Route inbound calls to the right buyer based on your rules. Priority, weight, geography, time-of-day, caps, and fallback all evaluated in parallel in under 100ms. The same routing engine powers calls and form leads, so one contract covers both channels.
Sub-100ms
Average routing latency
10+
Routing strategies
Calls + Forms
Channels, one engine
Atomic
Cap enforcement
The Basics
Plain English: it answers the question of who gets the call, when they get it, and how many they get.
A phone rings on a tracking number. Call routing software decides, in the fraction of a second before the caller hears anything, which buyer the call goes to. That decision is driven by rules you set: which buyers want calls from this state, which ones still have room under their daily cap, which ones pay the most, which ones are open for business right now.
The routing layer is where pay-per-call operators make and lose money. Route to the wrong buyer and the call abandons or converts at a lower rate. Miss a cap and you burn a buyer relationship. Route late and the caller hangs up. Good call routing software gets the right call to the right buyer every time, fast enough that the caller never notices the work happening.
Lead Router treats call routing as a set of contract evaluations. Each buyer-offer pairing is a contract with filters, caps, and pricing. When a call comes in, every eligible contract is evaluated in parallel, and the offer's distribution rule picks the winner. Same model for calls, same model for form leads.
Routing Strategies
Mix and match. Most operations use three or four strategies stacked together. A contract might combine priority, geography, day-parting, and caps in a single rule set.
Order buyers from first choice to last. The top-priority buyer who qualifies for a call gets it. If the top choice is capped, disabled, or filtered out, routing falls to the next in line. Used when one buyer consistently pays more or converts better and should always see the call first.
Split calls between eligible buyers by percentage. Set three buyers at 50, 30, and 20 and Lead Router honors that mix across a rolling window. Weighted routing works well when you have several buyers of similar quality and want to grow one account without starving the others.
Rotate calls evenly across eligible buyers in order. Each qualifying buyer gets the next call until everyone has received one, then the cycle restarts. Simple, predictable, and fair. Often the first strategy a new operation uses before switching to priority or weighted.
Filter contracts by state, zip code, or city. A buyer licensed only in Florida sees only Florida calls. A contract restricted to 50 specific zip codes in the Dallas metro sees only those. Multiple geo filters combine with logical AND so a buyer can restrict both state and zip.
Contracts carry a schedule. A buyer who answers calls Monday through Friday 9am to 6pm in their local timezone gets routed only during those hours. Outside the schedule the contract is skipped and the call falls to the next eligible buyer. Schedules are timezone-aware so you do not have to do the math.
Ring multiple buyers at once and connect the caller to the first one who answers. Useful when buyers are fast on the phone and you want to minimize abandon rates on high-value calls. Winners are recorded per call so billing and attribution stay clean.
Route calls through an interactive menu before selecting a buyer. The caller picks an option, answers a qualifying question, or enters a zip code, and the routing tree uses that input to narrow the eligible contract pool. IVR steps can gate routing entirely or just add filters.
Every contract can set caps at daily, weekly, and monthly granularity. When a contract hits its cap, Lead Router skips it during evaluation and the call flows to the next eligible buyer. Cap counters use atomic increments so two parallel calls cannot both push a buyer past the limit.
Waterfall fallback is the default. If no primary buyer qualifies, routing cascades through secondary contracts. You can also designate overflow buyers who only see calls when primary capacity is exhausted. Fallback is built into the routing waterfall, not a separate feature.
Calls that do not match any active contract can be routed to a DQ destination: a catchall buyer, a recording, or a different offer. Instead of hanging up on the caller, you keep the inventory moving and capture value from calls that would otherwise be lost.
Built Different
Most call routing tools are bolted-on rule engines. Lead Router was built as one routing system from day one, with calls and form leads sharing the same primitives.
The filters, caps, priority rules, and contracts you use for calls are the same ones used for web form submissions. A buyer who takes both channels uses one contract. One system to learn, one place to update rules, one source of truth for caps.
Cap counters are updated with race-condition-safe increments so two parallel calls cannot both push a contract past its daily, weekly, or monthly limit. Works correctly across multiple serverless instances under real traffic.
