Our commission is higher than the Calgary standard. Most listings here follow a 7 and 3 structure. Ours is 8% on the first $100,000 and 3% on the balance, a difference of exactly $1,000 regardless of price. And more than 75% of our business still comes from repeat clients and referrals.
That only makes sense if the fee nets you more than it costs. We think a commission should work like an investment in your own property, not a fee for selling it. This post is our honest case, including the math critics use and the cases where you don’t need us at all.
The quick version
- The typical structure: most Calgary listing commissions run 7% on the first $100,000 and 3% on the rest, split between the listing and buyer sides. Ours is 8 and 3, exactly $1,000 more on any sale. On a $700,000 sale that is $26,000 total, about 3.7%, and the effective rate falls as the price rises.
- The only test that matters: a commission is justified when the net result exceeds the fee. Hiring us should leave more money in your pocket, net, or we have not earned it.
- The fee is the whole fee: no transaction fees, no admin costs, no document processing charges added on top.
- Commissions are negotiable: in Alberta they always have been, and we’ve reduced ours when a seller was under real financial pressure.
- Buyers usually pay nothing directly: in roughly 95% of sales the buyer’s agent is paid from the seller’s side, and the amount is disclosed on every listing.
- The information is free: we give our full plan away at the first meeting. What you’re paying for is implementation.
How realtor commission actually works in Calgary
There’s no set rate. Every commission in Alberta is negotiable, and structures vary by brokerage (Real Estate Council of Alberta). The common convention is a declining structure: a higher percentage on the first $100,000 and a lower one on the balance, shared between the two sides of the deal.
Critics online point out that 7 and 3 works out to roughly 3.5% of a $700,000 sale, and they’re right. Here’s the part that rarely gets explained: the structure is designed to fall as the price rises. The first $100,000 carries the costs that are the same on every listing, including photography, video, staging, marketing and transaction management. Only the balance scales with the stakes. On our 8 and 3 structure, a $500,000 sale runs about 4%, a $900,000 sale about 3.6%, and a $1.5 million sale about 3.3%.
Against the common 7 and 3, ours is $1,000 more, flat, whether the home sells for $400,000 or $1.4 million. On the most expensive asset most people own, we think that’s a small price for having the job done right, reviewed at every step, and off your mind. And the fee is the whole fee: no transaction fees or documentation charges added on top, as some structures in the market do.
The only test that matters
A commission is justified when the net result exceeds the fee. That’s the whole test. Hiring a professional should mean the process is well executed, you have guidance at every decision, and you end up with more money in your pocket, net. If an agent can’t clear that bar, the problem isn’t the commission, it’s who’s earning it.
Everything below is that test applied: why the fee is structured the way it is, what the work looks like when it matters, and the honest cases where the test says don’t hire us.
Why is it a percentage of the price at all?
The fairest version of the objection goes: selling a $900,000 house isn’t twice the work of selling a $450,000 house, so why is the fee twice as large?
Three answers. First, risk scales with price. A 1% pricing mistake is $4,500 on one house and $9,000 on the other, and appraisal shortfalls, failed negotiations and carrying costs scale the same way. Like an estate lawyer or a money manager, we’re not billing hours. We’re taking responsibility for the result on the biggest asset you own.
Second, complexity scales too. Higher-priced homes carry more systems to understand and represent properly: in-slab heating, tankless hot water, home automation, high-end appliances. The buyers of those homes also arrive with higher expectations of the agent across the table.
Third, part of it is simply convention, and conventions are negotiable. We’d rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise.
The information is free. The implementation is not.
Comparable sales, market data and pricing tools used to be the agent’s moat. They aren’t anymore, and we think that’s a good thing. At our first meeting we walk sellers through our entire plan, the Precision Sale Program, and anyone is welcome to take that knowledge and run with it on their own.
Almost nobody does, and the reason isn’t that the information is secret. It’s that a sale is several hundred decisions executed under time pressure: land title and real property report issues, preparation and staging calls, pricing against the right comparables rather than the convenient ones, timing the market, sequencing offers, holding a deal together through conditions. You’re not paying us for what we know. You’re paying for the decisions that get made when the information is incomplete and the clock is running.
A listing agreement looks like a marketing contract, but it’s really a decision-making contract. The photos and the launch are the easy parts, and easy parts can be commoditized. The week-six problems can’t. That’s what the fee buys.
What the fee bought two clients this summer
In June, a buyer’s inspection came back with $10,000 in claimed deficiencies. Most weren’t deficiencies at all. A working eight-year-old hot water tank near the end of its rated life isn’t a defect, it’s a hot water tank. Our sellers were ready to walk away and relist. We pushed back with documentation, agreed the reasonable items were worth about $2,500, and the buyers accepted. The sellers kept their sale and $7,500 that the first draft of that negotiation would have given away.
