What percentage of leads are bad?

There’s no one number — it depends on the source and the age. But it’s high enough that you can’t afford to guess.

By the Lead Validator Pro team · Last updated: June 16, 2026

There’s no single “percent bad” — it depends on the source and the age of the list — but the unreachable share is high enough that the FCC runs a database just to track reassigned numbers, and most data vendors offer a “bad data” replacement guarantee (commonly in the 10–20% range). On an aged or shared list, the unreachable share is often far higher. The real point: you can’t tell which records are bad without checking. (Lead Validator Pro grades the person behind each lead; it does not sell leads.)

Why there’s no single number

Anyone who quotes you one exact figure is guessing. The bad-data rate on a list depends on where it came from (exclusive vs shared vs aged), how old it is, and how many times it’s already been worked. A fresh exclusive list and a two-year-old shared list are not the same animal — so the honest answer is a range, and the only number that matters is yours.

The forces that kill leads

Number churn — disconnections and reassignments are common enough that the FCC maintains a Reassigned Numbers Database for callers to check.
Moves — the Census tracks tens of millions of address changes a year.
Resale — shared leads get sold to multiple buyers, so the “exclusive” lead in your CRM may have been dialed by several agents before you.

What the bad share actually costs

The cost isn’t the bad records themselves — it’s the time your team spends discovering they’re bad, one dial at a time. Every disconnected number is a minute that should have gone to a live person. Multiply that across a list and the “percent bad” stops being trivia and starts being payroll.

How to find your list’s real number

Stop estimating and measure it: run the list through a grader and read the spread. You’ll see exactly what share comes back Call-now, Verify, or Skip — your list’s real bad rate, in one pass — and you’ll have the live records sorted to the top while you’re at it.

FAQ

What percentage of leads are typically bad?

It varies by source and age — there’s no honest single figure. Vendor replacement guarantees commonly sit in the 10–20% range; aged and shared lists run higher. The only reliable number is the one you get by grading your own list.

Why are so many leads disconnected?

Phone numbers churn constantly — people change carriers, drop lines, and numbers get reassigned. The FCC runs a Reassigned Numbers Database precisely because it happens at scale.

How do I measure my own bad-lead rate?

Run the list through person-validation and read the grade spread — the share that comes back Skip is your real unreachable rate, measured rather than guessed.

Grade 10 of your old leads — free

Paste them in, get an A–F verdict in seconds, and see how much of your aged list is still worth a call.

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