Between June 8 and July 15, 2026, a real estate wholesaler in Mississippi sent cold SMS to 4,870 property owners across owner-occupied and absentee lists. Pulled straight from the daily campaign logs, here is exactly what it produced and what it cost: a 12.6% reply rate, 92 qualified leads, and 3 signed contracts worth $29,500 in assignment fees, at roughly $166 per contract. The full funnel, the cost math, the gap between the two list types, and the honest caveats are all below.
The funnel, stage by stage
Every cold outreach campaign is a funnel, and the only way to know if it works is to watch the drop-off at each step. Here is how 4,870 prospects became 3 contracts.
| Stage | Count | Conversion |
|---|---|---|
| Prospects reached | 4,870 | The delivered audience |
| Replies | 615 | 12.6% of prospects |
| Pipeline leads | 127 | 20.7% of replies |
| Qualified leads | 92 | 72% of pipeline leads |
| Signed contracts | 3 | 1 per ~31 qualified leads |
Put another way: it took about 53 prospects to produce one qualified lead, and about 1,623 prospects to produce one signed contract. Those ratios are the numbers to plan a budget around, not the reply rate alone.
Owner-occupied vs absentee: the list mattered more than the message
The campaign ran two list types: owner-occupied homes valued under $120k, and absentee owners. Reply rates were nearly identical, but the quality of those replies was not.
| List type | Reached | Reply rate | Qualified | Qualified per prospect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Owner-occupied <$120k | 3,090 | 13.0% | 43 | 1.39% |
| Absentee owners | 1,780 | 12.0% | 49 | 2.75% |
The absentee list produced qualified leads at almost twice the efficiency per prospect (2.75% vs 1.39%), and more total qualified leads (49 vs 43) from far fewer prospects. Owners who do not live in the property tend to have less attachment and more reason to sell, which is exactly the pattern we cover in how to find motivated sellers.
What it cost
The cost side is short, which is the whole point of cold SMS. There was no ad spend, no per-lead fee, and no sales floor. The three line items:
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GHL platform | $97 | Monthly plan the AI engine runs on |
| SMS sending | ~$200 | Estimated: a 2-segment opener to 4,870 prospects, plus follow-ups and replies, at GHL's LeadConnector rate |
| Skip tracing | $200 | ReSimpli, monthly, ~76% phone-match hit rate |
| Total | ~$497 | For the full campaign window |
SMS is the one estimated line. Everything else is a flat monthly cost, and the AI acquisition system itself is our own software, so there is no per-message platform fee stacked on top. Even rounding costs up, the totals barely move: this is a sub-$500 campaign.
The numbers that matter
- Cost per signed contract: ~$166 ($497 across 3 contracts)
- Cost per qualified lead: ~$5.40
- Cost per reply: ~$0.81
- Return: $29,500 in assignment fees on ~$497 of cost, roughly 59x, or marketing at about 1.7% of revenue
How ~$166 per contract compares
The reason cost per contract matters more than cost per lead is that it is the only number that survives contact with reality. Here is where this campaign lands against the channels most wholesalers use, drawn from our cost per deal breakdown.
| Channel | Typical cost per closed deal |
|---|---|
| This campaign (cold SMS) | ~$166 |
| Facebook / Meta ads | $500 to $1,200 |
| Google Ads (PPC) | $1,500 to $2,000 |
| Exclusive pay-per-lead | $1,500 to $2,700 |
| Direct mail | $2,000+ |
The 12.6% reply rate is the engine behind that gap. For context, investor direct mail typically pulls 1 to 2%, so cold SMS put roughly 6 to 12 times more conversations into the pipeline per attempt, at a fraction of the cost per contact. More on that spread in our wholesaling statistics roundup.
The honest caveats
A single campaign is not a law of physics. Here is what would keep an honest reader from over-reading these numbers:
- Small sample, especially on deals. This is one client, one state, 17 campaign days, and 3 contracts. The reply and qualification rates rest on ~4,870 prospects and are fairly stable, but 3 deals is a small number. Treat the ratios as directional, not a guarantee.
- It was cold, unsolicited SMS, run compliantly. A2P 10DLC registered, STOP opt-outs honored, and legal send windows, with an opt-out rate of about 2.8%. Some states restrict or effectively ban cold commercial texting. Mississippi does not, but check your own before you send. Start with is cold texting real estate legal.
- "Qualified" means screened. These are leads the team qualified on motivation, price, condition, and timeline, not just anyone who replied.
- The SMS cost is an estimate. It is derived from send volume at GHL's published rate. The platform and skip-tracing costs are exact.
- Assignment fees are the client's reported contract values ($7,000, $8,500, and $14,000).
Want your own version of these numbers?
This ran on the AI Acquisition Manager we build at Vocalxlabs: compliant AI cold SMS that texts your market, holds real conversations, qualifies sellers on motivation, price, condition, and timeline, and hands your team the ones ready to talk. Start with a free 2-week pilot, covering only data costs, with no setup fee until it produces qualified sellers. Your market and lists will pull different numbers than these.
Start the free 2-week pilotFrequently asked questions
How much does cold SMS cost per real estate deal?
In this 2026 campaign, cost per signed contract was about $166: roughly $497 in total spend across 3 contracts. That is well below the $1,000 to $2,700 per deal typical of paid channels like PPC, Facebook ads, and pay-per-lead.
What is a good reply rate for cold SMS to motivated sellers?
This campaign averaged 12.6% across 4,870 cold, unsolicited texts, several times higher than the 1 to 2% typical of investor direct mail. Reply rate varies by list quality, market, and message.
Do absentee or owner-occupied lists convert better?
Here the absentee list produced qualified leads at about twice the efficiency per prospect (2.75% vs 1.39%), even though reply rates were similar. Absentee owners tend to have less attachment and more reason to sell.
Is cold texting motivated sellers legal?
It is legal but heavily regulated. You need A2P 10DLC registration, you must honor STOP opt-outs immediately, you must respect send windows, and some states restrict it. This campaign ran compliantly, at about a 2.8% opt-out rate.
How many texts does it take to get a wholesale deal?
In this campaign, about 1,623 prospects reached per signed contract, and about 31 qualified leads per contract. It is a small sample, so treat those as directional.
The bottom line
Cold SMS is not magic, and 3 deals is not a large sample. But the shape of the funnel is clear and repeatable: a healthy reply rate, a real qualification step, and a cost per contract that sits an order of magnitude below paid channels because the cost per contact is measured in cents. Run it on the right lists, run it compliantly, and answer fast. If you want the full playbook for the sourcing side, see how to find motivated sellers, and price a specific deal with the wholesale calculator.
About this data: figures are from one Vocalxlabs client's daily campaign logs, June 8 to July 15, 2026, across owner-occupied and absentee lists in Mississippi. Channel comparison figures are drawn from our cost per deal and lead cost guides; direct mail and SMS benchmarks from ANA/DMA industry data and SMS benchmarks. SMS cost estimated at GHL LeadConnector rates; platform and skip-tracing costs are exact.