Auto leads: people researching their next car
Car shoppers read listings, history reports and what their own car is worth before they ever contact a dealer. This page counts the shoppers doing that reading today.
What are auto leads?
Auto leads are people likely to buy a car soon, bought by new and used car dealers, independent lots and their BDC teams to sell vehicles. Intent-based auto leads are people in the US whose recent reading is about used and new cars, car listings, dealerships, vehicle history reports or what a car is worth, identified from that research and delivered with contact details, home city and ZIP, age range and household income. Unlike a marketplace lead from CarGurus or Cars.com, they haven't asked about a specific car yet, so a store can reach them before they've picked where to buy; unlike a prescreened list from a credit bureau, they weren't selected from credit reports, so there's no credit score attached and no firm offer of credit to make.
People researching cars and dealerships
Marketplace leads arrive after a shopper has found a car on a listing site and is weighing which store to buy it from. The research starts earlier: checking a used car's history report, looking up what their current car is worth, comparing SUVs or reading about electric vehicles.
Each day we count those readers and add their home city and ZIP, age range, household income and net worth. A store can keep to the radius it actually sells in, and match each shopper to the inventory and price band they're reading about.
| Topic | Category | People researching (US) |
|---|---|---|
| Used Cars | Used Vehicles | 786,929 |
| Electric Vehicles | Hybrid & Alternative Vehicles | 606,973 |
| SUV Comparison | Vehicle Specs, Reviews & Comparisons | 514,835 |
| Vehicle Valuation | Vehicle Shopping | 404,300 |
| Auto Dealerships | Vehicle Dealers & Retailers | 389,377 |
| Used Car Listings | Used Vehicles | 354,700 |
| New Cars | Vehicle Shopping | 187,864 |
| Vehicle History Reports & Book Values | Used Vehicles | 92,657 |
As of November 13, 2026. People in the US researching each topic on that day, counted exactly; the page checks for a new day every hour. People often research several topics, so the rows overlap: the total above counts each person once. A lane keeps a rolling 14-day window, so it also holds people from earlier days.
Ways to buy auto leads
The common ways to buy auto leads, side by side. Third-party prices come from each seller's own pages or a named industry source, checked November 2026 and linked below; where nobody publishes a figure, the row says how the price is set.
| Way to buy | Price | Exclusivity | Contact data included | Timing | Contract or subscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intent leadsPeople researching your topics, which you export yourself | 10¢ falling to 5¢ per lead; counts and samples free | Not exclusive, but no form fill is split among buyers | Name, personal email, mobiles with do-not-call flags, home city and ZIP, homeowner, income | Researched in the last 14 days; new people every data day | None: prepaid balance, top-ups from $250 |
| Marketplace listing packagesCars.com, CarGurus and Autotrader: list your inventory, and shoppers send inquiries about your cars | Cars.com Starter is free for independent dealers, with up to 10 shopper leads a month; paid Cars.com and CarGurus packages are quoted by a rep, not published123 | The inquiry is about your car, but the shopper is still choosing a store: Cars.com says 89% of its shoppers haven't chosen a dealer yet | The shopper's inquiry and contact details; CarGurus says full contact information comes with its paid Enhanced package | Real time, as shoppers ask about your listings | Starter has no contract to negotiate; paid packages are set with a sales rep |
| Pay per saleTrueCar: shoppers who contact a TrueCar Certified Dealer after checking prices on TrueCar | $299 per new and $399 per used car sold to a TrueCar shopper within 90 days, per its posted dealer terms, where it bills per sale; elsewhere a monthly subscription with no published price456 | Not exclusive: TrueCar's network has more than 13,000 dealers | A shopper who contacted you through TrueCar about a vehicle; under its March 2026 standards they get an offer below your lowest advertised price | When the shopper contacts you; the fee applies to a sale up to 90 days later | Either side can end it at any time with written notice; the 2026 standards also ask for a regular sales file from your DMS |
| Exclusive special finance leadsSellers that run their own car-finance application sites, one dealership per lead | $20 per exclusive subprime lead at Auto Car Leads; Auto Lead Pro puts its average exclusive lead at $35–$90, by territory and filters78 | Exclusive: each lead is sold to one dealership | Name, phone and email from a finance application, income screened ($1,800 a month minimum at Auto Car Leads) and a timestamped consent record | Real time: Auto Lead Pro says within 60 seconds of the application | No contract, setup fee or monthly minimum at Auto Car Leads; no contracts at Auto Lead Pro |
- Cars.com, Cars.com Starter free dealer listings, as of November 2026.
- CarGurus, Dealer listings, as of November 2026.
- CarGurus, Enhanced listings, as of November 2026.
- TrueCar, Dealer master terms and service terms, as of November 2026.
- TrueCar, Frequently asked questions, as of November 2026.
