Brivity vs. Follow Up Boss: Two Very Different Tools

One is an all-in-one platform built from the ground up by top agents who still operate some of the highest-producing teams in North America. The other is a CRM that agents across brokerages rely on for disciplined lead follow-up. Here’s how to tell which one actually fits your business.

My Quick Verdict: Brivity wins if you need a single platform covering IDX website, CRM, lead generation, marketing, and transaction management in one place. Follow Up Boss wins if you already have a website and lead sources you trust, and you want a pure CRM for making sure no lead ever falls through the cracks. These are not the same product dressed up differently; they’re built for fundamentally different operating models.

Overview: What Each Platform Actually Does

If you’ve been researching Brivity and Follow Up Boss side by side, you’ve probably noticed both platforms describe themselves as real estate CRMs. That’s technically accurate but misses the point. In practice, these tools are designed around completely different philosophies about how a real estate business should be structured.

Brivity:

Founded in 2012 by Ben Kinney, one of the most consistently top-ranked agents in the country, Brivity is a full real estate operating system. It bundles CRM, IDX websites, marketing automation, lead generation, transaction management, client communication (including a branded client portal and home app), and team accountability reporting into a single platform. The core premise is that every piece of a team’s workflow should live in one place and talk to every other piece automatically. Brivity was built inside real production teams, and that shows in how well the platform performs for follow-up, managing transactions, and coaching agents.

• All-in-one platform for agents, teams, and brokerages. Includes CRM, IDX websites, automated Action Plans, lead generation tools, transaction management, and team reporting. Built inside a top-producing real estate business and refined for over a decade.

Follow Up Boss (FUB)

Follow Up Boss does one thing and does it well: CRM and follow-up automation. It is deliberately a standalone CRM with no built-in website or lead generation engine. Instead, it integrates with 250+ lead sources, IDX website providers, and third-party tools. The pitch is focus: have the best possible system for the part of your business that most directly drives revenue, which is the follow-up. FUB was acquired by Zillow in late 2023 and continues to operate as a standalone product, though the acquisition is a legitimate consideration for agents evaluating long-term data privacy and platform independence.

• Purpose-built real estate CRM. No website included. Integrates with 250+ lead sources and tools. Known for clean UX, deep follow-up automation, and 7-day-a-week support. Acquired by Zillow in December 2023 but operates as an independent product.

Feature Comparison at a Glance

Here’s my quick “at-a-glance” side-by-side comparison with some of the features that Brivity has but FUB doesn’t, and vice versa.

Feature	Brivity	Follow Up Boss
Built-in CRM	✔ Yes	✔ Yes
IDX website included	✔ Yes	✘ No
Lead generation tools	✔ Built-in	Integrations only
Marketing automation	✔ Action Plans	✔ Action Plans
AI-powered features	✔ Yes	✔ Yes (Platform tier)
Built-in dialer	✔ Yes	Add-on ($39/user/mo on Grow)
Transaction management	✔ Yes	✘ No
Client portal	✔ Yes	✘ No
CMA reports	✔ Yes	✘ No
Managed ad services	✔ Add-on	✘ No
Third-party integrations	Zapier + select	✔ 250+
Mobile app	✔ Brivity GO	✔ Yes
Free trial	✘ Demo only	✔ 14-day free trial
Transparent public pricing	✘ Quote required	✔ Published online
Zillow ownership	✘ No	⚠ Yes (since 2023)

Pricing Comparison

Pricing is one of the biggest differences between these platforms, both in what you pay and what you get for it.

Brivity Pricing

Brivity does not publish pricing publicly, you need to contact the team for a custom quote. Based on available data:

• Solo agents: Starting around $299/month, dialer included
• Teams: Team entry point (reported) is ~$350-$1000/month depending on the team size and add-ons
• Additional services include managed advertising, texting, advanced lead gen
• No free trial; demo required

The real cost of Brivity is the full system investment: CRM + website + marketing + transaction management, potentially plus ad spend for any campaigns you run through the platform. For teams using all of it, the value is clear and strong. 

