A skip trace provider's match rate counts every record it returned any data for, including numbers that are dead or belong to someone else. Part of the gap is numbers changing hands: in its December 2018 order the Federal Communications Commission estimated that about 35 million telephone numbers were disconnected and made available for reassignment each year (FCC 18-177). Cost per usable contact, the spend divided by the contacts that reached an owner, is the number this page compares providers on.
What comes back from a skip trace
A skip trace request carries a name and an address. The file that comes back holds candidates: phone numbers, email addresses and newer mailing addresses from whatever sources the provider uses. Some belong to the owner. Others belong to a relative, a former tenant or whoever had the number before, and some are disconnected. Nothing in the file says which is which, and only calls and letters settle it.
Three rates and who can measure each
| Rate | What it counts | Who can measure it |
|---|---|---|
| Match rate | Records the provider returned at least one value for | The provider |
| Verified rate | Returned phones that test as connected, or addresses that pass postal checks | The buyer, or a verification service |
| Usable rate | Records where a returned contact reached the owner | Only the buyer, from call and mail outcomes |
Providers report the first rate. The third takes a few weeks of calling or mailing, and a record of what happened on each contact.
Two providers on one split list
An invented example: an investor has 5,000 owners to trace. Provider A charges 12 cents for every record sent. Provider B charges 20 cents for every record it matches. The investor splits the list at random, sends 2,500 to each, and works every returned contact for three weeks.
| Provider A | Provider B | |
|---|---|---|
| Records sent | 2,500 | 2,500 |
| Price | $0.12 per record sent | $0.20 per record matched |
| Match rate | 90% (2,250 records) | 70% (1,750 records) |
| Spend | $300 | $350 |
| Cost per matched record | $0.13 | $0.20 |
| Usable contacts after three weeks | 675 | 875 |
| Cost per usable contact | $0.44 | $0.40 |
Provider A leads on match rate and on cost per match. Provider B leads on cost per usable contact, because half of its matches reached an owner (875 of 1,750) and under a third of A's did (675 of 2,250). A test like this holds only when the split is random and the same callers work both halves over the same weeks; otherwise one provider gets the easier records.
How a waterfall runs
A waterfall sends each record to one provider after another and passes only the misses onward.
- Send the full list to the provider with the lowest cost per usable contact in the last test.
- Verify what comes back before anyone calls, and count disconnected phones as misses.
- Send only the misses to the second provider, and verify again.
- Stop at the tier where the cost per usable contact rises above what a usable contact is worth.
The line in step 4 is the buyer's own number: what one conversation with an owner who might sell is worth, divided by the usable contacts it takes, in the buyer's own records, to get one such conversation. A later tier can charge more per record and still clear the line, as long as enough of what it returns reaches owners. It can also find fewer usable contacts per record, since tier one took the easy ones, so each tier is measured separately.
How fast numbers change hands
The FCC's order of December 2018 describes the problem from the phone side. Its rules at the time set a maximum aging period before a disconnected number could be reassigned, 90 days for numbers other than toll free ones, and no minimum. One commenter told the Commission that some of the largest wireless carriers reassigned disconnected numbers in as few as two days (FCC 18-177, paragraph 14). The order set a minimum aging period of 45 days for all numbers and established a single reassigned numbers database.
An invented example: a two-person team works 300 records a week. At that pace, the last of 20,000 records traced today reaches a caller about 67 weeks from now. A batch sized to a month of calling, about 1,300 records at that pace plus a margin for records that come back empty, is worked before most of its numbers are two months old. The guide on how fast records go stale finds the age at which a list's own numbers stop reaching owners.
The reassigned numbers check
The Reassigned Numbers Database takes a phone number and a date and answers yes, no or no data. Yes means the number was permanently disconnected on or after that date, and no means it was not. No data means the database holds no disconnection for the number and the date given is before January 27, 2021, the date by which all providers had to keep records of disconnected numbers (Reassigned Numbers Database). The same page says access is sold as prepaid subscriptions in tiers set by the number of queries, for terms of one to twelve months. The calling rules built around the database are a separate subject this site does not cover. On an owner list, a yes goes on the record as a dead number for that owner, with the date and the source.
The terms that come with appended data
Some contact data carries federal limits on its use. The Federal Trade Commission's page on the Fair Credit Reporting Act says information in a consumer report cannot go to anyone without a purpose the Act lists (FTC). A separate federal law bars state motor vehicle departments from releasing personal information from their records except for the purposes it lists (18 U.S.C. 2721). A provider's terms state what a buyer may do with its data, and a copy of those terms, with the date they were accepted, belongs in the record source inventory. Any use the terms do not name is a question for a lawyer. This page is general information about federal rules in the United States, not legal advice.
A stamp on every appended field
The comparison above works only when every appended phone, email and address carries three stamps:
- the provider it came from, and the tier of the waterfall;
- the date it arrived;
- what happened when it was used: reached the owner, reached someone else, disconnected, or no answer yet.
A provider comparison run three months later counts each provider's usable contacts from the outcome stamps and divides its spend by that count. The first table of the record source inventory lists which fields each provider supplied.
Sources
- Federal Communications Commission, Second Report and Order FCC 18-177, "Advanced Methods to Target and Eliminate Unlawful Robocalls," adopted December 12, 2018, released December 13, 2018: docs.fcc.gov
- Reassigned Numbers Database, "Frequently Asked Questions": reassigned.us
- Federal Trade Commission, "Fair Credit Reporting Act," page revised March 2026: ftc.gov
- 18 U.S.C. 2721, "Prohibition on release and use of certain personal information from State motor vehicle records," Legal Information Institute: law.cornell.edu