New publishers almost always ask the same first question: which vertical pays the most? It's the wrong starting question, even though it's the most natural one.
Payout tells you what a call is worth if it converts — it says nothing about how hard that call is to generate, how much competition you'll face, or how forgiving the vertical is while you're still learning.
Verticals like home services and auto tend to be more forgiving for new publishers: broader audiences, simpler compliance requirements, and payout structures that don't punish early mistakes as harshly.
Higher-payout verticals — legal, Medicare, insurance — often come with tighter compliance requirements and less tolerance for weak targeting. They're worth growing into, not necessarily worth starting with.
The publishers who scale fastest usually pick one vertical, get genuinely good at the traffic and compliance side of it, and only then expand — rather than spreading thin across five verticals from day one.