Follow Up Boss Pricing

Follow Up Boss publishes three tiered plans with transparent pricing:

• Grow: $69/user/month (or ~$58/month billed annually) — core CRM features, dialer available as add-on at $39/user/month
• Pro: $499/month for up to 10 users (billed monthly) — includes unlimited calling and texting, AI features, call reporting
• Platform: $1,000/month for up to 30 users — advanced routing, permissions, and enterprise reporting
• 14-day free trial available on all plans; no long-term contract required

FUB’s published pricing makes budgeting easier, but there are real add-on costs to factor in: the dialer on the Grow plan adds ~$39/user/month, and you’ll still need separate software for transaction management and an IDX website if you need one.

A few things worth flagging on each side:

• Brivity: Exact pricing requires a demo call. Add-ons for managed advertising, advanced lead gen, and texting can increase the total cost for larger teams.
• Follow Up Boss: Pricing is published online. However, the jump from $69/month (Grow, solo) to $499/month (Pro, 2–10 users) is one of the steepest per-seat cliffs in the category. Solo agents who need the built-in dialer will also pay an extra $39/user/month on the Grow plan, putting true solo cost closer to $108/month.

Brivity: What It Does Well

Brivity’s core value proposition is consolidation without compromise. Rather than stitching together a separate CRM, website platform, email marketing tool, transaction coordinator software, a reporting dashboard, and a client portal, Brivity brings all of those under one roof — and each component is meaningfully deeper than what you’d get from a general-purpose CRM that bolted real estate features on after the fact.

The CRM supports behavioral tracking: when a lead visits your IDX website, saves a search, or clicks an email, those actions are logged and surfaced automatically so agents know exactly who to call and why. Automated Action Plans fire sequences of tasks, emails, and texts based on where a lead sits in the pipeline, reducing the dependency on any individual agent’s discipline. The built-in transaction management module covering checklists, document storage, deadline tracking, and client portals, is something FUB simply doesn’t offer at all.

For team leaders, the reporting layer is arguably the most differentiated feature. Real-time dashboards show exactly which agents are working leads, which leads are going cold, and where the pipeline is healthy or thin. This isn’t just a performance dashboard, it’s a coaching tool built into daily operations.

Brivity Pros

1. True all-in-one system. CRM, IDX website, lead gen, marketing, transaction management, and team reporting in a single platform. No integration overhead and no data living in five different places.
2. Built by top producers, not just engineers. Brivity was designed inside one of the highest-producing real estate businesses in North America. The automation sequences, transaction checklists, and team workflows reflect what actually works in the field, not what looks good in a demo.
3. Team accountability is built in. Reporting tools give leaders real-time visibility into agent activity and pipeline health. Knowing which leads are being worked, and which aren’t, enables faster, better coaching conversations.
4. Transaction management included. Full contract-to-close coordination, including checklists, deadline alerts, document storage, and a client portal. This is a meaningful cost and complexity saving for teams that would otherwise pay separately for a transaction coordinator tool.
5. Managed marketing services available. Teams that want someone else handling Meta and Google ad execution can access Brivity’s done-for-you managed marketing service as an add-on, keeping campaigns and leads inside the same system.

Brivity Cons

1. Pricing requires a sales call. There’s no published pricing page. Agents who want to comparison-shop quickly will have to go through a demo conversation before they know what they’ll pay.
2. Optimized for teams. The pricing, feature set, and operating model are built around multi-agent teams with at least one admin. A solo agent early in their career is likely paying for capacity they won’t use for years.
3. Narrower integration ecosystem. Brivity integrates with key tools like Zapier and Google Contacts, but the open integration library is significantly smaller than FUB’s 250+ connections. Teams with complex existing stacks may face migration friction.

Bottom line on Brivity: If your team wants a single platform to run the full business, from the first website visit through to a closed transaction, Brivity is one of the strongest options on the market. The ROI comes from using all of it, not just the CRM layer.

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Follow Up Boss: What It Does Well

Follow Up Boss has earned its reputation among high-producing agents by being exceptionally good at the one thing it promises: making sure no lead falls through the cracks. 

Smart Lists let agents segment their database dynamically based on behavior, pipeline stage, last contact date, or any criteria they set. Action Plans automate email, text, and task sequences triggered by lead activity. The integration library for 250+ lead sources, website providers, and tools, including Zillow Premier Agent, Realtor.com, BoldLeads, Sierra Interactive, and most major IDX platforms means FUB plugs into whatever stack you’ve already built rather than asking you to rebuild around it.

