Insulation leads: ask which grant sold it before you pay.

Grant leads

A grant lead is only as good as the scheme behind it.

ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme both work by putting an obligation on medium and large energy suppliers, not by the homeowner writing a cheque. Here's where each stood when we read Ofgem and gov.uk on 23 September 2026:

Sources: Ofgem on GBIS, Ofgem on ECO and the government's response on extending ECO4.

Now read the sellers. Synergi Marketing still sells "GBIS Leads", on a page describing it as "a new government scheme" that "will run until March 2026". Geordie Leads sells "ECO-funded loft insulation enquiries" from a site called LoftGrants.com. Lead Pronto prices "ECO4 and grant leads" at £15, below its £22 leads from people paying for the work themselves. None of them dates the scheme on the lead.

• →Which scheme was the homeowner told about?
• →Is that scheme still open on Ofgem today?
• →Can the job finish before it closes?
• →If the grant falls through, will they pay?

Cavity work has its own paperwork, grant or no grant. In England and Wales, "the insertion of insulating material into the cavity wall of a building" is building work under regulation 3 of the Building Regulations 2010, and gov.uk lists Blue Flame Certification, CERTASS, Certsure, IAA and NAPIT as the competent person schemes for it. CIGA provides an independent 25-year guarantee for cavity wall insulation fitted by registered installers. Heat pump installers have the same grant problem with the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which we cover in heat pump leads.

Spray foam

One seller books the foam in. Another sells the removal.

Spray foam is the one insulation product sold as leads from both ends. Watts Marketing books spray foam fitting appointments, and it settles one question on the phone before it books anyone: every homeowner "has been told that some mortgage lenders take their own view on spray foam, and is happy to proceed to a survey." Lead Pronto sells the other side. Its spray foam removal leads start at £75, more than 3 times its standard insulation lead, and it collects them through a brand it calls National Spray Foam Removal.

If you fit spray foam, a lead that hasn't heard the lender question is a cancellation waiting for a survey. If you remove it, RICS ties foam to valuations and lender policy, so the homeowner can have a sale or a remortgage riding on your date. Either way, ask what started it before you quote.

Buying the click yourself

Your own ads pay on wall jobs, not on loft top-ups.

A click has to become a lead before it's worth anything. WordStream's figure for home improvement is 7.33% of search clicks turning into a lead, from US campaigns, so treat it as a rough guide. Put that against each job's ceiling and the answer changes job by job:

So we'll say it straight. For loft top-ups, a bought lead at £22 beats running your own ads, which work out at about £113 a lead against a ceiling of about £47. Spray foam removal is the most fought-over search in the trade, and at about £527 a lead it costs more than the job carries. External wall insulation is the opposite: the ceiling is about 11 times what the lead costs. That's where your own ads earn their keep.

Google Ads data for the UK, pulled 23 September 2026. These are bid-based estimates, so most advertisers pay less per click. Insulation searches climb as the nights draw in, so plan the spend with how much to spend on Google Ads.

What your own ads give you that a bought lead can't:

• →Nobody else is sold the same homeowner.
• →You choose wall, cavity or removal searches.
• →Leave out "free" and "grant" searches.
• →Push in October, ease off in May.
• →You pay Google direct, with no margin added.
• →Work with us and the ad account stays yours.

Insulation and the ICO

The insulation fines were for how the lead was found.

Insulation has nuisance-call cases of its own, and they name the product. The ICO's position on bought data is that the buyer has to check it properly, and a seller's promise isn't a check.

Axowa's Tier 2 lists are the ones to think hardest about. People collected "within the last 7 to 12 months" sit past the six months after which the ICO says third-party consent generally shouldn't be relied on. Before a batch lands, get answers to these:

• →Which website or call did it come from?
• →Does the consent name my company?
• →What date was the consent given?
• →Was the TPS checked before any call?
• →Did anyone say it was a government scheme?

Ask a seller to make marketing calls for you and the ICO can treat you as the instigator, sharing the blame. Keep every seller's consent records alongside the job file. The detail of the two 2026 cases is in the ICO's announcement, and the wider rules on bought leads are in our guide to trade leads.

So which route?

Match the lead to the work you want.

Plenty of installers will do both. Buy cheap loft leads to keep the vans moving, and put your own money behind the wall and removal searches, where the jobs are big enough to pay for the click and the customer isn't waiting on a scheme that might close.

Straight answers

The questions installers ask before buying.

How much do insulation leads cost?

Lead Pronto is the only seller we found that prints a price per lead: from £22 for loft and cavity wall leads, from £15 for ECO4 and grant leads and from £75 for spray foam removal, all excluding VAT. Zapo, formerly Get Work, charges from £400 a month plus VAT, which its own estimate puts at £40 a lead. Leads 2 Trade, Sales Fuel, Axowa and Geordie Leads don't publish a price. A click on an insulation search in Google costs £5.91 to £38.66.

Are insulation leads exclusive?

Read the whole page before you believe the headline. Leads 2 Trade says "Every insulation lead is exclusive to one company" and then sells Premium leads "sent out to a maximum of 3 installers" and Qualified leads "sent out up to 4 times". Sales Fuel's leads are exclusive "for 30 Days". Lead Pronto says its leads go to one installer, "(unless specified)".

Can I still buy GBIS or ECO4 leads?

Sellers still offer both, but check the scheme before the lead. Ofgem says the Great British Insulation Scheme "closed on 31st March 2026", and gov.uk says installations had to be complete by then. Ofgem gives ECO4's end date as 31 December 2026, after a nine-month extension. Those are the dates as they stood on 23 September 2026, so check Ofgem's scheme pages on the day you buy.

What are spray foam removal leads?

Homeowners who want spray foam taken out of their roof. RICS says spray foam can affect a surveyor's opinion of value and tells homeowners to check their lender's policy. They are the dearest insulation leads to buy: Lead Pronto sells them from £75, and "spray foam removal" is the most expensive insulation click in Google at £38.66.

Is buying insulation leads legal?

Yes, but the checks are yours to make. The ICO says a buyer of marketing data must carry out proportionate due diligence and cannot rely on the seller's word. In 2026 it fined Thermotech Wall and Loft Surveys £240,000 and Jacksons Marketing £130,000 over calls about loft insulation and government grants to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service.

Do I need to be accredited to buy insulation leads?

Some sellers insist on it. Leads 2 Trade asks for BBA or CIGA registration, or Green Deal approval, and a year of stable trading. Separately, putting insulation into a cavity wall counts as building work under the Building Regulations in England and Wales, and gov.uk lists the competent person schemes that cover cavity, internal and external wall insulation.

When is demand for insulation highest?

In the search data behind this guide, "loft insulation near me" peaked in October, November and January and was lowest in May and July, about 2.7 times higher at the top than the bottom. Homeowners think about insulation when the heating goes on.