Ask an agent what they made on their last deal and you will usually get the commission figure. Not what they actually kept. Gross commission is the number on the offer, but it is not the number that lands in your account, and the gap between the two is bigger than most agents realize.
Between the brokerage split, the transaction fee, HST, a rebate to the client, and whatever you spent on photography, staging or a lockbox, a deal that shows $7,320 in commission can easily pay out closer to $6,000 once everything is accounted for. Most agents never sit down and work that out deal by deal. They see the deposit hit their account and move on.
Why the gross number is not the useful number
Every brokerage structures its take differently. Some take a straight split, commonly 70/30 or 90/10. Others charge a flat transaction fee per deal instead of a split. Some charge both: a percentage-based fee on top of a full split. RE/MAX plans, for example, often combine an ACT fee with a separate Flex Plan percentage, both deducted before HST is added back and the agent is paid out.
None of that shows up if you only track the commission you were quoted. You need the number after the brokerage has taken its share, because that is the number you can actually plan around.
What to track on every deal
A useful record for a single transaction includes:
- The sold price and your commission percentage, or the total commission if you already know it
- Your split with the brokerage, if you are on one
- Any transaction fee, whether it is a flat amount or a percentage
- HST on your net commission
- Any rebate you gave back to your client
- What you spent on the deal itself — photography, staging, cleaning, a lockbox, an inspection you covered
Work through those in order and you get to a number that is very different from the commission on the listing agreement. That is your real payout, and it is the number worth knowing before you decide whether a deal was worth the effort it took.
Why this matters over a full year
One deal is interesting. A year of deals is useful. Once you can see gross commission against true net across every closing, you start to see things that are otherwise invisible: which deals actually made money once costs are counted, how much your brokerage structure costs you annually, and whether your average payout is trending up or down.
That last one matters more than it sounds. An agent doing more volume but keeping a smaller share of it is not necessarily doing better. The only way to know is to track the after-split, after-fee number consistently, deal by deal.
How BrokerBooks handles it
BrokerBooks now includes Profit Tracker, built for exactly this. You enter the sold price and commission percentage, or the total commission directly. If you are on a split, enter your percentage. If your brokerage charges a transaction fee instead, or as well, enter that as a percentage of the commission or a flat amount, and HST is filled in automatically at your provincial rate.
Add anything you spent on the deal — photography, staging, cleaning, whatever applies — and Profit Tracker shows you the true net: what you actually kept, after everything.
It is a separate record from your books. Nothing is added to your Income or Expenses automatically. When a deal is ready, one button records the commission in your Income tab, and each deal expense has its own option to also record it as a business expense. You decide what goes into your year-end numbers and when.
Start with your last closing
You do not need a full year of history to find this useful. Pull up your last commission statement and enter that one deal. Most agents are surprised by how much smaller the after-fee number is than the one they had in their head.
Start a free trial of BrokerBooks and try it on your most recent deal.