Also this summer, we listed an estate bungalow in Westgate that the family was happy to sell for $650,000. The recent comparables supported that number, but comparables don’t capture care, and this home had one owner since 1960 and decades of it. We priced at $675,000, staged it to keep the character instead of stripping it, and had an offer near asking on the first day. The family walked away with well over the number they had settled for.
One pricing decision on one bungalow was worth roughly the entire commission. That isn’t unusual. In our infill analysis last week, same-size homes in the same communities sold hundreds of thousands of dollars apart. The spread between average and excellent execution is far larger than any commission. We’re paid to close that spread.
Run the test from earlier on those two files: $7,500 kept in one negotiation, roughly $25,000 found in one pricing decision, against a $26,000 fee on a $700,000 sale. The work paid for itself before counting the marketing and staging, or the deals that don’t go sideways because someone was watching.
What about discount and flat-fee brokerages?
They’re legitimate, and for some sellers the right call. The saving is real, and we won’t pretend otherwise.
The honest comparison is about scope, not competence. A full-service listing includes professional photography and video, a 3D walkthrough, a professional stager, pre-listing preparation, active management of the buyer side and a team running the transaction behind the scenes. Lower-fee models trim some of that by design; it’s how the price gets lower. If your home is simple, correctly priced and in a strong market segment, you may not miss what was trimmed. If your home needs positioning, or the deal develops complications, the gap shows up at exactly the wrong moment. Run the net test here too: a fee that’s one point cheaper but comes with thinner marketing or less negotiating experience can easily cost more than it saves.
Can you just unbundle it and sell yourself?
The sharpest version of the case against us goes: the data is free, so the rest is coordination and paperwork. List flat fee, hire a lawyer, negotiate yourself.
You can, and some people should. Here’s what that plan misses. Sellers are emotional about their own homes, and small disagreements between a buyer and a self-represented seller tank deals a third party would have carried through, just by delivering the message with care and keeping the logistics straight. A lawyer can paper the deal, but deposits, condition timelines and possession mechanics aren’t their daily work. And there’s a quieter problem: buyer’s agents trust a deal less when there’s no licensed professional on the other side of it. We’ve seen self-represented sellers overprice, sit, and eventually sell for less than they would have netted with the commission paid.
When you do not need us
Sometimes people call with the deal already made. A buyer lined up, a price agreed, terms settled. Mostly they need a lawyer, and we say so. We’ve pointed callers in that direction more than once.
This spring, close friends of ours fell in love with a listed home. When the sellers learned the buyers were friends of ours and didn’t want to pay a commission, we stepped out of the deal entirely rather than stand between our friends and their home, and guided them through conditions, deposit and negotiation from the sidelines. We work for our clients. We’re not going to insert ourselves into a deal just to get paid.
Do buyers pay commission in Alberta?
Usually not directly. In roughly 95% of sales, the buyer’s agent is paid from the seller’s side, and the amount is disclosed on every listing, which we verify before showing a property. We sign a buyer brokerage agreement with every client so representation and compensation are in writing from the start; our buyer’s guide covers how that works. In the rare case where a listing offers a reduced fee or none, we tell our buyers before they view it. Commission is one of the few purchase costs that usually isn’t yours; the ones that are, we broke down in our own $900,000 purchase, line by line.
Why higher-end sellers rarely argue the fee
Our clients at higher price points almost never push back on commission, and it’s worth understanding why. They price their own time, they respect a stated fee the way they expect their own to be respected, and they’re buying the certainty that the job is done right without checking the work. They aren’t less careful with money, they’re more careful with bandwidth. That’s the same thing every seller is buying. Some just count it more explicitly.
The one-sentence answer
We’ll give you the knowledge for free. You’re paying us to make it happen: the pricing judgment, the preparation, the negotiation, and the accountability when the transaction gets messy.
If you want to see exactly what the Precision Sale Program includes before you commit to anything, start with a free home evaluation, or reach out through our website and we’ll walk you through the plan. Take it and run with it if you like. Most people ask us to run it instead.
Frequently asked questions about realtor commission in Calgary
Most listing commissions follow a declining structure, commonly 7% on the first $100,000 and 3% on the balance, split between the listing and buyer sides. That works out to roughly 3.5% on a $700,000 sale. Ours is 8% and 3%, exactly $1,000 more, and every commission in Alberta is negotiable.
Usually not directly. In roughly 95% of sales the buyer’s agent is paid from the seller’s side, and the amount is disclosed on every listing. A buyer brokerage agreement puts representation and compensation in writing from the start.
Only when the net result exceeds the fee. Pricing judgment, preparation and negotiation regularly swing results by more than the commission; in one recent sale, a single pricing decision was worth roughly the entire fee. If an agent cannot clear that bar, the problem is not the commission.