Real Agency
In depth · How splits work

How splits work

Two things happen to every fee. First it is split between the owner and the agent. Then each of you pays eXp its share of your own half. Here it is in plain terms, with a calculator so you can see your numbers move.

This is the number that comes up first with every agent you sit down with. It is worth being able to draw it on the back of a napkin. There are two layers, they stack in a set order, and once you have seen them stack you can price any deal in your head.

Try it with your own numbers

Move the slider and change the fee. Everything updates as you go. Whole pounds, one deal at a time.

Agent 50% / You 50%
The agent (team member)
£1,225
keeps, after eXp's 30%
You (team leader)
£1,225
keep, after eXp's 30%

eXp's cut on this deal: £1,050 (30% of the whole fee, taken as 30% of each share)

Agent keeps You keep eXp's 30%

Agent keeps = their split of the fee, less eXp's 30%. You keep = your split of the fee, less eXp's 30%.

[to confirm] The 70/30 split, the £24,000 and £12,000 caps, the £250 per deal after capping and the £150 a month fee are based on your sheet and eXp's figures. Worth a currency check with the eXp UK team before you lean on the exact numbers.

On a single deal the cap does not come into it, so this view uses the flat 30%. The caps only start to matter across a year, which is the second calculator further down.

The two layers, in order

Every fee goes through the same two steps, and the order matters.

1. The internal split, owner and agent

The fee is split first between you and the agent, by a percentage the two of you agree. Fifty per cent to the agent means the agent takes half the fee and you take the other half. Nothing to do with eXp yet. This is your business deciding how it shares the fee.

2. eXp's cut, on each share on its own

Then eXp takes 30% of each half separately, and each of you keeps 70% of your own share. You pay eXp's 30% on your share, the agent pays it on theirs. Neither of you pays it on the whole fee, only on your own half. That is the part people get wrong.

How the eXp side works

On every deal you keep 70% and eXp takes 30% of your share. That 30% is not endless. eXp counts up what it has taken from you across your year, and once you hit your cap the 30% stops. From there to your anniversary you keep the lot, less a small fee per deal. The catch worth understanding is that the owner and a team member do not have the same cap.

70/30
You keep 70%, eXp takes 30%, until you cap
£24,000
The owner's full cap, reached at about £80,000 of your own commission
£12,000
A team member's half cap, reached at about £40,000 of their own commission
£250
Per deal once you have capped, instead of the 30%

You, the owner, carry the full cap of £24,000. Because eXp takes 30%, you get there once your own commission for the year passes about £80,000. A team member carries half of that, a £12,000 cap, which they reach at about £40,000 of their own commission. So a team member caps twice as fast as you do. Once someone has capped, they stop paying the 30% and pay a flat £250 a deal instead, and everyone on eXp also pays a £150 a month cloud fee, which is £1,800 across the year.

The half cap is the point to hold on to. A team member pays in £12,000 and is then done for the year, at roughly £40,000 of their own commission. You keep paying up to £24,000, so you reach the finish line at about £80,000 of yours. A busy agent can cap early and then keep almost all of every further fee. That is a big part of why the split you agree tends to move with how much business the agent actually brings in.

How the internal split works

The split between you and the agent is yours to agree. There is no right answer, and different owners do it differently on purpose.

  • Lower split to the agent on handed-over leads. If the agent is simply given leads and does little of their own lead generation, a lower split to them is normally the fair version, because the business is doing the expensive part.
  • Higher split on business the agent generates. Some owners pay a higher split on work the agent brings in themselves, to reward the ones who go and find it.
  • The same split either way. Some owners keep one split for everything, on purpose, to avoid the endless argument over who really sourced a given lead.

Whichever way you set it, the second layer is the same for both of you. Both you and the agent pay eXp's 30% on your own share after the split, each up to your own cap. The calculator below shows a year of that, cap and all.

Across a year, with the caps

Same split and fee as above. Add how many deals a year and watch each cap bite.

Agent 50% / You 50%, £3,500 a deal
The agent (team member, £12k cap)
Their commission for the year£35,000
Paid to eXp £10,500
Cloud fee (£150 a month)£1,800
Take-home£22,700
You (team leader, £24k cap)
Your commission for the year£35,000
Paid to eXp £10,500
Cloud fee (£150 a month)£1,800
Take-home£22,700

eXp's take on each side = 30% of that side's commission, but never more than that side's cap (£12,000 for the agent, £24,000 for you). Once a side has capped, every further deal on that side costs £250 instead of the 30%. Then the £150 a month cloud fee comes off each side.

