What Compass's own filing says, and what Real Brokerage publishes
Leaving Compass for Real Brokerage: What Changes for a Houston Agent?
Updated
Bottom line: Compass publishes no agent split and no cap. Its filing describes agents as independent contractors paid at closing, plus transaction-based or periodic fixed fees. Real Brokerage publishes a split, three caps and three fees.
What does Compass publish about agent economics?
No split and no cap. The only primary text on the subject is the company's annual report. Commissions and other related expense consists mainly of commissions paid to agents, who are independent contractors, upon the closing of a real estate transaction, and the company also charges its agents fees that are either transaction based, collected at the closing of a transaction, or in the form of periodic fixed fees (Compass Form 10-K for FY2025, filed 27 February 2026).
One percentage appears in the filing and it is a company average rather than anybody's split. Commissions and other related expense decreased from 82.3 percent to 81.6 percent of revenue in 2025, which the filing attributes to recent acquisitions operating with more favorable average agent commission splits than the core brokerage. The same filing counts 21,190 principal agents as of 31 December 2025.
What does Real Brokerage publish?
A schedule. Fifteen percent of each commission until you cap, then 0 percent for the rest of your anniversary year. Three caps: $12,000 for an individual agent, $6,000 on a team, $4,000 on a team with over $100M in volume. Beside the split, a $900 annual fee, $50 on each transaction and $285 on each sale after capping, and no monthly office fee.
The figures are the brokerage's rather than a negotiation, which is why a page can state them and why every agent at the same cap level pays the same.
How do you compare a published cap with a split nobody publishes?
With your own numbers and your own contract. Take your last twelve months of closings and gross commission, and take the split written into your independent contractor agreement. Run that year against your own split to get what you actually kept. Then run the same year against 85 percent to the cap and the whole commission after it, less $900, less $50 a transaction, less $285 on each capped sale.
The result is one number against another, both of them yours. This page will not tell you which way it comes out, because the answer moves with volume, average commission and how early in the year the cap arrives, and none of those three is on a page.
What do you keep when you move?
The same things any Texas move turns on, and two documents decide them: your listing agreements and whatever team agreement you signed. Your license moves when your new broker accepts sponsorship with TREC. Your listings belong to your broker and each one needs a release or a referral. What you owe a team you were on is in that team agreement rather than in the brokerage's.
Both are set out on their own pages rather than restated here: the order a switch runs in, from files to clean date, on the switching checklist, and what Houston Properties Team's own agreement says about clients, on the team library.
Questions & answers
What else do Houston agents ask?
Does Compass publish a commission split or a cap?
No. Its Form 10-K for 2025 says agents are independent contractors paid upon the closing of a transaction, and that the company charges its agents fees that are either transaction based or periodic fixed fees. It states no agent split and no annual cap anywhere in that filing.
The one percentage in it is a company average: commissions and other related expense was 81.6 percent of revenue in 2025, down from 82.3 percent, which the filing puts down to recent acquisitions with more favorable average splits than the core brokerage. An average across 21,190 principal agents is not a number any one of them is paid, and the filing says as much itself. Split figures for Compass circulating on third-party blogs are not used on this site. Real Brokerage's own published split, caps and fees are on the cost of joining page.
What fees does Compass charge agents, according to its filing?
Two kinds, described without amounts. The 10-K says the company charges its agents fees that are either transaction based, where amounts are collected at the closing of a real estate transaction, or in the form of periodic fixed fees. No dollar figure for either kind appears in the filing.
What the filing does say is that commission expense as a percentage of revenue moves period to period with the mix of commission arrangements the company has with its agents and with the fees it collects, which is the company telling its investors that the arrangements differ from agent to agent. For an agent weighing an offer, the only number that counts is the one in your own agreement. What a cap is, and how a platform differs from a franchise and from an independent, is set out on the page that defines the terms.
How do I compare a Compass split to Real Brokerage's cap using my own numbers?
Two documents and one year. Take your last twelve months of closings and gross commission, and take the split written in your own independent contractor agreement. Run the year against that split to get what you kept, then run the same year against Real Brokerage's published schedule and compare the two totals.
The second half is arithmetic anybody can do: 85 percent of each commission until the cap, then the whole commission for the rest of the anniversary year, less a $900 annual fee, $50 a transaction and $285 on each sale after capping. Which cap applies depends on how you join. The answer moves with volume, average commission and how early in the year you cap, so bring both documents rather than expecting a page to hand you a result. The order the move itself runs in is on the switching checklist.