SetSchedule | Reviews and Pricing | 2024
Contrary to the name, SetSchedule is not a calendar app, showing service, or anything of the sort. Instead, it is a lead service (you “set schedule” with your listing appointments). It does this with a rather novel concept. Instead of paying monthly, you can pay-per-lead. It includes a dashboard that lets you spend as much or as little as you like. It also has a premium access option that gives you unlimited access to all leads.
The leads come from big data and AI algorithms that attempt to guess likely home sellers in your area, as well as resold leads from familiar sources like Zillow.
SetSchedule was founded in 2014 and is based in the real estate tech capital of the world – Irvine, CA.
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SetSchedule
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Best Features
Free Signup
Getting into the SetSchedule dashboard and making an account is free! You can go check it out right now and explore it a little bit, seeing if it is something that fits your taste.
Choose Your Leads
SetSchedule has a fairly unique system for obtaining leads. There is the “referral radar” which shows on a map various available leads. Once you click on one, you have five minutes to purchase the lead before it is released and allows another agent to pick it up.
Some of the leads are referrals from other agents. Some are just addresses that SetSchedule’s algorithm believes are homes that are likely to sell.
Real estate agents can purchase a bulk of leads, as well – not just onesies and twosies.
Flexible Budget
You are not committing to a monthly Facebook advertising spend or Google AdWords campaign. Need leads? Buy a few. Don’t need leads? Save some dollars this month. That is a welcome breath of flexibility when it comes to paid lead platforms with intimidating commitments for big dollars.
The marketplace style is also neat in that leads are presumably priced efficiently based on the market. A $900,000 seller lead will be commensurately more expensive than a $90,000 seller lead, meaning that agents in all markets and price ranges might benefit from such a program.
Referral System
One feature in which I see a lot of potential is the referral system. In addition to SetSchedule’s AI cultivating likely leads, you can also use the system to sell leads to other agents.
However, a good referral system relies on a large network, and I don’t think SetSchedule’s user base is quite there yet. They have about 35,000 real estate agent users.
Unlimited Leads
If you join as a premium member instead of purchasing individual leads, you have unlimited access to leads.
This can be both a pro and a con. If you have unlimited access, so does everyone else. The result is that your conversion may diminish as you and other local brokers compete for the same leads. They claim to try to keep a lead to 3-5 agents but it’s unclear how successful they are at that.
If you have strong follow up skills, unlimited leads is good!
SetSchedule Connect Leads
The quality of many of their leads is very low. More on that below. It’s not because they are poor at lead generation but just the nature of the lead sources they utilize.
But some of their leads are higher urgency.
SetSchedule Connect Leads are Verified leads (which includes all the lead types) that are ready to connect immediately. These are distributed depending on the agent grouping. More engaged agents are in the highest-ranking groups. There are three tiers based on your engagement.
They distribute these preferentially because they want the 20% referral. This may be a pro or con depending on whether you are in their preferential tiers.
These leads are verified and nurtured via an AI chatbot they have called “Jessica”. Once engaged, it initiates a handoff. Other ways they control for the quality of leads is by rating them based on how long they’ve been on the platform or the price point.
Biggest Pitfalls
Quantity over Quality
This can be a “pro”, depending on your business model. Brokers with robust funnels that are capable of prospering despite 1-2% conversion rates can prosper with the quantity at top of funnel.
SetSchedule gets leads from a variety of sources, including purchasing wholesale leads from portals like Zillow. That implies, to me, that these are probably colder leads that weren’t engaged initially with Zillow or their partners.
SetSchedule Connect Leads are Verified leads (which includes all the lead types) that are ready to connect immediately and are handed out depending on the agent grouping. More engaged agents are in the highest-ranking groups. Just 3 groups – the premium membership does not affect the grouping. The goal is to connect them with the most engaged agent at any moment live because they want the 20%.
They claim that the buyer to seller lead ratio is about 80:20.
SetValue.com is a sister site that generates their seller leads based on AVMs from multiple vendors.
To their credit, they have good transparency on the lead source so that you have an understanding of the quality and how your lead entered the funnel.
