The solo broker software stack, priced honestly

Two halves, and only one of them is really software

A solo broker's stack splits cleanly in two. There is the aggregator and licensing bundle, which is the price of being able to write loans at all. Then there is the handful of tools you choose on top. Brokers routinely add both together, arrive at a number in the low thousands, and conclude they are drowning in software. They usually are not. They are looking at a licensing bill with a few subscriptions attached to it.

This article prices both halves using only figures published on vendors' own public pages, checked on 17 August 2026. Where a vendor does not publish, that is stated rather than estimated. Finance OS, which publishes this site, has not tested any product named here, and nothing below is a product assessment.

Layer one: the aggregator, priced from a published schedule

Most Australian aggregators do not publish their fees. Connective does, which makes it the only one that can be priced honestly without guesswork.

Connective's public pricing page sets out three components. First, a plan. Maximiser is listed at $880 per partner group per month for up to five brokers, and you keep 100 per cent of upfront and 100 per cent of trail. Variable takes a commission split that improves with annual settled volume, published as 80 per cent upfront and 95 per cent trail below $1 million, rising through 85 and 90 per cent to 95 per cent upfront and 95 per cent trail above $3 million. Second, a broker fee of $150 per month for each loan writer. Third, a credit representative fee of $209 per month for each loan writer, which the page states does not apply if you operate under your own Australian credit licence.

There is also a professional indemnity participation fee, tiered by commission revenue per partner group. The lowest band, under $150,000 in commission revenue, is listed at $63 a month, or $756 a year plus GST. The bands climb through $87, $112, $171, $246 and $470 to $830 a month above $4 million.

Run the arithmetic for one solo broker in the lowest PI band. On Maximiser that is $880 plus $150 plus $209 plus $63, which comes to $1,302 a month. On Variable the fixed component drops to $422 a month, and you give up 20 per cent of upfront commission below $1 million settled instead. For a broker in the first year or two, the flat fee plan is usually the worse deal, and because the schedule is public you can work out precisely where the crossover falls for your own volume.

Other aggregators do not make that possible. When we checked afgonline.com.au on 17 August 2026 there was no pricing page, and product pages route to a call or a demo. That is normal in this market. It also means you cannot compare aggregators on your own time, before a salesperson is involved.

Layer two: what you are already paying for

Your aggregator fee includes a CRM and loan origination platform. Connective includes Mercury Nexus at no extra cost. AFG bundles Suite360, LMG has MyCRM, and Finsure has Infynity. Lodgement runs through NextGen's ApplyOnline, which brokers reach via their aggregator. NextGen's broker page does not publish a broker price.

Before you buy anything in layer three, be precise about what the bundled platform already does. The most common overspend in broking is a second CRM bought to solve a workflow problem that turns out to be a training problem, or a discipline problem, in disguise.

The counter argument is real too. Aggregator platforms are built for an entire membership rather than for your process, and they stay behind when you change aggregator. Your file history, your templates and your automations do not travel. That is exactly why a third party workflow layer exists, and it is a legitimate reason to pay twice.

Layer three: the workflow CRM

BrokerEngine publishes per-user monthly pricing inclusive of GST. For brokers outside AFG it lists $163.90 per broker user per month, or $136.58 on annual billing, with support users at $108.90 monthly and $90.75 annually. AFG brokers are quoted a separate BrokerEngine Plus rate of $220 monthly and $184 annually for a broker user, with support users at $143 and $120. A one-off Kickstart onboarding fee of $1,000 plus GST per broker group applies regardless of how many users you add later, and the page states there are no fixed-term lock-in contracts.

Salestrekker publishes $249.99 per user per month plus GST for its Premium Broker plan, aimed at brokers who need products and calculators, and $99.99 per user per month plus GST for a Broker Support seat aimed at admin staff and loan processors. Enterprise is listed as price on application.

Watch the GST difference before you compare those. BrokerEngine's published figures include GST. Salestrekker's exclude it. Comparing the numbers as printed will mislead you by around ten per cent.

For a solo broker with no support staff, this is the largest discretionary decision in the stack. It is also the one most often made too early. A broker settling four files a month does not have a workflow problem that $1,600 a year fixes. A broker settling fifteen, with a part-time processor, probably does.

Layer four: serviceability

Quickli's pricing page on 17 August 2026 showed Core at $590 per user per year plus GST and Pro at $990 per user per year plus GST, with lower figures of $530 and $930 displayed against an introductory offer, and monthly billing available at a higher rate. Core covers the serviceability calculator, funds position, product comparison and policy information. Pro adds SMSF and alt doc tools, custom branding, organisation-level analytics and AI features metered in monthly credits.

AutoCalc publishes a free tier covering 12 lenders with 10 payslip parses a month, a Standard plan at $49 plus GST a month covering 27 or more lenders, and a Pro plan at $99 plus GST a month with five logins and pooled parses.

