Mortgage Broker Commission Calculator

How the Commission Calculator Works

Upfront commission is the eligible settlement amount multiplied by the entered upfront rate. Annual trail is the eligible outstanding book multiplied by the annual trail rate. Divide annual trail by 12 for its monthly equivalent.

Eligible balances can differ from original loan amounts. Enter the balance your agreement uses, including any adjustment for offsets or other excluded funds. The calculator keeps the commission base separate from GST, aggregator deductions and payment timing.

Moneysmart explains broker commission as a percentage of the loan amount with upfront and ongoing payments. This model uses annual totals. Actual payment dates, eligibility and clawbacks follow the agreement.

For part of a year, multiply annual trail by eligible days, then divide by the day basis your agreement sets, such as 365. On $30,000 of annual trail, 92 eligible days on a 365-day basis gives about $7,562 gross, or about $6,805 after a 10% aggregator share. Check whether the agreement counts both dates or only the start date, and whether it pays daily pro-rata at all, because not every lender does.

Mortgage Broker Commission and Income

A mortgage broker commission calculator uses settlement volume and entered rates to estimate gross income. For annual planning, enter the settlement count and eligible outstanding book separately.

In this hypothetical example, one $400,000 eligible settlement at 0.65% earns $2,600 upfront. Fifty loans produce $20 million in settlements and $130,000 upfront commission. A separate $20 million eligible outstanding book at 0.15% earns $30,000 annual trail, or $2,500 per month.

Total gross commission is $160,000. With a 10% aggregator share and $2,400 annual fees, the broker retains $141,600 before operating costs and income tax. The settlement target and outstanding book are separate inputs, even when their example values match.

To compare a writer or cohort, divide trail income by active loans for the same period and tax basis. In this hypothetical example, $30,000 of trail across 50 active loans is $600 per loan. Exclude upfront commission, clawback adjustments and income from loans outside the count. With no active loans, the average is undefined. The $600 is arithmetic, not a benchmark.

Five-Year Trail and Runoff Scenarios

Annual gross trail. The constant book keeps its opening eligible balance.

New settlements enter at each year end. All rates and balances are entered assumptions.

The five-year view compares a constant book with a book losing balances and a book receiving new settlements. The constant scenario preserves the opening balance. Runoff-only reduces that balance by your entered percentage each year.

The new-loan scenario applies runoff, then adds that year’s settlements at year end. New loans first contribute trail in the following model year. Annual new-settlement growth changes later years’ additions.

With a $20 million opening book, 10% runoff and $20 million new settlements, year two opens at $38 million. At 0.15%, its gross annual trail is $57,000. Runoff-only produces $27,000, while a constant book produces $30,000. These are entered scenarios, not a valuation of an uploaded trail book.

To estimate the next 12 months of receipts, divide the tool’s year-one trail by the payments your agreement makes in a year, then multiply by the payments that will land in those 12 months. On $30,000 of trail paid monthly, each payment is about $2,500 before deductions, so 12 payments total $30,000. If the first payment for this period arrives two months from now, 11 land inside the 12 months and the total is $27,500. Runoff and new settlements move that figure during the year. Treat it as a projection, separate from commission you have already received.

Splits, Adjacent Income and Exports

The aggregator percentage reduces gross commission before the annual flat fee is deducted. Enter the alternative agreement’s share and fees to compare retained income on the same volume. The example alternative retains $146,400 from a 5% share and $5,600 annual fees.

Each adjacent stream multiplies its annual count by the average amount and commission percentage. Enter car loans, equipment finance, business loans or insurance premiums separately. Adjacent income enters the annual total once and takes the entered aggregator split. It never appears as recurring trail in the chart.

The net-income scenario deducts operating costs and acquisition spending from retained commission. It applies your effective tax percentage only to a positive remainder. The example leaves $99,600 before income tax and $69,720 after a hypothetical 30% assumption. That percentage is not your actual tax assessment.

GST is separate from income tax. Enter GST-exclusive commission and costs because the model neither adds GST nor calculates a Business Activity Statement. The Australian Taxation Office explains that GST collected is separate from business income.

Export PDF opens your browser’s print dialog, with all input groups expanded for saving. It includes current inputs, results and the five-year comparison. Export CSV includes every entered assumption, calculated business figure and all five projection years as plain numbers.

Open the CSV in Excel through Data, From Text/CSV and select comma as the delimiter. Keep the assumption rows with each saved scenario. Re-enter those values to reproduce it, then change one assumption for comparison. The export is a CSV file, not an Excel workbook.

A commission split pays the loan writer and any referrer separately from the aggregator deduction, so work out each share in order. Apply upfront and trail separately, because agreements can set different shares for each. Check whether each percentage applies to gross commission, the amount after the aggregator or the balance after the writer. Referral or affiliate commission can also be a fixed fee, which comes off as a dollar amount.

