Most PCD pharma companies buy franchise leads from a pharma directory at some point. It is the quickest way to get enquiries: pay for a yearly package and leads start arriving the next week. The question is what each lead really costs, and whether the same money would do more if part of it went into a website that brings enquiries of its own.
This post works through the numbers using published prices, and gives you a simple way to compare the channels on your own figures.
What directory leads cost per lead
Directories sell leads in yearly packages, so the per-lead price is easy to work out. As an example, here are the plans PharmaHopers, one of the larger pharma directories, published on its pricing page when we checked on 14 October 2026:
| Plan | Price per year | Leads per year | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | ₹62,400 | 520 (10 a week) | ₹120 |
| Pro | ₹1,24,800 | 1,040 (20 a week) | ₹120 |
| Business | ₹1,87,200 | 1,560 (30 a week) | ₹120 |
| Enterprise | ₹2,28,800 | 2,080 (40 a week) | ₹110 |
| Premium | ₹3,12,000 | 3,120 (60 a week) | ₹100 |
The prices on the page are marked with an asterisk, so check the current terms and taxes with them before you compare. Other directories price differently, but the method is the same: divide the package price by the number of leads.
₹100–₹120 a lead looks cheap. The real comparison isn’t cost per lead, though. It is cost per partner who places orders.
Why cost per lead misleads
A lead is a name and a phone number. What you want is a distributor who signs up and keeps ordering. Between the two sit three questions:
- Is the lead yours alone? On many lead portals, the same enquiry can reach several companies. If five companies call the same distributor, your chance of signing them is lower, and the effective cost per partner goes up. Ask any directory how many companies receive each lead before you buy.
- Is the lead looking for what you sell? A lead for “PCD franchise” in general is weaker than one who asked about your derma range in their own district.
- How fast do you answer? Distributors usually sign with whoever responds first and answers their questions clearly. A good lead answered the next day is often a lost lead.
So track the whole chain for each channel: leads, then leads you reached, then partners signed, then partners still ordering after three months. Divide what you spent by partners signed, not by leads.
What leads from your own website cost
A website has a different cost shape. You pay once to build it and then a smaller amount to keep it running and growing (hosting, updates, SEO). The leads it brings are yours alone, because the distributor contacted you directly after seeing your range, your terms and your company.
To work out its cost per lead over a year:
(Build cost spread over its life + yearly hosting and maintenance + yearly SEO) ÷ leads from the site in that year
The leads take time to build. A new site starts with few enquiries; pages that rank for searches like “derma PCD franchise in Punjab” add more each month. Our PCD franchise SEO guide has a realistic timeline: specific, low-competition pages can rank within two to four months, and enquiry volume usually becomes noticeable between months four and eight.
One real example
Our sister company, Garwyn Remedies, is a PCD pharma franchise company in Panchkula, and we built and run its website (we disclose that relationship on the case study). In the four weeks from 15 September to 12 October 2026, Google Analytics recorded 34 enquiry actions (form submissions, call clicks and WhatsApp clicks) from 20 people. In the 28 days to 10 October, the site had 9,020 impressions and 117 clicks from Google search.
One company’s numbers don’t predict yours. They do show what a catalogue-led site with real location pages can do once Google starts ranking it.
What Google Ads leads cost
Google Ads sits between the two. You pay per click, the leads come quickly, and they are yours alone because the distributor clicked your ad and landed on your site. Cost per lead depends on your keywords, states, landing pages and how well junk enquiries are filtered out, so ask for it to be measured from the first week rather than accepting a guess.
Two things matter for pharma ads in particular. Google restricts ads that promote prescription medicines, so campaigns advertise the franchise or manufacturing opportunity, not the drugs. And ads only work as well as the page they land on, which is why the website comes first. Our pharma lead generation page explains how we set these campaigns up.
Side by side
| Directory package | Your own website (SEO) | Google Ads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How fast leads start | Days | Months | Days |
| Who else gets the lead | Ask the directory | Nobody | Nobody |
| What you pay for | Leads | Building an asset | Clicks |
| When you stop paying | Leads stop | Pages keep ranking for a while | Leads stop |
| What you can measure | Leads received | Every enquiry, by page and search | Every enquiry, by keyword |
A sensible mix
Directories are not the enemy. For a new company with no website traffic, a package can bring the first partners while everything else is being built. The risk is staying there for years, spending every year on leads that build nothing you own.
A common path looks like this:
- Now: keep the directory package if it is signing partners, and start measuring cost per partner, not per lead.
- Months 1–2: build a website that answers a distributor’s questions: catalogue, composition index, franchise terms, trust. Our PCD franchise website checklist lists what it needs.
- Months 2–6: run Google Ads to that site for quick, exclusive enquiries, and start SEO so the site begins to bring its own.
- At renewal: compare cost per partner across the three channels, and move budget to whichever signs partners for less.
Our guide to getting PCD franchise leads without buying them covers seven channels in more detail.
Work out your own numbers
If you’d like help, send us what you spent on leads last year and how many partners you signed. We’ll work out your cost per partner and show what the same budget could do on your own website and ads.