Referral Fee and Annual Membership Fee
SetSchedule charges a 20% referral fee on converted leads.
This is less than what you would expect from, say, Zillow or Realtor.com’s referral lead systems. And much less than when working with lender referral partners.
But it is nonetheless a lot when one considers the low conversion rate and hefty annual participation fee.
That fee is advertised as a gatekeeper to keep only serious agents on the platform. Ironically, it is in part designed to reverse their reputational damage and prevent lightweight agents from trying, failing, and then complaining.
Whether they’ve achieved that goal or not I don’t know, and whether it is worth it to your business model or not, I can’t say, either.
SetSchedule Pricing*
- FREE for signup
- ~$15+/lead
- ~$2000/yr for Premium
- 20% referral fee on Premium leads
Logging into SetSchedule is free.
Individual leads can be purchased individually or in bulk. Pricing varies based on average price point and region, but generally is $15-30 per lead.
Premium membership is ~$2000 to $5000 per agent and allows unlimited access to the leads, although introduces a 20% referral fee instead.
*This is current to the best of my knowledge at the time of this writing. Contact the vendor directly to check current prices, discounts, and terms.
My Personal Recommendation
SetSchedule has received a lot of negative criticism in the past. They’ve suffered some reputational damage that is important to point out, including lawsuits.
Despite negative press, SetSchedule continues to grow as a company, boasting nearly 200 employees on LinkedIn in 2024.
They have pivoted their business model in some meaningful ways since the above articles and may be worthy of consideration.
The annual costs are prohibitive for smaller agents or teams and I wouldn’t recommend it for most people.
Given the low quality of leads and significant costs, I can only imagine this as a product for brokers or well-developed teams that have an airtight funnel. An airtight funnel is necessary to make any paid lead generation work, but this is especially so for SetSchedule.
If you are that team or broker, taking SetSchedule for a test run might be worthwhile for a year if you are already having success with other paid lead generation (like Zillow) but have exhausted leads from those sources in your area.
Use SetSchedule if…
- You’ve maxed your Zillow and Realtor.com spending with great success and have cash to burn to experiment with further expanding your top-of-funnel.
Skip SetSchedule if…
- You want a similar product that has lower barriers to entry (consider Offrs or SmartZip)
- For the same budget, you want some more tried-and-true paid lead sources (consider Zillow or Realtor.com)
- You have a good funnel but want to focus exclusively on potential seller leads (consider ZBuyer)
SetSchedule Videos
Pros
None
Con
Expired leads and waste of value time
Pros
None
Con
My recent encounter with Set Schedule, a real estate lead generation company, left me extremely disappointed and frustrated. After considering their program for the second time and reluctantly deciding to invest upfront money, I expected a more professional and respectful experience. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met.
To make matters worse, when I expressed my dissatisfaction and declined their services, the salesperson I was speaking with displayed a shocking lack of professionalism. Instead of understanding my concerns or attempting to address them, the salesperson became defensive and impolite. They even had the audacity to tell me to never reach out or call them again, accusing me of wasting their time. Such behavior is unacceptable and reflects poorly on the company as a whole.
It is evident that Set Schedule relies on a one-minute sales pitch, hoping to entice potential customers into signing up without thoroughly considering the program’s details. This approach is not only misleading but also disrespectful to customers who seek a genuine understanding of the services provided.
Pros
There are no pros with this company. They are a scam to the core! They set you up with a too-good-to-be-true sales pitch and take your $1700 and then give you the worst “leads” you can possibly imagine. Want to get hung up on, questioned on how you got someone’s number, or find out someone is deceased? Go with SetSchedule! They will quickly respond with “you just don’t know how to convert leads” and refuse to give your money back! Don’t feel bad if you’ve already been scammed by them, the most seasoned agents such as myself did too. But have you ever come across a company that doesn’t give the money back if you’re truly dissatisfied? A scam doesn’t!
Con
They ARE cons! Pure scam! Do not get their service, and if you get caught up with their sales pitch and pay them, claim its a fraudulent charge because the rest of us out here putting together a lawsuit sure wish we had done it that way. They refuse to give the money back of hundreds of angry agents.