How to vet an outbound agency. Including us.

Why these six questions, and how to use them

The six questions worth asking any outbound agency before you sign are: who specifically will run my campaigns, who owns the domains and inboxes, what are all the costs, how do you protect my sender reputation, what exactly counts as a qualified meeting, and when do you get paid if it doesn't work. More than half of the people who hire a lead generation agency say the experience went badly, and most of those failures trace back to one of these going unasked.

Below is why each one matters, and our own answers. Use them on us. Use them on whoever else you're talking to. If an agency can't answer all six plainly, that tells you what you need to know.

Who specifically will run my campaigns — and can I talk to them before I sign?

Why it matters. The most common complaint in the category: a senior person pitches you, then a junior or offshore SDR you've never met runs the account thirty days later. Buyer guides are blunt about this — if an agency won't name the person or let you meet them, walk away.

Our answer. The person who runs your campaigns is the person on your intro call. There is no account manager layer to hide behind, because there is no account manager, and no handoff to someone you have not met.

Who owns the domains, inboxes, and lists — me or you?

Why it matters. Watch for "the data stays in our system." That means you're renting your pipeline. The day you stop paying, you lose the infrastructure, the lists, and the sending reputation you paid to build.

Our answer. Every domain is registered for your brand and transfers to you on request, free, at any time — not just on exit. Lists and copy are yours. The mailboxes sit on managed Google Workspace accounts we run, which is the one piece that stays with us, and we say so rather than claiming otherwise. What you keep is the part that carries your sending reputation: the domains.

What are ALL the costs — including data, tooling, and setup?

Why it matters. Hidden line items are the most-cited contract red flag: undisclosed setup fees, data credits, per-seat tooling, and scope creep that appears in month two. "Book a call for pricing" usually means the price depends on what they think you'll pay.

Our answer. Everything is published on our pricing page: a one-time $750 setup, managed infrastructure from $249 to $999/mo by volume, and $250 per held meeting. Your first month of infrastructure is invoiced together with the setup fee at signing, so the first invoice is $999 to $1,749 depending on your volume tier, and nothing after that is a surprise. There is no monthly retainer and no line item you'll discover later.

How do you protect my domain and sender reputation?

Why it matters. Badly run outbound can damage your deliverability for months, and the damage outlives the engagement. Ask what they send from, how fast they ramp, and what bounce rate they tolerate.

Our answer. We never send cold email from your primary domain — only from separate variants built for the purpose, so your main domain is never at risk. Volume ramps at 20–30 sends per inbox per day, lists are verified before sending, and bounce rate is monitored daily and kept under 2%.

What exactly counts as a qualified lead or meeting?

Why it matters. This is where most disputes start. If "lead" means anyone who replied — including "no thanks" — you'll pay for noise. The definition should exist in writing before you sign, not in an invoice afterwards.

Our answer. A held qualified meeting is a decision-maker matching the ICP we agree on in writing at kickoff, who actually attended. No-shows and reschedules don't bill until the meeting happens. It's defined in the contract, and there's a shared meeting log so we're both looking at the same record.

When do you get paid — and what happens if it doesn't work?

Why it matters. Most agencies invoice whether your calendar fills or not, which means their incentive is retention, not results. Ask what it costs you if the campaign underperforms.

Our answer. We get paid when a meeting is held. If none happen, we don't get paid. Your exposure is the infrastructure fee. The initial term is three months, then month-to-month with seven days' notice.

Ask us these six on a call.

30 minutes, and you leave with our answers on record, whether or not you hire us.

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Why we published this

Handing you the questions that could disqualify us is a strange marketing decision, and it's a deliberate one. We're new, we have no wall of logos, and asking you to take our word for anything would be worth very little. The next best thing is to be the agency that can survive its own checklist — and to make it easy for you to hold everyone else to the same standard.

If you take this list to three other agencies and one of them answers better than we did, hire them. That's a genuinely good outcome.

See also: held vs booked meetings (the show-rate math behind question 03), what agencies charge per month, our full pricing, and the week-by-week process.

Put us through the checklist.

30 minutes. We'll tell you honestly whether your offer will work on cold email — even if the answer is no.

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