Portal advertising and lead programs
Disclosure: Siana Marketing operates this site and sells SEO and marketing services to real estate firms, so it competes with firms in this section. Siana is not scored, ranked or compared here. Regent Commercial Real Estate is a Siana client.
What Zillow, Realtor.com and Homes.com sell agents, from their SEC filings.
Last updated: 2026-10-20
We do not score marketing firms or portals. Results depend on the market, budget and the agent, and our operator competes in this category. Listed alphabetically.
What agents pay portals for, from the filings
| Program | How the agent pays | Revenue line in the filing | What is promised |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zillow Premier Agent | Share of advertising bought in a zip code, or a fee when a lead closes (Zillow Preferred) | Residential $1,704M (2025), includes agent software | No minimum or maximum share of leads |
| Realtor.com | Subscriptions, or a referral fee when the deal completes | Move $610M (fiscal year to June 2026) | Not covered in the passages we read |
| Homes.com | Membership subscription, or promote one listing | Not split out; CoStar Residential segment $1,460M incl. Apartments.com | Inquiries on your listing go to you |
Fiscal years differ: Zillow and CoStar report calendar 2025, News Corp a year ending June 30, 2026. Zillow 10-K, News Corp 10-K, CoStar 10-K.
Profiled in this segment
Homes.com
Public company brand. Agent memberships on a “your listing, your lead” basis; monetized since February 2024.
Sells agent memberships that send buyer inquiries on a listing to the listing agent. CoStar’s Residential segment lost $230M on an adjusted EBITDA basis in 2025.
Profile and sources →Realtor.com
Owned through News Corp (Nasdaq: NWSA, NWS). Runs Realtor.com under a perpetual license from the National Association of Realtors.
Sells subscription lead and listing products plus referral services that charge agents a fee when the deal closes.
Profile and sources →Zillow Premier Agent
Public company. Premier Agent sold two ways: share of voice by zip code, or a fee when a lead closes (Zillow Preferred).
Agents buy a share of the ad spend in a zip code, with no promised number of leads, or pay a fee only when a lead closes.
Profile and sources →Who each is actually for
Based on what the cited sources say, not on reviews. If we had no source, the cell is left out.
| Firm | Fit signals from the sources |
|---|---|
| Homes.com | Listing agents who want buyer inquiries on their own listings sent to them, not sold to other agents. |
| Realtor.com | Agents who want subscription leads, or a referral model where they pay only on a closed deal. |
| Zillow Premier Agent | Buyer’s agents who can answer leads fast and want volume in specific zip codes. Agents in markets where Zillow Preferred is offered and who would rather pay at closing than up front. |
Last verified 2026-10-20. Figures were re-read from the linked sources that day.
View changelog
- Section published: hub, three sub-hubs, seven profiles, four comparisons and a separate, labeled profile of the site operator, from SEC filings, FTC records, press and firm pages read this day.
Sources
- CoStar Group, Inc. Form 10-K for 2025 · accessed 2026-10-20
- News Corp Form 10-K for fiscal 2026 (year ended June 30, 2026) · accessed 2026-10-20
- Move, Inc. press release, Move acquires TigerLead Solutions (Sep 4, 2012) · accessed 2026-10-20
- Zillow Group, Inc. Form 10-K for 2025 · accessed 2026-10-20
- Federal Trade Commission, order resolving Zillow-Redfin agreement (Aug 24, 2026) · accessed 2026-10-20