The eXp Realty revenue share plan has changed drastically in the last few months thanks to major shifts to eXp’s Policies & Procedures and Independent Contractor Agreement. These changes have shifted the compensation model by millions of dollars overnight!
Unfortunately, this information has made past explanations of the eXp revenue share system outdated. So, it’s time to update and share a comprehensive breakdown of eXp Realty revenue share so you understand the system. Let’s dig in!
What is Revenue Share at eXp Realty?
The following is the exact definition from the Policies & Procedures:
The eXp Sustainable Revenue Share Plan exists to provide a financial incentive to the Agents with eXp who have helped grow sales within the eXp family of real estate brokerage companies. The Revenue Share Plan aims to pay out 50% of Company Dollar to Agents who help eXp’s sales grow by attracting fellow agents to join its ranks. As defined in the ICA, Company Dollar is that dollar amount (typically equivalent to 20% of GCI) that eXp retains from commission earned on closed Transactions. The Revenue Share Plan guidelines are defined and explained below.
Basically, if an agent identifies you as their sponsor when they join eXp, you receive revenue share from their production. Your share comes from the “company dollar” (the 20% that eXp takes from each commission).
Every agent at eXp can access revenue share if they influence other agents to join and get named as sponsors. This is you getting appreciation for making an introduction—you introduce an agent to eXp and you receive compensation.
Why is Revenue Share a Big Deal?
In all honesty, revenue share is a big deal because it makes some agents a lot of money. You may have heard that some agents at eXp are making the astronomical amount of more than $100,000 per month…and I do know a few agents who ARE making that much money on revenue share alone.
However, is that an expectation you should have for yourself? Maybe… It’s certainly possible, based on the math, the opportunity available, and the incredible growth at eXp with this program that allows agents to still do their jobs but add more revenue streams. But the reality is that it’s incredibly hard to make that much money.
How To Make Money with Revenue Share
Prior to eXp Realty, and revenue share, a successful real estate agent’s career path looked like this:
- You get your real estate license and start making sales.
- You excel to the point where you have so much business you can’t handle all of it.
- You either open your own brokerage or buy a big-box brokerage franchise.
Whether you choose to buy a brokerage or open your own, either option requires a significant amount of money in order for you to get a commercial lease, setup the company legally, do a physical buildout and incur other business related costs. Then, on top of that you still have to recruit new agents to join you.
Basically, that means that for months before you see any profit, you’re going to be focused on recruitment, onboarding, training, and retaining while having already invested $100,000+ (a conservative estimate). Plus, you are liable for maintaining the brokerage and agents that whole time!
What eXp Realty has done is accelerate the startup time and remove all the negative aspects of starting or buying a brokerage—paying the startup cost, maintaining liability, handling training and retaining, etc.
At this point, if you want to see the profits and benefits of running a brokerage, all you have to do is ask some agent friends if they’ve thought of joining eXp.
Using eXp Revenue Share vs. Opening a Brokerage
Now, many of you may still be considering a couple of objections. Either you’re still set on having your own brokerage, or you’re convinced that you’ll experience more upside with your own brokerage. These are fair objections, but they don’t actually mean what you think.
The thing is, most brokerages fail. Just like 87%+ of agents fail in their first three years. And those that become profitable usually end up being a lifestyle business that live and die with the owner.
The brokerage is not sale-able or in place to be handed down to the next generation. Keep in mind when you go to sell a real estate brokerage, you’re likely going to realize that you or your top-producing agent bring the most money, which means that anyone buying from you isn’t going to give as much for the business as you’d think.
Most brokerages end up with an exit strategy of selling their contact list and earning a dismal percentage of the revenue of that brokerage’s future transactions. Ultimately, that’s 10+ years wasted building something you’re going to be selling for pennies on the dollar.
Don’t get me wrong…you still make a great living. But you’ll be chasing an exit plan that doesn’t really exist. When it comes to the eXp revenue share plan, however, there’s a larger upside with less work and risk involved.
You keep doing real estate like normal and, every once in a while, sponsor an agent to join you at eXp. The agents that you sponsor get the same opportunity to keep doing their business and attracting agents rather than paying you for a share in a franchise.
Eventually, your revenue share group will grow and more and more agents will begin to earn passive income that can quickly exceed the GCI of any top-producing agent. Now, your wealth is building and you don’t even have to pray for a good liquidation or that your family will carry on your business when you die—instead, you can will your revenue streams to your family and leave it at that.
Is Revenue Share Truly Passive Income?
The short answer is yes. You don’t really have to do anything after an agent chooses you to be their sponsor. However, I believe that a sponsor does need to be active in helping the agents that chose them to succeed.
Once you sponsor an agent, you want to see them do well—the more they earn, the more you earn. And when they sponsor another producing agent, you will also earn a bit from that agent’s revenue. This cycle repeats for up to 7 tiers!
Now, it’s rare that all agents in a revenue share group will know each other when it gets that big. Honestly, you could be earning revenue share from hundreds of agents you’ve never met! That’s how agents out there are making so much per month without really doing anything.
In other words, it truly is passive income as a real estate agent!
Exactly How Revenue Share Works
Okay, here’s the full breakdown for how the eXp Realty revenue share plan technically works. The split at exp is 80/20 until the agent caps by earning $16,000. You will only receive revenue share until the agent caps. After capping, they’ll take home 100% of their commissions (minus a couple eXp fees).
