By Keith Dunham, Founder & CEO of Empower Transactions. Keith built Empower after running operations at HomeCity Real Estate, where he helped scale the brokerage to hundreds of closings a month before its sale to Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate. He also co-founded Opcity, later acquired by Realtor.com.
Published agent-side rates for an outsourced transaction coordinator cluster between roughly $340 and $500 per file — Transactly’s plans work out to $339 to $399 a transaction at one file a month, and Empower publishes $400 in most states and $500 in California — while an in-house coordinator costs about $69,100 a year fully loaded at the BLS median wage for office and administrative roles. Some coordinators charge a flat per-file fee, others a monthly retainer — but for a brokerage the per-file rate is one line of a larger operations cost, because a TC is one piece of an operations function.
PUBLISHED RATES
What Empower charges for transaction coordination
These are the published agent-side rates; the outside benchmarks in the article come from each firm’s own pricing page. Empower’s contract-to-close service is $400 per file in most states and $500 per file in California, with a $500 minimum monthly spend.
per contract-to-close file
per contract-to-close file
minimum spend; no long-term contract
Specialized services use consultation pricing
Broker compliance, wholesale coordination, white-label operations, and other specialized services are priced after we understand your volume, markets, systems, staffing, and workflow requirements.
Discuss your pricing and scopeHow much does a transaction coordinator cost?
Pricing falls into three models:
- Per file (outsourced): roughly $340 to $500 per closed transaction at published rates. Transactly’s pay-as-you-go plan is $399 a month and its annual plan $339 a month with twelve transactions a year included; Empower publishes $400 per file in most states and $500 in California, with a $500 monthly minimum. Rates read from each firm’s own pricing page in September 2026.
- Monthly retainer: a flat monthly rate for a set volume — common for higher-volume agents and teams.
- In-house salary: the BLS median wage for office and administrative support roles is $47,450 (May 2025), and about $69,100 a year fully loaded at the employer-cost rate BLS reports for those roles — before software and the management time to run the role.
Per-file vs. monthly vs. in-house
| Model | Typical Cost | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Per file | $400–$500 per transaction at our published rate, with a $500 monthly minimum | Agents past the break-even band (roughly ten to seventeen sides a year at NAR medians); teams buying for several producers |
| Monthly retainer | Flat monthly rate for set volume | Agents and teams whose monthly volume clears the retainer |
| In-house hire | About $69,100 a year fully loaded — BLS median wage for office and administrative roles at the ECEC employer-cost rate | Volume that fills a full-time seat, with a plan for the empty chair when it turns over |
For a solo agent weighing a dedicated virtual assistant against per-file coordination, we ran the crossover: at published rates the VA is cheaper per closed file only above about 60 sides a year.
Who pays the transaction coordinator fee?
The agent, the brokerage, or in some arrangements the client can pay it; practice varies by brokerage and market, and whether a fee can be passed to a client depends on the brokerage’s policy and the transaction documents in that state.
Whether the agent should be the one paying is a question of volume. NAR’s 2026 Member Profile puts the median individual agent at nine sides and median member gross at $59,200 (two different medians) — about $6,578 a side — so a $400 file fee is roughly 6 percent of the median agent’s gross per side, and about 10 percent where a monthly minimum binds. At that volume the arithmetic favors the brokerage paying, and we have worked it through in Is a transaction coordinator worth it? The arithmetic for solo agents.
What drives the price?
Transaction volume, the scope of work (basic contract-to-close vs. full-service listing and compliance support), and state complexity all move the number. A coordinator handling disclosures, compliance, and listing coordination costs more than one only tracking dates, because the scope is larger.
Timing is part of the cost. Across Empower’s reviewed files, the median transaction runs 21 days from intake to closing (n=554 usable date pairs; 23% of pairs were entered retroactively and were excluded). Most of the review burden lands at the end of that window — which is when files most often arrive.
The hidden cost for brokerages
For a brokerage, “what does a TC cost” is the wrong question. A single TC is one piece of an operations function that also includes compliance review, admin, and the management to keep it running. The sequence that holds at every scale is the one we lay out for teams and for brokerages: buy the file work by the file first, because it scales down in a slow quarter, and add fixed seats only when the variable work has proven it will fill them. Where the volume does prove it, a full operations team covers coordination, compliance review and admin under one arrangement; whether that costs less per transaction than stacking per-file coordinators depends on volume, and the in-house alternative is about $69,100 a seat fully loaded.
Per-file TC or an operations partner?
For a solo agent at or near the NAR median, the arithmetic says the coordinator should be a brokerage benefit rather than an agent expense, and past roughly ten to seventeen sides a year the per-file fee costs fewer hours than it returns. For a brokerage or a high-volume team, the question is whether the file work has grown enough to justify an operations partner — coordination, compliance and admin under your brand — which is priced after a consultation on scope and volume rather than by the file.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a transaction coordinator cost per file?
In the market that sells to agents directly, published rates sit in the low hundreds per closed file, and several firms including ours publish theirs — the article above compares the figures as published in September 2026. Two things move a real quote off that headline number: the monthly minimum, which bills whether or not a file is open and sets the effective rate at low volume, and scope, because a coordinator handling disclosures and listing coordination is doing more work than one tracking dates.
Who pays the transaction coordinator fee?
The agent, the brokerage, or in some arrangements the client can pay it; practice varies by brokerage and market. Whether the agent should pay is a question of volume: at the NAR median of nine sides a year the arithmetic favors the brokerage paying.
Is a monthly TC cheaper than paying per file?
It depends on volume. At published rates, a full-time managed virtual assistant costs less per closed file than per-file coordination only above roughly 60 sides a year, and a fully loaded in-house seat runs about $69,100 at BLS figures. Below those volumes, paying per file is cheaper per transaction; where a monthly minimum applies, it is the number to check first at low volume.
Do brokerages need a transaction coordinator or an operations team?
A single coordinator handles files; a brokerage also needs compliance review and admin, and the management to run them. The sequence that holds is to buy the file work by the file first and add fixed seats only when the volume has proven it will fill them; an operations partner covers all three functions under one arrangement, priced on scope and volume.
More questions
How is transaction coordination priced?
Per closed file, with a monthly minimum, in the market that sells to agents directly. Empower Transactions publishes its own per-file rate in the article above and differs in California; the quote for a given agent, team or brokerage depends on volume, scope and the systems already in place, which is why we ask for those before naming a number.
Why does the price differ by state?
Required documents, disclosure sets and review expectations are set by each state commission, so a file in one state is not the same amount of work as a file in another. California is the common example of a higher-work state, and the rate Empower Transactions publishes there is higher for that reason.
Is there a monthly minimum?
Yes, and it bills every month the account is open whether or not a file is. That matters more than the per-file rate for a low-volume agent, because the minimum, not the headline number, sets what they actually pay per closed file. There is no long-term contract requirement. The current figure is published in the article above.
Are broker compliance and wholesale services priced per file?
Not automatically. Broker compliance, wholesale transaction coordination, white-label operations, and other specialized services require a consultation because pricing depends on volume, markets, systems, staffing, and scope.
Looking at the wider overhead picture? See how to reduce brokerage admin costs.
For agents, teams and brokerages
Get the number for your volume.
A published rate is a starting point, not a quote. Send your side count, your state and the systems you already run, and we will tell you what coordination would actually cost you - and whether your brokerage should be the one paying for it.