What Marketing Actually Costs a UK Estate Agent in 2026

Last Updated on September 17, 2026

Ask an agency owner what their marketing costs and you will hear about boards, a bit of social and the portals. Ask what the portals actually cost and the industry goes quiet, because none of them publishes a price list.

The mistake is treating portal spend as a fixed utility bill rather than the largest marketing line the branch has. It is the largest, it rose 8% in a year by the seller’s own reporting, and one of the three portals reports exactly what agents pay it, in public, twice a year.

The number the industry does not quote

Rightmove’s half year report to 30 June 2026, published 31 July 2026, states average revenue per advertiser of £1,726 a month across all customers. For agency branches specifically it is £1,636 a month, up 8% from £1,520 a year earlier. For new homes developers it is £2,247. Annualised, an average agency branch is paying Rightmove roughly £19,600 a year.

That is an average, not a rate card. Small branches pay less, big ones pay more, and packages differ. But it is an audited, published figure from Rightmove’s own investor reporting, which makes it the only public number in UK portal pricing. When Whito checked on 2 September 2026, Zoopla’s agent packages page and OnTheMarket’s membership page published no prices at all, only a phone number and a form.

Source: Rightmove plc half year financial report, 31 July 2026, via Investegate.

What everything else costs, at published rates

Every figure below was read on the provider’s own page on 2 September 2026. VAT treatment as stated by each provider.

The awards layer has no price tag either

Our August 2026 study of AI estate agent recommendations found engines quote award wins as evidence more in this industry than any other. Yet when Whito went looking for what those awards cost to enter, the ESTAS ticket page and the British Property Awards site published no fees, and allAgents lists its Silver and Gold packages with no prices. An industry that runs on awards and portals publishes almost no prices for either.

That matters commercially. A branch paying the average portal bill is spending £19,600 a year on one channel it cannot price-compare, in a market where our wider research found 47 of 50 marketing agencies publish no price and fewer than half of small business websites publish any price at all. Opacity is the norm, which is exactly why the one audited number is worth knowing.

What to do with these numbers

Start: know your own figure. Pull the last portal invoice and divide by completions from portal leads. Your cost per completion from the portal is the benchmark every other channel has to beat.

Build: put the cheap, priced items in place before debating the expensive, unpriced ones. Redress and Propertymark cost about £700 a year all in, and our AI study found engines lean on exactly those trust signals. A month of leafleting a farm patch is publicly priced at close to £1,100 plus VAT and is directly comparable, month by month, with the portal bill.

Scale: negotiate the portal like the five-figure contract it is. Rightmove’s own reporting says the average bill rose 8% in a year. If your renewal is above that, you now have the published average to point at.

The takeaway: the biggest line on an agency’s marketing budget has exactly one published number, and it comes from the seller’s investor page, not its sales team. Read it before your renewal call.

Common questions

How much does Rightmove cost an estate agent in 2026?

Rightmove does not publish a price list, but its own half year results to 30 June 2026 report average revenue per advertiser of £1,726 a month across all customers, and £1,636 a month for agency branches, up 8% on a year earlier. That is roughly £19,600 a year for a typical branch.

Does Zoopla or OnTheMarket publish prices?

No. When Whito checked in September 2026, Zoopla’s agent packages page and OnTheMarket’s membership page both carried no prices at all, only contact routes. Rightmove’s investor reporting is the only public number in UK portal pricing.

What does estate agent compliance cost compared with marketing?

At published 2026 rates, The Property Ombudsman costs £333.55 including VAT per branch per year plus an £89.11 joining fee, the Property Redress Scheme from £190 plus VAT per office, and Propertymark individual membership £295 a year. All of it together costs less than one month of average Rightmove spend.

Is leafleting still worth pricing up?

It is one of the few agency channels with published prices. Printed A5 leaflets cost about £87 per 1,000 and distribution from about £50 per 1,000 at published rates, and a managed 20,000 leaflet monthly campaign is publicly priced at £1,100 plus VAT. You can compare that against a portal invoice to the pound.

Whito

Whito is an independent UK research bureau. We ask the AI engines what they recommend, then check the businesses they name against Companies House and the sector registers. Figures we publish carry the date they were checked. Companies cannot pay to appear or to rank.

See Full Bio