Real estate agent commissions in Australia: what you actually pay to sell

Two agents quote you to sell the same $900,000 house in the same suburb. One says $19,800. The other says $9,995. Neither is wrong, and neither is breaking any rule, because Australian real estate agent commissions are not regulated. Every percentage point on the listing agreement is a negotiated number, and the gap between a sharp negotiation and a passive one is routinely the price of a small car.

Most vendors sign the first agency agreement put in front of them. The agent is friendly, the photos look great, the listing is going up Saturday. Three months later the cheque clears and the seller has no benchmark for whether the fee was reasonable. Below is the version of the conversation a good vendor advocate would have walked you through before you signed.

State-by-state: what the typical bands actually look like

There is no national rate card. Commissions move with how competitive the local agent market is, how high the median sale price runs, and how long the typical campaign takes to clear. As a working guide for early 2026:

• Sydney inner ring (Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, Lower North Shore): 1.5% to 2.0%. High prices and dense agent competition keep the percentage compressed.
• Sydney outer suburbs and the Central Coast: 2.0% to 2.5%.
• Melbourne inner and middle ring: 1.8% to 2.2%.
• Melbourne outer suburbs: 2.2% to 2.8%.
• Brisbane metro: 2.5% to 3.0%.
• Adelaide and Perth metro: 2.0% to 3.0%.
• Regional Australia: 3.0% to 3.5%, sometimes higher for thinner markets where the agent expects a long campaign.

On a $900,000 sale, the swing from 1.5% to 3.5% is $13,500 to $31,500 in pure commission, before a single dollar of marketing or auctioneer fee. Same property, same market, $18,000 difference depending on who you sign with and how hard you push on the rate.

Three commission structures, one worked example

The same $900,000 sale priced three different ways shows why the structure matters as much as the headline percentage.

Flat percentage. The agent takes a fixed percent of the final sale price. At 2.2% on $900,000, the commission is $19,800. Simple, predictable, and the agent has a small but real incentive to push the price up because every extra $10,000 on the hammer is another $220 in their pocket.

Tiered (split).A lower percentage applies up to a threshold and a higher percentage above it, designed to sharpen the agent's incentive at the top of the campaign. A typical tiered structure: 1.5% on the first $800,000, then 5% on every dollar above. On a $900,000 sale that is $12,000 plus $5,000, totalling $17,000. The vendor saves $2,800 compared to the flat 2.2%, and the agent only earns the bumper rate if they push past the threshold the vendor cares about.

Fixed fee. A flat dollar amount regardless of sale price. Discount agencies have built businesses around $9,995 or $11,995 fixed fees, often bundled with a basic marketing package. On the same $900,000 sale that is roughly $10,000 of pure savings versus a flat-2.2% agent. The trade-off is brutal: the agent has effectively zero incentive to push for a higher price. Whether the property sells at $880,000 or $920,000, the fee is the same. A skilled negotiator can extract $20,000 of extra value at the closing table; the fixed-fee agent has no financial reason to spend the time doing it.

Run the same sale through the selling cost calculator with all three structures to see the all-in difference once marketing and conveyancing are added.

The marketing budget is separate, and it is real money

Commission is only one line on the agency agreement. The marketing budget sits underneath it, paid by the vendor in advance, and not counted against the agent's fee. A typical capital-city campaign runs $3,000 to $15,000 depending on the property:

• Professional photography and floorplan: $600 to $1,200.
• Drone and twilight shots: $400 to $900.
• Video walkthrough or agent-led video: $800 to $2,000.
• realestate.com.au and Domain depth listings: $1,500 to $6,000.
• Signboard, brochures, copywriting: $500 to $1,500.
• Open-home staffing and database emails: included in most agreements.

For an auction the marketing budget runs higher because the campaign window is shorter (three to four weeks) and the portal listings need depth-package upgrades to land on the front page during that narrow window. The on-the-day auctioneer fee is another $400 to $800, also separately billed. None of this is the agent's commission. None of it comes back to you if the property does not sell.

GST is in the number (usually)

Most listing agreements quote commission as a GST-inclusive figure. A 2.2% rate on $900,000 is $19,800 inc GST, of which $1,800 is the agent's GST liability. Some agents quote the headline as "plus GST" instead, which on the same sale is $19,800 plus $1,980, totalling $21,780. The line on the agreement is the one that binds. Read it before you sign and ask the agent to explicitly state which side of GST the percentage sits on.

When to negotiate, and what to ask for

The window to negotiate is at the listing-agreement signing, full stop. Once the campaign is underway, the agreement is locked and renegotiating the rate mid-campaign is awkward enough that almost no vendor pulls it off. Have the conversation when the agent is still pitching for the listing and another two agents are queued up behind them.

Two specific questions move the number more than any other. First, ask for the agent's last five sales in your suburb and the commission charged on each. Most agents will hold their published rate within 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points but can be flexible on the marketing component, especially the portal depth-package upgrades, which carry agency margin. A $9,000 marketing pitch can often be trimmed to $6,500 with a direct ask. Second, ask whether the rate is sole-agency or open-agency.

Sole agency versus open agency

Sole agency means one agent has the exclusive right to sell for the period of the agreement (typically 60 to 90 days). The agent has high conversion confidence, so the rate is usually 0.1 to 0.3 percentage points lower than open agency. Open agency means multiple agents can list the property simultaneously, with the commission going to whichever one actually sells. Each individual agent puts in less effort because their probability of a payday is divided across the field, so the rate per agent is usually higher to compensate.

Open agency works in two narrow situations: very thin markets where one agent genuinely cannot reach the buyer pool alone, and properties already partly under contract through a private introduction. For a standard suburban sale in a deep market, sole agency with a defined term and a published rate is almost always cheaper and produces a sharper campaign.

The conditional commission: aligning incentive with outcome

The structure that genuinely solves the fixed-fee versus percentage problem is a conditional or tiered-bonus commission. The vendor sets a target sale price (say $880,000) and offers the agent a low base commission of 1.5% on the first $880,000, plus a bonus of 5% to 10% on every dollar above that target. On a $920,000 sale, the structure pays $13,200 base plus $2,000 to $4,000 bonus, totalling $15,200 to $17,200.

That is roughly comparable to a flat 1.7% to 1.9% in dollar terms, but the agent now has a meaningful financial reason to chase every extra thousand at the top of the campaign. The catch is that conditional commissions are easier to negotiate in a seller's market, when the agent is competing for the listing and willing to take the bet, than in a buyer's market when they are already nervous about whether the property clears at all.

Where this fits

Commission is one variable in the all-in cost of selling. The sale method (auction or private treaty) drives the marketing budget more than commission does, and the after-tax outcome depends on whether the main residence exemption applies. The auction vs private treaty article runs the campaign-cost numbers head-to-head, and the main residence CGT exemption piece covers when the gain on sale is fully exempt and when it is not. The vendors who get the best result are the ones who have already done the maths on all three before the first agent walks through the door.