ISO Leads

What does an ISO lead mean for your agents and portfolio?

An ISO lead starts a merchant acquisition conversation. It is not an approved account, a completed underwriting package or a commitment to change processors. We sell inquiries—not live transfers, appointments, inbound calls or pay-per-call traffic. Your team still needs to establish decision-making authority, processing needs and placement fit.

For an ISO, the operating challenge is turning each inquiry into a clearly owned opportunity. Assign one agent to the first conversation, identify who will review statements and decide who can escalate a placement question. Two agents pursuing the same merchant can create conflicting proposals and uncertainty about residual ownership.

Build your purchasing plan around the portfolio you want to support. A merchant with attractive volume may still require more onboarding attention or a different sponsor-bank relationship than your team can provide. Evaluate service demands and retention potential alongside the initial sales opportunity.

How do our paid campaigns capture ISO inquiries and consent?

We attract merchant inquiries through our own paid Facebook and Google campaigns. Our campaigns display a consent disclosure naming MerchantCardLeads and partner payment-processing providers:

“By submitting, you agree that MerchantCardLeads and its partner payment-processing providers may contact you by phone, text and email about merchant services, including via automated technology. Consent is not a condition of purchase.”

New campaign leads carry the captured consent text, timestamp and source page in dashboard, email and webhook delivery. Keep that evidence associated with the opportunity when you assign it to an agent or move it into your CRM. An agent handoff should preserve the inquiry context rather than leave the recipient guessing why the merchant can be contacted.

You are responsible for TCPA and DNC rules in your own outreach. Review the applicable consent and suppression requirements before calls, texts or email. An aged purchase does not renew consent, and you should not assume every historical inquiry carries the current campaign disclosure. Buyer SMS alert opt-in is separate from merchant consent.

What do shared, exclusive and aged ISO leads cost?

Our shared leads cost $25 each and can be sold to up to three buyers. Shared purchasing can suit an ISO with agents ready to distinguish their offer through responsive discovery and useful statement analysis. It does not reserve the merchant conversation for your organization.

Our exclusive leads cost $45 each. Exclusive purchasing limits competing access at the fresh-lead stage; it does not prohibit later disclosed aged resale. It also does not replace your own territory controls. Decide which agent owns an exclusive inquiry before distributing it across offices or teams.

Aged leads cost $6 for 1–30 days, $3 for 31–90 days, $1.50 for 91–180 days and $0.75 for 180+ days. The minimum aged order is 25 leads. Use aged inquiries for a deliberate re-engagement workflow, with time to confirm that the merchant still needs help and that outreach is appropriate.

Pricing can vary for high-risk or high-volume leads. Choose a purchase type around agent availability and placement capacity, not just the lowest unit cost. Lower acquisition expense does not remove the work required to qualify, document and support an account.

Which filters help you align territory, agent allocation and sponsor-bank appetite?

Prioritize geography, industry and processing-volume criteria when choosing your ISO prospecting scope. Geography helps you organize territory coverage; industry helps you route inquiries toward agents familiar with the business model; volume helps you plan the depth of statement review. Confirm the available selections before purchasing, and validate important details with the merchant rather than treating a category label as a complete profile.

Translate sponsor-bank appetite into a practical routing guide. Separate businesses your current relationships can reasonably assess from those that need an additional placement discussion. A broad industry description is not an underwriting decision: products sold, fulfillment timing, recurring charges and prior processing history can change the assessment.

Use territory rules to prevent overlap, but allow expertise-based exceptions. An experienced e-commerce agent may be the better owner even when another representative covers the merchant's area. Record the exception and residual arrangement before either agent prepares a proposal. Your buying criteria should make allocation easier, not create more disputes.

How should your ISO qualify, review statements and manage follow-up?

Start by confirming who can authorize a processing change, what prompted the inquiry and whether the merchant has an active account. Establish the business model, monthly card volume, average transaction size, sales channels and desired timing. Ask about prior declines or account closures without treating those answers as automatic placement decisions.

Request a recent processing statement when it is relevant and the merchant is ready to share it through an appropriate secure process. Your reviewer should separate interchange and network costs from processor charges, then assess transaction mix, recurring fees and operational requirements. Avoid quoting savings before understanding the current arrangement and the proposed replacement.

Before presenting a solution, check sponsor-bank appetite for the actual activity. Clarify delivery obligations, recurring billing, refund practices and any concerns that require escalation. Keep the agent responsible for the relationship even when a placement specialist takes over part of the review.

Give every open opportunity one owner, a next action and a due date. Size daily assignments around the agent's remaining follow-up work, statement reviews and onboarding responsibilities. Track conversations, statements requested, statements received, placement reviews and activated accounts separately. That distinction helps you identify whether the constraint is prospecting, documentation or placement rather than simply buying more inquiries.

Which independent delivery channels fit an ISO sales operation?

Use dashboard, email and webhook delivery according to how your ISO assigns work. Each can support a different operating approach; they are not a mandatory sequence. A manager can review inquiries in the dashboard before allocation, an individual representative can work from email, or your team can use webhook delivery to feed a CRM routing process.

For centralized operations, define assignment rules before connecting delivery to automation. Decide how territory, agent expertise and workload affect ownership, then specify a fallback owner when the preferred agent is unavailable. Preserve the consent evidence and original inquiry context through each handoff.

For distributed teams, make sure email visibility does not become ambiguous ownership. A message sent to several people still needs one accountable representative. Use buyer SMS alerts only as notifications under the separate opt-in; an alert is not a replacement for reviewing the inquiry or a new permission to contact the merchant.

What can you return, and what remains an ISO qualification issue?

Review purchases promptly and submit return requests within 72 hours. For aged leads, the returnable reason is a bad phone number. Log the issue clearly so your request addresses the applicable return reason rather than a general disappointment with the sales outcome.

A merchant declining a statement review, an agent missing a follow-up or a sponsor bank rejecting the business model is different from an unusable phone number. Do not treat territory overlap, slow responses or lack of placement fit as automatic return entitlements. Those situations call for better allocation, outreach or purchasing criteria.

Give one person responsibility for purchase review and return requests. If several agents report problems informally, your ISO can lose track of the review window. A consistent review process also helps you distinguish a delivery issue from an execution problem before changing your buying plan.

How do you start without a contract and keep buying within daily capacity?

We offer Starter at $250, Growth at $500 and Scale at $1,000, with custom packs starting at $250. There are no contracts, and you can pause anytime. Start with a defined territory, a manageable business category and named agents rather than spreading the first purchase across every possible placement route.

Before ordering, choose shared, exclusive or aged leads; establish delivery preferences; assign a backup owner; and reserve time for statement review. Decide how you will handle merchants that fall outside your current sponsor-bank appetite. A clear escalation route prevents an agent from promising a solution before a placement review.

Expand purchasing only when your team can absorb both new conversations and existing follow-up. Review whether agents are securing documents, resolving placement questions and supporting newly boarded merchants. Portfolio building depends on that continuing work, not inquiry volume alone. For help planning your starting scope, contact our founder, Chad Buchanan, at (248) 686-6955.