We are challenged all the time by the adage “You get what you pay for.”  It makes sense.  For years, real estate agents are used to paying high prices for services that don’t even qualify as mediocre by today’s standards.  Yet, we are seeing innovation spawned from companies that embrace this concept of “freeconimcs” or more specific to us, “freemium” pricing models.  We see the adage being challenged by the likes of Google, Facebook,   YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, webmail, and hundreds of other well known internet apps.  These companies have redefined quality, user experience, consumer satisfaction, and raised the bar beyond most companies that charge for all their services.  While the consumer masses have enjoyed this type of innovation, real estate agents have yet to fully benefit at the IDX level.  Zillow and Trulia have redefined the standards from a consumer experience and agent marketing perspective.  softRealty.com is approaching this from the IDX front.

Real estate agents are tired of tripling their IDX budget for features charged a la carte style, coupled with excessive setup fees in return for ineffective lead capture and a search interface designed out of the ‘90s.  Let’s entertain for a minute that softRealty.com did not have a “freemium” model.  If we competitively priced our product, we would not be known for being a low cost option.  However, our approach is to partner with the real estate community to build solutions that bring real value to both agents and home buyers.  We can do this more aggressively by winning a broader audience reach and market adoption with “freemium” pricing.  If we’re going to survive, we have to be confident and competent with our product offering; our product must be amazing for people to use; and our supplemental features have to be worth upgrading to.

Don’t worry, we don’t charge setup fees, either.  That’s like charging you a cover charge just to check us out or worse, signing a contract with a mobile company, only you get penalized upfront in the IDX world.  IDX setup fees never made much sense to us?  Now, factor setup costs, typically around $200, into your monthly subscription and tell me what you are really paying per month.