So, while eXp is earning that 20%, 10% will be covering eXp expenses and expansion while the other 10% will be covering revenue share for you and other sponsors. However, the cap resets each year, so you will earn more revenue share every year an agent is active at eXp.
FLQA Agents Explained
Here, we need to detour to explain the FLQA numbers on this chart. This is the biggest key to unlocking and unleashing your revenue share potential. An FLQA is a Front-Line Qualifying Active agent:
Let’s take an example of an agent earning a $10,000 commission. If the agent is in your Tier 1 group (i.e., you sponsored them directly), you’ll earn $350. If they’re in Tier 2 (i.e., your sponsored agent sponsored them), you’ll earn at least $20, and that continues based on the numbers in the eXpansion Share column.
Now, let’s look at the eXponential Share column, which is tied to how many FLQAs are in your sponsorship group. Let’s say, for example, that you have an agent out in Tier 6 who got that $10,000 commission. You’re going to get .5% no matter what. But if you have at least 25 qualifying agents in your Tier 1, you’ll get an additional 2%, or $200.
Now, eXp recently made a major change that’s providing a HUGE incentive for agents wanting to be in the revenue share plan.
Accelerate, which is available in all 24 countries where eXp Realty operates, applies to agents who joined on or after March 1, 2023. The program automatically opens revenue share tiers 2 and 3 for 12 months beginning Sept. 7, 2023, creating the opportunity to have 10 front line qualifying agents (FLQA) immediately. This can open up the eXponential components of eXp’s revenue share program in that first year. After the 12-month period, standard revenue share criteria will apply.
So, basically, you’re immediately going to be earning way more than you could have when joining eXp at any other time! This is a huge incentive for agents to join and start a revenue share group now.
eXp Realty Revenue Share Plan Options
Now, let’s dig into the plan options you can operate to maximize your earnings and build your eXp Realty group.
The Wide Revenue Share
The Wide Revenue Share plan is typically formed by an influencer who is personally able to sponsor multiple agents themselves. These agents usually have a ton of agents on their front lines, but often have a hard time going deep into the tiers.
Basically, they may have hundreds of agents in their first and second tiers but find it difficult to expand into other tiers. In this instance, the best opportunity for growth is helping those first- and second-tier agents duplicate and attract more agents to the team.
The Deep Revenue Share
The Deep Revenue Share plan is for agents who have reached into the fifth, sixth, and seventh tiers. In fact, most of their agents are likely in these tiers. In general, these agents have been with eXp for a lot longer, but are still struggling to get enough FLQAs to open up their eXponential share…especially Tier 7.
This is where the other major change that eXp just made really makes a difference. A few weeks ago, eXp reduced the FLQA count from 40 to 30 for getting into that seventh tier. That instantly opened the seventh tier for tons of agents who had been struggling to get that deep.
When we built eXp Realty, it was with the singular focus of improving the lives of our agents and fueling unlimited opportunities for you to build for the future. Today, we are taking a huge step by reducing our current (FLQA) tier 7 threshold from 40 to 30 FLQA!
I share these examples to show you how the eXp Realty revenue share plan works in practical situations. I wanted you to realize that eXp has made two huge, multi-million dollar decisions that have seriously benefitted eXp agents. This is a better tactic than massive layoffs and cutting profit shares as many other large brokerages are now doing.
Agent First Group Difference
At the Agent First Group, powered by eXp Realty we help our agents build out a balanced revenue share group. We build our agent’s revenue share group with a wide and deep strategy.
I personally work with each agent one-on-one. I also provide a dedicated team builder coach and production coach to help agents maximize their earnings and, in turn, that eXponential Share opportunity.
Revenue Share vs. Profit Share
Now that you understand revenue share, it’s important to draw a distinction between that and profit share.
At the most basic level, revenue share is taken off the top and profit share is taken off the bottom (after expenses are covered.) So, if a brokerage is struggling to pay expenses, there may be times when the profit share is not great.
With revenue share, however, you get paid no matter what as long as you have sponsored an agent who closes a transaction. No matter how you break it down, you’re going to end up making more on the revenue share model than on the profit share model.
Revenue Share Boundaries
So, if you think the eXp Realty revenue share plan sounds pretty great, you may be wondering what boundaries are placed around it. Well, there aren’t many.
You can truly create a global business by sponsoring agents across state and country lines. This is something you would likely never be able to do if you were starting a small, local brokerage from scratch.
While it is certainly possible to do this on your own, eXp Realty provides the structure and connections you need (as well as the cloud-based brokerage infrastructure) to expand your reach farther and faster than you could elsewhere.
In the end, I believe that you can grow your business so much faster by building your personal brand within the eXp Realty framework. You’ll reap rewards for generations to come and you don’t even have to open markets on your own and lose money in the process.
What Can Revenue Share Do For You?
Now, it’s important that you realize how incredibly profitable you can be by simply joining a good revenue share group and putting in the effort to be a good real estate agent. Consider some of the agents who are in the Agent First Group:
- Franco referred 35 transactions that closed last month from YouTube alone.
- Jared is closing 2+ additional transactions a month and working 10 fewer hours per week through social media.
- Alejandra is closing 4+ transactions per month using Instagram marketing.
- Phyllis referred 20+ transactions that closed last month all by being active in Facebook groups.
If you’re interested in partnering with our revenue share group and seeing how our agents are making 20% in 90 days while working 5-10 hours less per week, reach out!