Best skip tracing service is one of the most asked questions in every wholesaling forum, and it is genuinely hard to answer. SkipMatrix has come out on top of every test I have run, but it is premium priced, so the fair question is the one people actually ask me: is expensive skip tracing worth it, or is cheap good enough? So I tested it properly. Same city, same property type, same texting system, one list split in half.
The short version
SkipMatrix
23% response rate against 15.6%, more mobile numbers returned than records I sent in, and nearly double the leads. On a 100-record list of owners you know are motivated, that gap is the whole point of pulling the list.
Kind
$150 buys you 1,000 SkipMatrix traces or roughly 5,000 Kind records. When you are marketing wide and the list is replaceable, five times the reach beats a better hit rate on one fifth of the data.
What I actually do
Cheap tracing on the broad lists, premium on the small ones I care about. Neither service is wrong. The list decides.
How I ran the test
- Pulled a vacant land list in Augusta, Georgia: 2,000 records
- Split it in half at random, 1,000 to each service. Same city, same property type, as even as I can make it
- Ran both halves through my own texting system with my VAs working the replies
- Let it run a few days and compared mobile numbers returned, response rate, wrong numbers, and actual leads
What came back before a single text went out
The first difference showed up at upload. From 1,000 records each:
- SkipMatrix: 1,050 to 1,080 mobile numbers. More phone numbers than records, because owners have more than one
- Kind: around 960 mobile numbers
Landlines excluded, mobile only. More numbers means more chances to reach the owner, so SkipMatrix started ahead before any marketing happened.
Response rates
- SkipMatrix: 23%
- Kind: 15.6%
Every SkipMatrix list I run lands around there, so 23% is normal for them, not a fluke. And 15.6% is genuinely solid. That is not a broken list, it is a working list at a quarter of the price.
Wrong numbers went the other way, as you would expect: Kind produced 32, SkipMatrix produced 12. That is a real cost in VA time and in annoyed people, but it is not the number that decides anything.
Leads, which is the only number that pays
Responses are not deals. Here is what converted after two to three days of texting:
- SkipMatrix: 10 leads from 1,000 properties
- Kind: 6 leads from 1,000 properties
Keep following up and both climb. But at the same point in time, from the same source list, premium data produced roughly 40% more leads.
The cost math, and the part people miss
At 15 cents (13.5 with my code) against 4 cents, you are paying roughly three to four times more per record. You are not getting three to four times the leads. So on raw efficiency, cheap wins.
But there is a second effect that does not show up in a spreadsheet. The four leads Kind did not reach are worth more than the six it did. Everybody running cheap tracing is hitting the same easily-found owners, over and over. The owners whose numbers only premium data surfaces are getting far fewer texts, so they are less irritated and more willing to have a real conversation. On a list where you already know the owners are motivated, that is exactly who you are trying to reach.
Now run it the other direction. $150 buys 1,000 SkipMatrix traces, or about 5,000 Kind records. If you are marketing wide, five times the reach beats a better hit rate on a fifth of the data.
How the two platforms actually work
They are different products, not just different prices.
SkipMatrix is done-for-you. You hand over the list, they process it, they handle LLCs and trusts, and you get it back segmented: mobile, landline, LLC owners, personal owners. It also returns relatives and neighbors, which is more data than you asked for and useful in this business. Turnaround is a couple of hours on a full list, and they do not track what you have already traced, so dedupe on your side.
Kind is self-serve and fast. Upload, wait 10 to 15 minutes, download. Simpler output, and the feature I like most: it remembers what you have already traced, so you do not pay twice for the same record. On a big operation that quietly saves real money. I would guess the automation is exactly why they can price where they do.
Pricing
| Tool | Pricing | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| SkipMatrix * | 15 cents per match at base volume, 13.5 cents with code RAUPH; volume discounts on larger lists; you pay for matches only | Small targeted lists where missing a number means missing a deal |
| Kind Skip Tracing * | From 1.5 to 4 cents per record depending on volume tier; results back in 10 to 15 minutes; tracks what you already traced so you are not billed twice | Big lists where volume matters more than squeezing every match |
Pricing verified August 12, 2026. Pricing changes. Check the vendor's site before buying.
* Affiliate link.
This isn't for you if
- You want one winner for every situation. The whole finding here is that the right answer changes with list size.
- You are choosing a tracer before you have a texting or calling system that follows up. Better data into a broken follow-up process changes nothing.
- You expect the cheap option to be unusable. It is not. Kind returned real leads at a quarter of the price, and that matters if your lists are big.
Bottom line
Is expensive skip tracing better? Yes, measurably, on every metric here. Is it worth it? That depends on the list. I run targeted lists these days, so I pay for SkipMatrix. When I was running big lists, I would use Kind, and if you are starting out and cannot absorb 15 cents a record, Kind gives you real data at a price that will not break you.
Both platforms have a place. I use both depending on the list, and you probably should too. Where each one lands against everything else in my stack is in the tier list, and if you want the platform side of the equation, that is PropStream vs DealMachine vs Propwire.
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