Adam Young's Top Pay Per Call Predictions

I've been staring at call data for years now. Here's the thing: patterns don't lie. So I want to lay out where I think this industry is headed, based on what I'm actually seeing in the platforms, not some theory I read on a forum.

Big deal, right? Everyone's got predictions. But mine come from watching millions of calls route through real campaigns, across insurance, home services, legal and everything in between. Let's get into it.

Insurance and Medicare will keep dominating payouts

Yes. Insurance, especially Medicare, will keep pulling the highest per-call payouts in the industry, often $80 to $150+ per qualified call. I don't see that changing anytime soon. The intent is too high and the ticket value backs it up.

Here's why this isn't going anywhere. Medicare Advantage plans generate real, recurring revenue for carriers. When the Annual Enrollment Period hits every year from October 15 to December 7, bidding activity goes through the roof. I've watched CPCs triple during that window compared to the September lull. Affiliates who aren't ready, who haven't built out their tracking and routing before AEP starts, miss out on the richest six weeks of the year.

And it's not slowing down. The senior population keeps growing. More people age into Medicare every single day, and health insurance in general, auto and health too, keeps commanding premium payouts because the lifetime value of a policyholder justifies it for advertisers.

My take? If you're only running one vertical in 2025 and 2026, insurance should be on your shortlist. Just know the compliance bar is higher here too. More on that below.

Home services will keep growing, but seasonality will bite harder

Home services, particularly HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and solar, will keep expanding as a pay per call category. But the seasonal swings are going to get more pronounced, not less. Affiliates who don't plan around this will see their revenue crater for months at a time.

Let's be real. Roofing and solar campaigns light up in spring and summer. Homeowners notice storm damage in April, they want solar quotes before summer electric bills spike, and call volume follows that pattern almost exactly every year. Come December and January, volume drops off a cliff in most northern markets.

I predict more advertisers in this space will start building winter offers specifically to smooth out that curve. Furnace tune-ups. Emergency plumbing. Insulation upgrades. Smart affiliates should be diversifying their home services mix right now so they've got a winter earner and a summer earner, instead of riding one seasonal wave and then scrambling every November.

Payouts here typically land in the $10 to $75 range depending on the service and region. Lower than insurance, but often with faster qualification and higher volume potential.

More networks will demand duration-based qualification

Simple. More advertisers are going to move away from paying for a "connected call" and toward paying only for calls that hit a minimum duration or a specific outcome. A lot of affiliates are going to get burned if they don't read the fine print.

This is already common. Many campaigns require 60 to 120 seconds of talk time before a call counts as converted. Some go further and require the call to hit a specific IVR keypress, or for the agent to mark a specific disposition in the advertiser's CRM. I've seen affiliates drive genuinely qualified traffic and still get paid on only 40% of their calls because they never checked the qualification criteria before scaling spend.

Here's my blunt advice: read the call requirements on every single campaign before you push a dollar of traffic. Not after. Ask the network directly what counts as a converted call. Is it duration? A live transfer confirmation? A specific outcome logged by the buyer's agents? If they can't answer that clearly, that's a red flag on its own.

I expect this trend to accelerate. Advertisers are under more pressure to prove ROI on every marketing dollar, and duration-based or outcome-based payouts are the easiest lever they have to control quality without micromanaging every affiliate relationship.

TCPA enforcement will keep tightening

TCPA compliance is going to get stricter, not looser, and pay per call operations that treat it as an afterthought are going to get burned. Enforcement actions have already increased scrutiny on lead generation and call routing, and I expect more of that heading into 2026.

I've talked to enough people in this space to know the temptation. Compliance feels like a tax on your time when you're trying to scale traffic. But the calls that come from questionable consent, scraped lead lists, or sketchy IVR disclosures are exactly the calls that create legal exposure for advertisers. Which means those advertisers eventually cut off affiliates who send them.

My prediction: platforms that build compliance tooling directly into their call tracking, things like automated consent logging, call recording disclosures, and documented opt-in trails, are going to pull ahead. Ringba, Retreaver, and Invoca all offer pieces of this infrastructure already, and I think the networks and affiliates who lean into it heavily will still be standing in three years, once enforcement catches up with the rest.

If you're new to this space and want the full picture on how compliance, attribution, and payout structures fit together, check out "The Pay Per Call Revolution." Solid rundown of how the mechanics actually work.

Attribution technology keeps getting more precise

This one's less flashy, but it matters a lot. Call tracking platforms are going to keep pushing attribution down to a finer grain: source-level, keyword-level, even creative-level data tied directly to call outcomes. That's going to squeeze out affiliates running blind traffic and reward the ones who actually optimize.

I've watched this shift happen over the past few years. Five years ago, plenty of affiliates could get away with spraying traffic and hoping for the best. Now, with dynamic number insertion and real-time reporting standard across most platforms, advertisers can see exactly which source, which landing page, even which button color drove a converted call. That transparency cuts both ways. It rewards good affiliates with better payouts, and it exposes weak traffic fast.

Onward. This is where the real opportunity sits, for anyone willing to actually dig into their data instead of just running ads and hoping.

FAQ

What's the highest-paying pay per call vertical right now? Insurance, particularly Medicare and health insurance, typically pays the most, often $80 to $150+ per qualified call. Legal campaigns can command similar or higher payouts depending on the case type.

Why did my calls get rejected even though the customer stayed on the line? Most advertisers now require a minimum call duration, often 60 to 120 seconds, or a specific outcome before paying out. Always check the qualification criteria before running traffic.

Is pay per call still profitable in 2025? Yes, and I'd argue it's more profitable for affiliates who understand attribution and compliance than it was five years ago, since weak traffic gets exposed faster and good traffic gets rewarded better.

When should I ramp up Medicare campaigns? Start building volume before October 15, the start of the Annual Enrollment Period. Waiting until AEP begins means you're competing against everyone else at peak CPCs.

Do I need TCPA compliance if I'm just an affiliate, not the advertiser? Yes. Enforcement actions have targeted lead generation and call routing practices broadly, and advertisers are increasingly cutting off affiliates whose traffic sources raise compliance concerns.