How to compare brokerage plans using your last 12 months of closings

The most useful way to compare brokerages is to take your last 12 months of closings and run them through each plan, rather than comparing headline splits. Your own year is the only data that reflects your volume, your deal sizes and where your business actually comes from.

Here’s the worksheet I’d build, and where agents usually trip.

Why start with your own year instead of a quoted split?

A split tells you who keeps what percentage of one commission. It doesn’t tell you how a cap changes things after a certain volume, how per-transaction fees stack up, what you’d pay monthly, or what the brokerage does that you currently pay for yourself.

Two agents at the same split can pay very different totals if one closes a few big deals and the other closes many small ones. So the question isn’t “what is the split?” It’s “what would I have paid, and received, last year?”

What should go in the worksheet?

For each of the last 12 months of closings, record the side (buyer or listing), the price, the gross commission, and what you actually paid your brokerage on that file. Add what you paid outside the brokerage for tools, marketing, a transaction coordinator, signs and lockboxes.

Then tag each deal by source: your sphere, a lead you paid for, a referral, or an appointment someone set for you. This is the step most agents skip, and it’s the one that decides whether a lead service is worth looking at for you.

How do I account for what a brokerage provides?

Make a second list of what you’d use. At Keeton & Co, for example, every agent gets KAI, an AI assistant built only for our agents, a full-service transaction coordinator, CRM set up with your database imported, marketing support, IT and admin support, and a field technician for signs and lockboxes. The point isn’t to be impressed by a list. It’s to ask which items replace something you pay for or do yourself now.

If you already have a transaction coordinator you’re happy with, a firm’s TC has less value to you. If you spend hours every week on your own marketing, in-house support might have a lot. Be honest in both directions.

Should a lead service count?

Only if you would use it. Keeton & Co’s Lead Service is optional: our marketing generates inquiries and our Inside Sales Team qualifies them and sets the appointment on your calendar. Agents who build entirely from their own sphere choose a plan without it.

Look at the source tags in your worksheet. If nearly all your deals came from your sphere and referrals, a lead service isn’t for you. If your calendar is thin, ask any brokerage that offers leads where they come from, who works them and what that costs you. Our guide to evaluating a lead program goes deeper.

What about the plan itself?

Ask for the plan in writing, then apply it to each file in your worksheet. Run it three ways: your last year, a year with a quarter fewer closings, and a year with a quarter more. A plan that looks good at one volume can look different at the others.

I’m not going to quote Keeton & Co figures here. Our standard plan is published here; Lead Services plan details are shared privately during a confidential conversation with our team. That conversation starts with your last 12 months, and if the numbers don’t favor moving, we’ll say so.

What else belongs in the comparison?

Things a spreadsheet can’t hold. Who do you call when a deal goes wrong? Is there a broker in the building, or a ticket queue? What happens to your pending transactions if you switch? Our posts on what to ask a broker before you switch and what happens to pending transactions cover these.

Keeton & Co is independent, so there’s no franchise royalty coming off the top, and we have offices in Glen Allen, Forest and Charlottesville. That’s a fact about our model, not a reason to skip the worksheet.

What should I do next?

Pull your last 12 months of closings and tag each by source. Then talk to us. Ask about joining Keeton & Co, contact us with a question first, or visit our Glen Allen office page. See Daniel Keeton.