Competing with online only agencies means reframing the fee

Aug 27
3 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

Introduction

A fixed-fee online agency quotes a fraction of a traditional commission, and the seller arrives at your valuation with that number in their head.

Most agents respond by defending their fee, which is the weakest available position. It accepts the premise that the two services are the same thing at different prices, and once that premise is accepted the cheaper option wins.

1. Competing with online only agencies starts by changing the comparison

The relevant comparison is not fee against fee. It is outcome against outcome.

A percentage of a higher achieved price, or a sale that completes rather than falling through, is worth more to the seller than the fee difference. Move the conversation to what they end up with rather than what they pay.

2. Use your own evidence, not industry claims

Generic assertions that full-service agents achieve more are unpersuasive because everybody makes them.

Your own record is not: average achieved percentage of asking price, average time to sell, and fall-through rate. If those numbers are good, they are the most powerful material in this conversation. If you do not track them, you are left arguing from opinion.

3. Sell accountability, because that is the structural difference

An online agency is usually paid whether or not the property sells, sometimes upfront or deferred regardless of outcome.

You are paid on completion. That means your interests and the seller's are aligned in a way the alternative's are not, and it is a genuine structural point rather than a sales line. Say it plainly.

4. Make the negotiation point concrete

The moment a seller most needs an agent is when an offer arrives below asking, or when a survey produces a renegotiation.

Describe what you do at that point: how you handle the offer, how you verify the buyer's position, how you resist an unjustified reduction. A single successfully defended reduction frequently exceeds the entire fee difference, and that arithmetic is easy for a seller to follow.

5. Emphasise getting the sale to completion

A substantial share of agreed sales fall through, and managing a chain is unglamorous, skilled work.

Chasing solicitors, keeping a chain informed, spotting a stalling link, holding a nervous buyer together. Sellers rarely think about this before they need it, and explaining it before they choose is what makes the fee legible.

6. Do not be rude about the alternative

Criticising online agencies sounds defensive and implies that the seller considering one is being foolish.

Be neutral about the model and specific about the difference. "It works well for some people, and here is what is different about how we would handle your sale" is far stronger than dismissiveness, which usually just entrenches the seller's position.

7. Recognise when the seller is right to choose it

Some properties and some sellers genuinely suit a low-fee, low-service model.

An easy property in a strong market with a confident, experienced seller may not need what you provide. Being honest about that costs you an instruction occasionally and earns credibility that produces others, and pretending otherwise is transparent.

8. Compete on the things they structurally cannot do

Local presence, physical viewings conducted by someone who knows the area, an actual buyer register, walk-in visibility, and being reachable by a named person.

Those are not marketing claims; they are consequences of the operating model. Build your proposition on them rather than on assertions about caring more.

9. Track achieved price, time to sell and fall-through rate

Three numbers, maintained continuously.

They are your entire argument in this conversation, and they take a year to accumulate. An agency that can put its own figures on the table is having a different discussion from one that can only express confidence, and that difference is usually decisive.

Conclusion

Reframe the comparison from fee against fee to outcome against outcome, because defending your fee concedes that the services are equivalent.

Build the case on your own achieved-price, time-to-sell and fall-through figures, sell the structural accountability of being paid on completion, make the negotiation and chain-management value concrete, avoid criticising the alternative, be honest when it genuinely suits the seller, compete on what the online model structurally cannot do, and maintain the three numbers that constitute the argument.