Objection
What setters cost, and what this does instead.
Updated
A setter is a person you pay to get prospects onto a booked call and to keep them turning up — and the market almost never prices one per month. Across 183 operator-written hiring posts from 2025 and 2026 we counted 42 distinct dated pay figures, and they are per outcome: $5 to $250 per qualified appointment, with the bulk between $50 and $100; $20 to $50 per show; and $50 to roughly $4,000 per close depending on the ticket.
Every number on this page was posted publicly by somebody else, with a date and a link. They are third-party market rates, put here because nowhere else collects them.
Our own price is not on this page
What does the market actually pay per qualified appointment?
Between $5 and $250, clustering hard between $50 and $100 — and the spread is not noise, it tracks the ticket and how much qualification is loaded into the word. At the bottom, a hiring post offering “$5 per set appointment | 30% Commissions on closed deals”[1]. Near the top, operators paying “$70 per meeting showed”[2] — a post that also names the reason out loud, hiring someone “who can help increase our meeting show rate,” with the current rate written into the ad as 30–40%.
| Billing unit | Dated figures posted in public hiring specs | How common in 183 posts |
|---|---|---|
| Per qualified appointment | $5 · $7 · $10 · $20 · $50 · $60 · $70 · $75 · $100 · $150–$250 · $200 | “qualified appointment” is the dominant contractual noun — 35% of posts |
| Per show, per showed, that sits | $10 per qualified appointment that sits · $20 per showed · $50 per show · $50 per qualified show | 7% — real, but a minority structure |
| Per close | $50 · $100 · $120 · $150 · $160 · $200–$450 · £150 · $400 · $500 · $750–$1,500 · £510–£2,970 · $1,000 · $3,800–$4,000 | Roughly 22% — about three times more common than pay-per-show |
| Hybrid: a per-show fee plus a close bonus | $50 per show + $500 backend | The shape the market actually runs |
| What an agency charges the client for the same appointment | $150–$400 per appointment | The rung a buyer is compared against, not the setter's pay |
One nuance worth carrying, because it corrects a story people tell about this market: pay-per-close is roughly three times more common than pay-per-show. The show usually gets folded into the qualification test rather than billed separately — which is exactly why the definition, not the price, is where these arrangements break.
“$50 PER SHOW + $500 BACKEND” — is that the shape you should be buying?
That is a hiring post title, verbatim, from December 2025[3], and it is the most useful sentence in the whole corpus because it shows the market's own compromise: a modest guaranteed fee for the sit, plus a close-triggered bonus. Not pure commission, not a retainer.
The argument for pricing on the sit rather than the close is made in the same corpus by a practitioner, and it is the cleanest test to apply to anyone selling you anything: pay should be tied to what is inside the supplier's control, not to someone else's skill or luck. A supplier controls the reminder, the call and whether the person turns up. A supplier does not control your offer, your price or your closer.
A test you can apply to us as easily as to a setter
“A qualified appointment means the homeowner was properly qualified, the appointment was confirmed, notes were completed, and it actually sat with the field rep” — who decides?
That definition comes from a hiring post that pays “$10 per qualified appointment that sits”[4], and it is written that precisely because the alternative is an argument every invoice. A buyer in the same thread named the failure mode before anybody built it: “We will just make the definition of a qualified lead subjective so I'm right more than not, and you still have to pay.” [5]
The answer, from a practitioner in that same thread, is not to argue about subjectivity but to remove it. Four objective criteria and a mechanism for adjudicating them, agreed before the first invoice.
The prospect must show up
Notice where this sits: first, and inside the qualification test rather than beside it. The show is not a separate event you bill for; it is criterion one of whether the appointment counts at all.
They must know it is a paid service
Somebody who arrives believing the thing is free is not a qualified appointment, however enthusiastic they sounded.
They must know what the service is and what problem it solves
This is the criterion that separates a booking from a body. It is also the one an assistant can evidence, because the registrant said it in their own words.
They must have shown explicit interest after knowing all that
Interest expressed before the qualification is enthusiasm. Interest expressed after it is a signal.
Adjudicate it against the recording
The practitioner's own line is that all calls were recorded, so it was easy to track — and if a company cannot do that, it is a system problem rather than an incentive problem. Written into the arrangement up front, the recording is the referee and nobody has to trust anybody's memory.
Does this replace a setter, or do you pay for both?
It does not replace them, and we would rather say so on the page than discover the disagreement on a call. A setter qualifies, handles objections, reads the person and carries a relationship into a high-ticket conversation. None of that is what we do.