Where a deal straddles the moment a cap is hit, the calculator apportions it, so the count of post-cap deals can come out fractional. It is a clean enough approximation to sanity-check the shape. On the post-cap fee, see the note in the next section: the eXp deck is more precise than the flat figure the calculator uses.

Once you've capped

What a single deal looks like after you have paid in your cap for the year.

Capping changes the deal for the rest of your year. Once you have paid eXp its cap, you keep 100% of your share of every further deal, and instead of the 30% you pay only a fixed transaction fee. The eXp deck puts the headline plainly: after capping you "earn 100% commission for the remainder of the year", and the fee is a "£250+VAT capped transaction fee". Two details are worth holding on to. The fee is charged per transaction, not per person, and on a team deal it is split between you and the team member, so each capped person carries about £125 of it. And that £250 transaction fee only comes down for the team leader, and only at ICON, which is covered further down. A team member stays on the £250 transaction fee for the rest of the year.

The worked examples below are the eXp deck's own, on a £10,000 fee split 25% to the team leader and 75% to the team member, so you can check them against the slides.

The team member (agent), who has capped

Their 75% share of the £10,000 fee is £7,500. Their half cap is £12,000, reached at about £40,000 of their own commission. A team member does not reach ICON, so they stay on the £250 transaction fee (their £125 half) for the rest of the year, and never move to the £100 rate.

Before capping: keeps 70%, eXp takes 30% (£2,250)£5,250
After capping: keeps 100%, pays their half of the £250 fee (£125)£7,375
The jump on the same deal+£2,125

You (team leader), who has capped

Your 25% share of the same £10,000 fee is £2,500. Your full cap is £24,000, reached at about £80,000 of your own commission.

Before capping: keeps 70%, eXp takes 30% (£750)£1,750
After capping: keeps 100%, pays your half of the £250 fee (£125)£2,375
The jump on the same deal+£625
[from the eXp deck] The 70/30 split, the £24,000 full cap and £12,000 half cap, "100% commission for the remainder of the year" after capping, and the £250+VAT capped transaction fee split with the team leader are stated on the eXp UK "Team Leader splits" and "Team Member splits" slides and the "How Commissions are Calculated" examples. Worth a currency check with the eXp UK team before you lean on the exact figures. [to confirm] The calculator above keeps it simple and charges £250 per deal on each side after capping. The deck is more precise: the capped transaction fee is £250 per transaction, shared with the team leader, so each capped person carries nearer £125 a deal. That makes the calculator's post-cap cost a little cautious. Decide which you want to show before this goes any wider, and I will match the calculator to it.

The ICON award: the team leader only

Capping is the gateway to the ICON award, which is the reward for the highest-producing team leaders. It is for you, the team leader, and not for team members: a team member does not reach ICON. It is paid in eXp stock, not cash.

You reach ICON by capping and then completing another 50 transactions over your cap in your anniversary year. Hitting ICON is also the one thing that brings your transaction fee down: at ICON your per-deal transaction fee drops from £250 to £100 a transaction for the rest of the year. Because only a team leader can reach ICON, only a team leader ever moves to the £100 rate. A team member stays on the £250 fee.

Team leader
Only a team leader can reach ICON, never a team member
50 over cap
Cap, then complete another 50 transactions over your cap in the year
£250 → £100
Your per-deal transaction fee drops when you hit ICON
Up to £16,000
In eXp stock for reaching ICON
[confirmed by Adam / Real Agency] Only a team leader can reach ICON, never a team member. The trigger is capping and then doing 50 transactions over your cap. Reaching ICON is also what drops your per-deal transaction fee from £250 to £100.

The £16,000 comes in two halves. £8,000 is awarded in stock first and vests over three years, and another £8,000 follows once you take part in eXp's cultural side, meaning training other agents towards ICON and attending the in-person events. So ICON rewards two things at once: the volume you push over your cap, and putting something back into the community.

[from the eXp deck] The up-to-£16,000 ICON stock figure, the £8,000 plus £8,000 split and the three-year vesting are stated on the eXp UK "Additional income streams" and "ICON Award" slides.
The takeaway. Once you have capped, you keep nearly all of every further deal, which is the whole point of pushing volume. Because a team member's cap is only £12,000, half of yours, they reach that point twice as fast, at about £40,000 of their own commission against your £80,000. A higher-volume agent is often on a lower internal split for exactly this reason: once they have capped, the eXp cost per deal is tiny, so a smaller slice of a bigger, cheaper-to-run stream still pays them very well.