At roughly $49 a month equivalent for Quickli Core, this is the cheapest meaningful line in most stacks and the one brokers defend hardest when asked what they would drop. Broker Daily reported in August 2025 that 12,500 of about 22,000 Australian brokers were using Quickli, which is unusual concentration for a tool nobody is required to buy.

Layer five: documents, signatures and client data

Annature publishes electronic signatures at $1.75 per envelope, with unlimited documents, unlimited recipients and unlimited email reminders inside each envelope and no per-seat user fee. SMS delivery adds $0.12 per message, and branded SMS links are an optional $15 a month. For a solo broker sending ten envelopes a month, that is $17.50. It is one of the few genuinely usage-priced lines in a broker's stack, which makes it easy to justify and easy to forget about.

Content Snare publishes client document collection from US$35 a month on annual billing for 20 active requests and two users, rising to US$71 and US$119 for larger tiers, with monthly billing at US$42, US$85 and US$143. The page states that Australian customers are charged GST. Note the currency. This is a US dollar subscription and your real cost moves with the exchange rate, which is worth flagging because it is the one line in a typical stack that changes without the vendor doing anything.

Document and data collection is also where your regulatory exposure concentrates, and this is worth more attention than it usually gets. Mortgage brokers are a named class of trusted adviser under the Consumer Data Right rules, at subrule 1.10C(2), alongside qualified accountants, admitted legal practitioners, registered tax and BAS agents, financial counselling agencies and financial advisers. A consumer can consent to an accredited data recipient disclosing their CDR data to you.

The OAIC's guidance makes a point about that status which brokers should read carefully. Trusted advisers are not subject to the protections and safeguards of the CDR system. You remain bound by your professional obligations and by the Privacy Act 1988. Receiving open banking data through a trusted adviser disclosure does not extend CDR protections to you, and it does not extend them to whichever tool you store that data in.

Layer six: retention, and the vendors who will not quote

Client retention and repricing is the newest layer in the stack. Sherlok is the best known Australian example, positioned around automated repricing, rate monitoring and identifying clients likely to refinance away. When we checked sherlok.com.au on 17 August 2026, there was no pricing page in the site navigation, and a previously indexed pricing URL returned a 404. So we are not publishing a price for it.

That is the honest position across a good part of this category. If a vendor does not publish, the only responsible thing a review publication can do is say so, and tell you to ask for the schedule in writing before you take the demo.

The category itself is worth understanding regardless of who you buy from. Retention tooling is the only layer that defends trail rather than generating upfront, which means the business case runs off the size of your book rather than your monthly settlement volume. A broker with a large, ageing book and low new-business volume should evaluate it very differently to a broker in year two.

The costs that are not software but land in the same budget

Association membership. Mortgage Professional Australia's guide, published in May 2024, listed MFAA finance broker membership at $550 a year plus a $125 application fee and a $220 initial compliance pack. Its FBAA guide, published in March 2024, listed Accredited Member at $499 a year plus a $115 application fee, based on the schedule in force from 1 July 2023. Neither association's own fee page would load for us when we checked on 17 August 2026, so treat both sets of figures as indicative and confirm current rates directly with the association.

ASIC's industry funding levy applies to credit intermediaries, with a graduated component based on the number of credit representatives at the end of the qualifying year. ASIC publishes estimated levies in a Cost Recovery Implementation Statement each year and invoices the following calendar year, so the cost arrives well after the period it relates to. Budget for it before the invoice appears rather than after.

Then professional indemnity, if it is not already bundled into your aggregator fee, and continuing professional development, which costs money whether or not the training is any good.

A worked monthly total, and what we would cut first

For one solo broker, in the lowest PI band, on Connective's published schedule and buying everything else at published rates: aggregation and licensing at $1,302 a month on Maximiser, or $422 a month on Variable plus the commission split; BrokerEngine at $136.58 a month on annual billing including GST; Quickli Core at roughly $49 a month equivalent plus GST; Annature at around $17.50 for ten envelopes; and a US$35 document collection subscription.

The tools you actually chose come to a little over $200 a month in Australian dollars, plus one US dollar subscription. The licensing and aggregation layer sits somewhere between two and six times that, depending which plan you are on. If your software bill feels heavy, that ratio is where to look first, and the conversation to have is with your aggregator rather than with a software vendor.

If something has to go, we would cut the third party workflow CRM before the serviceability tool. Serviceability has the clearest line to a settled file and the lowest price. A workflow layer earns its keep when two or more people touch the same file, or when you want a process that survives an aggregator change. On your own, at low volume, the aggregator platform plus a disciplined checklist covers most of what it does.

What we would not cut is anything holding client records, consent evidence or your reasoning on a recommendation. Migrating that under time pressure is exactly how documentation gaps appear, and documentation is what ASIC looks at when it assesses whether you met your best interests obligations under Part 3-5A of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009.