What we work is narrower and more mechanical: the stretch between somebody registering and somebody actually attending live, and then the window after the session closes. The assistant says it is an assistant, asks why they signed up, and the later contact references what they actually said. That is a job description a setter is over-qualified for and quietly resents.
| A setter | What we run | |
|---|---|---|
| Where they work | The booked call and the relationship around it | Registration to attending live, and the window after the session |
| What they are good at | Qualifying, handling objections, reading the person | Doing the same short exchange with everyone who registered, without getting bored |
| How the market prices them | Per qualified appointment, per show, or per close | Not published here — ask on the call |
| What they hand over | A qualified prospect and their own notes | A registrant who has stated when they will join and why they signed up, in their own words |
| What happens when they leave | Rehiring, retraining, and a gap in the meantime | Nothing changes on the calendar |
What does this do to a setter's day?
Two concrete changes, and we will not pretend to a third. The confirmation and reminder work stops being theirs, because it is the part of the day that is genuinely repetitive. And the notes attached to each registrant stop being empty: what somebody said about why they signed up arrives with the booking rather than having to be extracted at the start of the call.
What we will not claim is a headcount saving, and it is worth being blunt about why. We have no clients yet, so we have no figure for what happens to a setter's calendar, and inventing one would be the easiest lie on this page to tell. The honest way to find out on your own list is the split described on the pilot.
Frequently asked questions
The premise is the problem: almost nobody in this market prices one per month. Across 183 operator-written hiring posts from 2025 and 2026 we found 42 distinct dated pay figures and they are overwhelmingly per outcome — $5 to $250 per qualified appointment with the bulk between $50 and $100, $20 to $50 per show, and $50 to roughly $4,000 per close depending on the ticket. A monthly number only appears as an earnings estimate for the setter, not as a price the business commits to. These are third-party rates posted publicly by other operators.
More than they pay for it, which is the rung that matters if you are the client rather than the employer. The pattern across the corpus is that agencies pay setters roughly $10 to $100 per sit and charge their own clients roughly $150 to $400 per appointment. If you are comparing options as a buyer, $150 to $400 per appointment is the honest comparison point, not the setter's pay.
It does not replace them, and anyone who tells you it does is describing a different product. Setters qualify, handle objections and build the relationship that carries a high-ticket sale. What we work is the gap between someone registering and someone actually attending live, and then the window after the session. If it works, your setters get a calendar with more people on it who have already said, in their own words, why they signed up.
Two things, both concrete. The reminder and confirmation work that eats a setter's morning stops being theirs, because it is the part that is genuinely mechanical. And the notes attached to each registrant stop being blank: whatever the registrant said about why they signed up and what they were hoping to get out of the session arrives with the booking. Neither of those is a headcount decision; they are a change in what lands on the calendar.
It is the shape the market already runs, which is worth knowing before anyone tells you it is exotic. The clearest published example is a hiring post titled $50 per show plus $500 backend — a modest guaranteed fee for the sit, plus a close-triggered bonus. The argument for paying on the sit rather than the close comes from a practitioner in the same corpus: pay should be tied to what is inside the supplier's control, not to someone else's skill or luck. Nobody controls whether your closer closes.
That question is the entire battleground, and a buyer in the corpus named the failure mode before anyone built it: make the definition of a qualified lead subjective and the supplier is right more often than not while you still pay. The counter from a practitioner in the same thread is a four-part objective test — the prospect shows up, they know it is a paid service, they know what it is and what problem it solves, and they showed explicit interest after knowing all that — adjudicated against the recording. Written down before the first invoice, that removes the argument.
Not published, anywhere on this site, and deliberately. You get the number on the first call, in the sentence after you ask, rather than after we have heard your ad spend. The reasoning and the shape of the deal are on the pricing page. Every figure on this page belongs to somebody else and is labelled as such.
Two more of the same figures sit in the corpus for anyone who wants to check the range themselves — $500 per close and $900–$1,200 per closed client. If what you are really weighing is whether more people turn up at all, the evidence on that is on how to increase webinar attendance, and the deal shape is on how pricing works.
Founder & Operator, CallHush
Founder and operator of CallHush. The offer is one sentence: you run a webinar, and we increase your show-up rate and your post-webinar sales with an AI voice and SMS system. CallHush has no closed clients yet — the first engagement is a pilot run as a split of the client’s own registrant list, and nothing on this site is presented as a client result.
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