The obvious limitation is what FUB deliberately doesn’t include. There’s no built-in website, no IDX, no transaction management, no client portal, and no lead generation engine. Agents need to source their own leads, maintain their own website, and handle transactions in a separate tool. For agents who already have those pieces dialed in, that’s fine and FUB complements them. For agents who don’t, FUB solves only part of the problem.

Follow Up Boss Pros

1. Best-in-class CRM experience. Clean interface, intuitive contact management, and follow-up workflows that agents actually adopt and stick with. The UX discipline is a deliberate product choice, and it shows in the daily usage numbers.
2. Open integration ecosystem. 250+ integrations make FUB compatible with virtually any lead source, IDX website, or tool already in use. Teams that have invested in a specific stack don’t have to tear it down to use FUB.
3. Transparent pricing and free trial. Published pricing, no contracts on monthly plans, and a 14-day trial with no credit card required. Agents can test the platform against their real workflows before committing.
4. 7-day-a-week support. FUB’s support team is one of the most frequently praised in the category and they’ll help migrate contacts from other CRMs. For teams switching platforms, that migration support matters.

Follow Up Boss Cons

1. No website, IDX, or transaction management. The true cost of Follow Up Boss is higher than the subscription price for any agent who doesn’t already have a website, lead gen strategy, and transaction tool in place. Budget for those separately before comparing sticker prices.
2. Steep pricing cliff at 2+ users. The jump from $69/month (solo) to $499/month (2–10 users) is one of the sharpest per-seat increases in the category and catches small teams off guard. A two-person team goes from $69 to $499 the moment they add a second agent.
3. Dialer is an add-on on the entry plan. Built-in calling on the Grow plan costs an extra $39/user/month, pushing a solo agent who calls leads to roughly $108/month before any external tools.
4. Owned by Zillow. Zillow acquired FUB in December 2023 for $400 million. FUB operates as a standalone product and the companies state that agent-owned contact data remains private and separate. That said, the optics of a major lead portal owning your CRM are worth evaluating, especially for agents or brokerages with deliberate strategies around not depending on Zillow leads.

Bottom line on Follow Up Boss: If follow-up discipline is your biggest problem, and you already have a website and lead sources you trust, FUB is likely the best pure CRM for solving it. The 14-day trial means there’s no reason not to test it against your real pipeline before committing.

Who Should Choose Brivity vs. FUB?

Choose Brivity if you are… A small to mid-sized team that wants CRM, website, marketing, and transactions in one platform A systems-driven team that runs on defined processes, accountability tracking, and structured follow-up Running 50+ transactions a year and want to replace multiple tools with one system An agent or team leader who prioritizes the client experience post-contract, including a branded portal and home app Managing paid ad campaigns and want to run them from inside your CRM

Choose FUB if you are… A solo agent or small team with an existing website and working lead sources who just needs a better CRM A team that values open integrations and wants to keep best-in-class tools for each function Prioritizing fast onboarding and a clean UX your agents will actually adopt A brokerage evaluating on the strength of support and track record An agent who wants to test a platform risk-free before committing

So Which Is It: Brivity or Follow Up Boss?

My honest take is that these tools are for different businesses, and picking the wrong one is more common than it should be.

If you’re a solo agent or a small team with a working website and lead sources, Follow Up Boss will almost certainly give you quick ROI with less friction. The UX is clean, the onboarding is fast, and the 14-day free trial removes the risk of a bad guess. The Zillow ownership is worth noting, evaluate it in the context of how dependent your business already is on Zillow-sourced leads.

If you’re a team of four or more who has historically patched together a CRM, a separate website, a transaction tool, and an ad platform, Brivity is worth taking seriously as a consolidation play. The ROI comes from implementing the full platform, not just using the CRM. But for a team that commits to it, Brivity can replace five separate vendor relationships with one, and the built-in accountability layer is genuinely difficult to replicate by bolting reporting tools onto a standalone CRM.

The mistake to avoid: buying Brivity as a solo agent because the feature list looks comprehensive, or buying Follow Up Boss as a brokerage leader because the entry price is lower. Match the tool to the actual structure and stage of your business.