Every buyer has their own contract with their own filters. Buyer A wants calls from five states; Buyer B wants calls from three zip codes in one state. No awkward global route trees that everyone shares and nobody wants to touch.
Routing runs every eligible contract in parallel, not sequentially. On a typical offer with ten to thirty active contracts, end-to-end routing completes in under 100ms so the caller never hears a pause.
Who Uses This
Call routing software earns its keep in any operation where calls feed more than one buyer and the rules matter.
Buy media, route calls to the highest-paying buyer who qualifies, respect daily caps, rotate buyers to keep the network healthy. The core loop of affiliate pay-per-call is a routing loop.
Insurance, mortgage, solar, legal, home services. A direct advertiser with a national footprint routes calls to licensed agents by state, zip, or specialty, and enforces day-parting for call center hours.
Agencies running several verticals at once (auto insurance, final expense, Medicare, solar) need one routing layer that handles all of them. Contract-based filtering keeps each vertical's rules isolated.
Standalone Tools
Standalone call-routing products work if calls are your whole operation. If you also run form leads or need unified reporting, a dedicated call tool becomes a second bill and a second compliance posture.
A standalone call routing product gives you solid primitives: tracking numbers, IVR, routing rules, caps, and call recording. It does not give you form-lead distribution, it does not share compliance data with your messaging stack, and it usually bills per-minute on top of a platform fee.
Lead Router gives you the same call-routing primitives plus form-lead ping-post, native email/SMS, and one bill that covers all three. If your operation is strictly pay-per-call affiliate traffic with no form-lead or messaging component, a standalone tool is a reasonable choice. If you run anything else, consolidating reduces vendor count and simplifies reporting.
For a head-to-head comparison against one of the better-known standalone tools, see Lead Router vs Ringba.
Pricing
Lead Router uses one usage-based model for calls, form leads, and messaging. No per-minute markup on call traffic, no separate platform fees per channel.
Pay for the volume you route, not for channels or seats. Calls, form leads, and messaging all roll into one monthly bill.
Every routing strategy, every cap type, every filter. No feature gating between tiers.
Validate your routing setup with real traffic before you commit. No credit card required to start.
Frequently Asked
The questions operators ask before choosing a call routing platform.
What is call routing software?
Call routing software is the layer that decides which buyer receives an inbound call. It evaluates rules such as buyer priority, weighted distribution, geography, time-of-day, and caps, then delivers the call to the matching buyer in real time. In a pay-per-call or lead-generation operation, this is the logic that turns a ringing number into revenue.
How does Lead Router's call routing work?
Lead Router evaluates every eligible contract in parallel against the incoming call. Each contract runs its filters (geo, demographic, custom fields), checks caps and buyer balance, and returns a bid if it qualifies. The offer then selects winners using price, priority, weight, or round-robin. Routing completes in under 100ms on average so the caller is connected without perceptible delay.
Can I route by state or zip code?
Yes. Contracts support geographic filters at state, zip code, or city granularity. A contract can accept calls only from California, only from a list of zip codes in Texas, or any combination. Multiple geo filters combine with logical AND so a buyer can restrict both state and zip.
What happens when a buyer is capped?
When a contract hits its daily, weekly, or monthly cap, Lead Router skips it during evaluation and the call falls through to the next eligible buyer. Cap counters are tracked atomically so two parallel calls cannot both push a contract past its limit. Fallback is built into the waterfall, not a separate feature.
Can calls and form leads use the same routing rules?
Yes. Lead Router uses a unified routing engine for calls and form leads. The contracts, filters, caps, and distribution rules you set up for one channel work for the other. A buyer who takes both calls and form leads uses one contract, not two, so rules only need to be maintained in one place.
How do I set up call routing?
Call routing is configured through contracts between buyers and offers. Create a contract, set filters (geo, demographic, custom), set caps (daily, weekly, monthly, concurrency), set pricing, and attach it to an offer. The offer controls distribution logic (priority, weight, round-robin, price). All of this is available in the admin UI or through the public API.
Route Every Call
Configure a contract, set the rules, start routing. Same engine handles your form leads when you are ready. Usage-based pricing, all features included, free trial to start.
No credit card required. All features included from day one.