In the hypothetical annual example, $130,000 gross upfront less the 10% aggregator share leaves $117,000. A writer receives 20% of that amount, or $23,400. A referrer receives 5% of the remaining $93,600, or $4,680. The brokerage retains $88,920 before flat fees.

Gross trail of $30,000 leaves $27,000 after the aggregator. A writer’s 10% of that amount is $2,700, and a referrer’s 5% of the remaining $24,300 is $1,215, so the brokerage retains $23,085 of trail.

Work these sums on GST-exclusive amounts, and take each deduction once. A clawback changes the allocation too. A $10,000 clawback with 20% recovered from the writer and 5% from the referrer costs the brokerage $7,500. Your agreement decides who owes what, and this example does not decide anyone’s legal entitlement.

A tiered commission scale raises the upfront rate once settlement volume passes a threshold. The calculator takes one upfront rate, so enter the rate your scale produces for the year’s volume. First check whether the higher tier applies to every loan in the period or only to the volume above the threshold.

Take a hypothetical scale that pays 0.60% on annual settlements up to $10 million and 0.65% above it. On $20 million settled, a scale that applies the higher tier to every loan pays 0.65% on the lot, or $130,000 upfront, so enter 0.65%. A scale that applies it only above the threshold pays $60,000 on the first $10 million and $65,000 on the rest, or $125,000. Enter 0.625% for that scale, which is $125,000 divided by $20 million.

Working Back From a Trail Income Target

Divide your annual retained trail target by the annual trail rate and the proportion you keep. The result is the eligible outstanding balance needed before flat fees, operating costs and income tax.

A $60,000 target at 0.15% with 90% retained needs about $44,444,444 in eligible balances. This is an outstanding-book requirement. New settlements reach it only as balances enter and remain in the book. A zero trail rate or 100% aggregator share cannot fund a positive target.

Settlement Targets and Business Break-Even

Year one, excluding GST. Income targets are before income tax.

The settlement target covers entered operating costs, acquisition spending, aggregator fees and owner income after deducting retained trail and adjacent income. Divide the remaining amount by retained upfront commission per loan, then round up to a whole loan.

The example needs $77,400 beyond retained trail. Each settlement contributes $2,340 after the aggregator share, so 34 settlements cover the target. At 20% enquiry-to-settlement conversion, that requires 170 enquiries. The model excludes first-year trail on new settlements to keep the timing consistent.

Set owner income to zero for operating break-even. Keep the same commission base when comparing aggregator agreements. A higher retained percentage can be offset by a larger flat fee.

For indicative whole-brokerage profit over one period, start with retained upfront, trail and other revenue. Subtract staffing, acquisition spending and other operating costs for the same period. Aggregator percentages have already come out of retained income, so subtract only flat fees you have not counted, and show clawbacks as a separate line. In the example, $141,600 retained less $30,000 of operating costs and $12,000 of acquisition spending leaves $99,600 before income tax.

Fully loaded cost per settled loan divides that cost base by completed settlements for the period, after adding any aggregator percentage and recipient commissions. Split shared staffing and overheads on a basis you state. With no settlements, the result is undefined. The figure leaves out income tax, GST and owner drawings.

In the example, before any writer or referrer commission, $42,000 of operating and acquisition costs, the $2,400 flat fee and the $16,000 aggregator percentage total $60,400, or $1,208 a loan across 50 settlements. Across 40, the aggregator percentage falls to $13,400, so the total is $57,800, or $1,445 a loan.

Acquisition Cost and Settlement Conversion

Cost per enquiry is acquisition spending divided by enquiries received. Acquisition cost per settled loan divides the same spending by annual settlements. The example’s $12,000 spending produces $48 per enquiry across 250 enquiries, or $240 per settlement across 50 loans.

Received enquiries calculate your observed acquisition cost. The entered conversion percentage separately estimates enquiries needed for the settlement target. Match the period and enquiry definition when comparing actual performance with the forecast.

After operating costs and the owner-income target, the example supports $51,600 in total acquisition spending. This budget is calculated before deducting acquisition spending itself. Compare your entered spending with that amount, then test lower conversion or higher costs without relying on a market benchmark.

Infer the Effective Trail Rate

To infer an annualised effective trail rate, divide a payment by its eligible balance, then by the fraction of a year it covers. If the payment includes GST, divide by 1.1 first. If it is after a known share, then divide by the proportion retained. Take a $2,475 monthly payment that includes GST and is after a 10% share, on a $20 million balance. Removing GST gives $2,250, reversing the share gives $2,500, and dividing by the balance and one-twelfth of a year gives 0.15%.

To check the result, apply the rate to the balance for the period, then put the share and GST back, which returns the original payment. A zero balance gives no rate because there is nothing to divide the payment by. An invalid period gives none because it has no valid fraction of a year, and a 100% share on a net payment gives none because the proportion retained is zero. An observed effective rate can differ from the contractual rate when balances change during the period or the payment includes adjustments. Isolate the relevant trail payment first.