- TrueCar, Dealer program standards (March 17, 2026), as of November 2026.
- Auto Car Leads, Subprime auto leads, as of November 2026.
- Auto Lead Pro, Special finance and subprime leads, as of November 2026.
Who uses auto leads
New and used car dealers
Shoppers in your market reading listings and history reports, before they've chosen a store.
Used-car buyers and acquisition teams
People looking up what a car is worth are often getting ready to trade it in or sell it.
Auto lenders and credit unions
Shoppers about to buy a car who haven't arranged the loan yet.
Every field we have, at one price per person
Name, job title, company and website, business email with its validation status, personal email, every mobile we have with its own do-not-call flag, direct and company phones, LinkedIn, department, title and employer history, schools, home city, age, gender, household income, net worth, homeowner, married and children at home, the company's size, revenue, NAICS and SIC codes and address, and why they're here: the topics they researched or the pages they visited. The same fields in the dashboard, the CSV, the API and the webhook.
Every field, by group 70 in all
Who they are33
- First Name
- Last Name
- Job Title
- Seniority
- Standard Title
- Department
- Job Function
- Sub-departments
- Headline
- Title History
- Employer History
- Education
- LinkedIn Connections
- Company
- Website
- Industry
- NAICS
- SIC
- Employees
- Employee Range
- Revenue
- Revenue Range
- Company Address
- City
- State
- Company ZIP
- Company Country
- Company Description
- Photo
- LinkedIn Headline
- Current Title (LinkedIn)
- Current Company (LinkedIn)
- Location (LinkedIn)
Home and household11
- Home City
- Home State
- Home ZIP
- Home Country
- Age Range
- Gender
- Household Income
- Net Worth
- Homeowner
- Married
- Children at Home
How to reach them12
- Business Email
- Email Status
- Personal Email
- Mobile
- Mobile on DNC
- Direct Phone
- Company Phone
- Company LinkedIn
- X (Twitter)
- GitHub
- All Mobiles
Why they're here9
- Intent Topics
- Intent Score
- Last Active
- Visited Page
- Visited At
- Lane
- Keywords Matched
- Intent Strength
- First Seen
The ID that lasts5
- Exported
- Seen Before
- Suppressed
- Lead ID
- Person ID
Aim it at the people you can serve
Lanes take household and location filters as well as topics, so you only pay for people you can serve. For this market, these matter most:
- A radius around the store, sized to how far buyers drive for your brand and prices.
- Household income and net worth, to match luxury, new or budget inventory.
- Separate lanes for shopping topics and car-value topics.
- Home state, city, ZIP codes, or a radius around a ZIP code.
- Homeowner, household income, net worth, age range, married and children at home.
- Require a mobile, or only mobiles that aren't on do-not-call lists.
Pay per lead, only when you export
100% usage-based: pay per lead, no subscription. From 10¢ a person, falling to 5¢ as your month grows, with no seats or contract: add funds to a prepaid balance and spend them on any lane.
Intent leads
Charged once a month per person, however many of your lanes find them.
| People this month | Each |
|---|---|
| First 2,500 | 10¢ |
| 2,501 – 7,500 | 8¢ |
| 7,501 – 20,000 | 6.7¢ |
| Above 20,000 | 5¢ |
10,000 in a month cost $817.50; 50,000 in a month cost $2,987.50. Only the people inside each band get its price. More than 100,000 a month? Talk to us.
Free before you buy
Size the market and check who's in it at no cost.
- Daily counts for every lane and every topic.
- Samples of the people in a lane, before you export.
- Quotes on every export, shown before you pay.
- Exclusion lists, so you never pay for people you already have.
- API, webhooks and CSV on every account.
Set it up in 3 steps
- 01
Add the topics
Create a free account and start a lane with topics such as “Used Car Listings”, “Auto Dealerships” and “Vehicle History Reports & Book Values”. Or describe what you sell and pick from the topics we suggest.
- 02
Narrow it to your market
Set a radius around the store, add an income band that fits your inventory, and give car-value readers a lane of their own.
- 03
Export, or have them sent
Check the count free every day. Export a CSV when it looks right, pull leads through the API, or have each new person sent to your CRM by webhook.
How to work auto leads
- 01
Run shoppers and car-value readers as separate lanes
Put Used Car Listings, Used Cars, New Cars, Auto Dealerships and the history-report topic in a shopping lane. Give Vehicle Valuation its own lane for your used-car buyer: people checking what a car is worth are often about to trade it in or sell it.
- 02
Send cars from your lot, not a brochure
Each lead lists the topics it read, and that decides the first email. SUV Comparison readers get the SUVs you have in stock with prices, Electric Vehicles readers get your EVs and how charging works at home, and used-car readers get this week's arrivals with their history reports.
