actually support, price it against the attributed ranges above, and make the vendor show you its consent documentation before money moves. Then see what your team’s calling side looks like on infrastructure with published pricing — book a free 20-minute discovery call.

Market figures from KFF, AHIP, and the Alliance for Lifetime Income; lead pricing from Aged Lead Store, The Leads Warehouse, InsureLeads, MediaAlpha, Benepath, and vendor pages; CMS rules from the Code of Federal Regulations, the CY2027 final rule (91 FR 17583), and CMS’s June 18, 2025 compensation memo — all as of July 2026. Lead prices move constantly: verify current pricing and terms with vendors, and confirm your outreach program with your compliance officer.