- 03
Make the trade-in the reason to reply
Many shoppers have a car to trade in. Offer a written figure for it from the year, make, model and mileage, good for a set number of days, which gives a shopper a concrete reason to answer a store they've never visited.
- 04
Show your cars wherever they browse
Send the emails and mobiles to your Meta and Google ad accounts, keep the audience inside your radius, and run inventory ads for the models they read about. Your cars keep showing up while they browse listing sites.
- 05
Advertise prices you'll honor
Put the price a shopper will actually pay, including any dealer fees, in every email and ad. The FTC's CARS Rule was vacated by the Fifth Circuit in January 2025 and withdrawn in February 2026, but deceptive pricing is still illegal under the FTC Act.
- 06
Let the BDC take over once they answer
When someone replies or books a test drive online, route it to the BDC within minutes, the same as a website lead. Call or text only after the shopper has given you their number and asked you to.
Cadence
Export every Monday and Thursday. Email on day 1 with matching cars from your inventory, day 3 with the trade-in offer and day 8 with new arrivals. Refresh the ad audience weekly, and move anyone who hasn't replied to a monthly new-arrivals email for three months.
SubjectA written number for your current car
Hi {first name}, If you're shopping for your next car, the number that decides most deals is what your current one is worth. Reply with the year, make, model and mileage and I'll send a written offer for it, good for 7 days, whether or not you buy from us. We have {count} {model type} in stock right now: {inventory link} {name}, {dealership}
Interest signals, not opt-in leads
These people researched the topics above. They didn't fill in a form or agree to be contacted, so these aren't opt-in or consented leads. Every mobile carries its own do-not-call flag. Follow the TCPA, state telemarketing laws, the national and state do-not-call rules and your industry's own marketing rules before you call or text. They work best for email, ad audiences and other compliant outreach.
Auto leads questions
How counts, targeting and prices work for auto leads. The lanes guide covers keywords, filters and strength in detail.
How much do auto leads cost?
100% usage-based: pay per lead, no subscription. Intent Leads charges 10¢ per lead for the first 2,500 in a month, then 8¢ up to 7,500, 6.7¢ up to 20,000 and 5¢ after that, from a prepaid balance. Counts and samples are free, and each person is charged once a month however many of your lanes find them. Other ways to buy them, as of November 2026. Marketplace listing packages: Cars.com Starter is free for independent dealers, with up to 10 shopper leads a month; paid Cars.com and CarGurus packages are quoted by a rep, not published. Pay per sale: $299 per new and $399 per used car sold to a TrueCar shopper within 90 days, per its posted dealer terms, where it bills per sale; elsewhere a monthly subscription with no published price. Exclusive special finance leads: $20 per exclusive subprime lead at Auto Car Leads; Auto Lead Pro puts its average exclusive lead at $35–$90, by territory and filters.
Are these auto leads exclusive?
No, and they aren't marketplace inquiries either. Nobody asked a dealer about a car here, so no other store is answering the same form. You reach people while they read listings, history reports and car values, before they've decided where to buy.
How fresh are the auto leads?
The counts on this page are for November 13, 2026, the latest data day. A lane holds people who read about cars in the past 14 days, topped up every data day. Export at least twice a week, so a shopper hears from you while they're still comparing cars and stores.
Can I get auto leads by state, ZIP code or radius?
Yes. Draw a radius around the store, list the ZIP codes you sell into, or pick cities and states. Each lead's home ZIP is in the file, and checking the count for your market costs nothing.
Do auto leads include phone numbers?
On November 13, 2026, 2,022,607 of the 2,624,021 people researching used and new cars, dealerships and car values (77%) had at least one mobile number. Yes. Each lead carries every mobile we hold for that person, with a do-not-call flag on each number, plus a personal email. A BDC should check the flag and its own consent records before anyone dials or texts.
Can my BDC call or text these auto leads?
Not the way it works a form lead. These shoppers didn't fill in a credit application or ask a dealer to call, so they're interest signals, not opt-in leads, and you have no consent on file. FCC rules require consent before an autodialed or prerecorded call or text to a mobile, and written consent for marketing texts, so start with email and ad audiences and check each do-not-call flag.
Are these special finance or subprime leads?
No. Nobody filled in a credit application, and the leads carry no credit score, so you can't tell prime from subprime. They aren't a credit bureau prescreen list either, which comes with a duty to make a firm offer of credit to everyone on it; special finance stores can still use them for email and ads that invite shoppers to apply on their own site.
How is this different from CarGurus, Cars.com or TrueCar leads?
Those sites send shoppers who asked about a car on your lot, paid for by package or, at TrueCar, per sale. Intent leads cost cents and reach people earlier, while they're still reading about cars, so you start the conversation yourself. They work best alongside marketplace leads, feeding the nurture emails and ad audiences that bring shoppers to your own site.