Sierra Interactive | Reviews and Pricing | 2024
Sierra Interactive is a small company that builds a full-service brokerage and team product including some of the best idx websites for SEO. Their website product includes a CRM, brokerage reporting, managed PPC campaign offerings, and even an integrated dialer.
Sierra Interactive is located in Louisville, KY, and is an interesting option for folks looking more at content marketing and SEO leads for their business. They were acquired by ASG in 2022, joining their suite of other real estate tools like Homebot, DoorLoop, and NestReady.
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Use Sierra Interactive if…
- You want your website to rank on Google and want a more affordable option than some alternatives.
- You work best with a simple backend CRM that you can’t overthink or get lost in
Skip Sierra Interactive if…
- You want a comparably priced product suited for franchises and larger brokerages (consider kvCORE)
- Your business model is exclusively paid leads and pay per click (PPC) advertising (consider BoomTown)
- Your focus is on social media and advertising and want a few more tools for managing your spending there (consider Ylopo)
View Other Real Estate Platforms
Design
I’ve found 10 examples of real, live Sierra Interactive websites to look through.
Sierra previously offered Premier sites with custom designs, but have ceased this offer to focus on a few core site templates at their affordable pricing category. You do, however, have a lot of flexibility on the site layout, and can hire third-party designers like Cherie Young to give your site a bespoke feel.
When browsing their sites, no two feel quite alike.
Indy Home Pros
The Kite Team
Cherie Young
$699+. Cherie Young has a design service that focuses on upgrading real estate platform website designs. If you love a platform’s backend but are “meh” about their website design, Cherie’s company can give you the best of both worlds. Cherie is a real estate platform expert and contributed to this article!
Best Features
Top Shelf Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Sierra Interactive is very good at SEO. I did an unscientific study of some of the best website providers for SEO, and Sierra Interactive’s name came up time and again.
They emphasize their SEO chops, boasting the fastest page speeds in the industry.
Here is an example of one of their top-performing agents’ websites at Ruby Home and how it is performing.
This tool is SEMRush, and I find it often underestimates the organic traffic, often by 3-5x. So it is possible their organic traffic is over 300,000/mo!
As of this writing, it ranks #1 for the keyword “penthouse Los Angeles”, just above Zillow!
You can rank on Google with Sierra Interactive.
Follow Up with Action Plans
Follow up is Sierra’s specialty, featuring good lead routing and robust, automated action plans.
They’ve worked with coaching companies like Hatch Coaching and GGMS who create action plan templates that can be easily incorporated into the Sierra platform.
Their lead routing has all the options a team leader or sales manager could need, including weighted round-robin to favor your top producers or match a team member spending contribution, claim with time out, lead ponds, and instant calls that will make sure no Realtor.com lead goes unanswered.
The system dialer means you can easily assemble your CRM database for doing your follow-up calls as well, either from your own phone or the browser phone.
Fast and Granular IDX
Sierra Interactive does not use third-party IDX service. Properties load quickly, it works well with multiple MLSs, includes listing alerts, and buyers are engaged.
You can get granular with your IDX features and easily insert search criteria on your pages and even blog posts. If the field exists in your MLS, chances are you can filter on it. This is especially ideal for making custom neighborhood pages, hyperlocal content, investor-specific pages, etc.
You can incorporate not only active and pending listings but sold homes when available from the MLS.
I recommend looking through some of the examples below and playing with the IDX yourself. It is an option to use forced registration for lead capture or just let your visitors roam free.
Mix and Match
Sierra Interactive has an open API to make it easy to integrate with other real estate tools.
For example, they have direct integrations with Ylopo and Follow Up Boss, both popular tools for agents.
For agents and brokerages who love the Sierra Interactive SEO but want to be sure that leads make it to FUB, Sierra Interactive will be a seamless solution.
Similarly, agents who prize Ylopo’s marketing suite can still reap the benefits of Sierra Interactive’s SEO and nurturing backend.
Follow Up Boss
$57+/mo. Follow Up Boss focuses its marketing on teams and brokers. It is one of the most highly regarded CRMs, and is a great and resourceful all-around solution for individual agents and organizations alike. It is first-in-class for usability, and is a strong contender if agent adoption is your major software concern.
Ylopo
$295+/mo. Ylopo is an innovative platform with a focus on social media leads. They have a unique program for serving dynamic ads based on your listings and audience. They have aesthetic websites that are unique among real estate sites in that they are built on Squarespace. They’re a strong contender if you are wanting to transparently leverage social media spending for your business.
Biggest Pitfalls
Fewer Toys
Sierra Interactive is a simple, easy-to-use program.
But it doesn’t have some of the toys that some of its more expensive competitors feature. For example, as of this writing, Sierra Interactive does not have a mobile app. It doesn’t have reverse prospecting built-in like BoomTown or CINC.
Not Set Up for Multi-State Franchises
Unlike kvCORE, Sierra Interactive is not targeting the major brokerage franchises for business. While they say their system eventually may work for these purposes, it is not currently set up for lots of MLS feeds from multiple states.
Ownership
Sierra Interactive is not built on WordPress. You don’t have a lot of control over the site. It may be possible to rebuild the site with a different vendor and then implement 301 redirects if you own the URL. But realistically, you are married to Sierra Interactive, for better or worse.
You do, however, own the domain. If you were to switch vendors, it is possible you could effectively recreate much of the site you had and maintain and SEO juice you earned.
This shortcoming is true of most real estate platform vendors with only a few exceptions. But just be mindful if your business model requires complete and total ownership of your site’s platform.
Sierra Interactive Pricing*
- $499.95/mo for Core Package
- $250+/mo Facebook or Google PPC
Sierra Interactive is one of the most affordable all-in-one platforms, at $499.95/mo for their flagship Core Package.
Agents like that Sierra Interactive is easy to update without getting nickel and dimed for adding pages or implementing updates.
Optional spending on Google PPC and Facebook Ads through their system comes at no setup fee except for Facebook Lite for $125. Facebook Lite is a minimum $250/mo spend and $75/mo management fee. Facebook Full Package has no setup fee and a $200/mo management fee. Google PPC requires a minimum $500/mo spend and a 10% fee with no setup.
Their system is for up to 5 users. each additional 5 users and another $100/mo.
*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 Recommendation
In spite of being a smaller company, Sierra Interactive is one of the strongest SEO performers and a growing contender in the real estate platform space.
I have been impressed regularly by their sites’ performance while studying the best-performing real estate agent websites. The backend is simple and easy to use for your lead management. They aren’t a BoomTown or CINC with a laser focus on converting online leads, but likely more than capable at the task for most agents’ needs, while giving you better SEO!
All told, Sierra Interactive is a well-rounded product.
I recommend Sierra Interactive for serious content marketers who want to rank on Google organically while still using traditional lead generation methods like PPC or portal leads. It’s great for individuals, small teams and brokerages.
Larger brokerages wanting to appeal to the widest variety of agent needs might find some lacking features. The backend won’t have the same toys as competitors like kvCORE, but it is very usable and can get the job done.
Or, if you like Real Estate Webmasters but it’s outside your budget, Sierra Interactive could be a strong contender for your business. And even if your budget would allow for Real Estate Webmasters, you may still prefer the Sierra Interactive backend and action plans. I recommend interviewing both Sierra Interactive and REW if you are a team or independent brokerage focused on organic Google traffic.
Sierra Interactive Videos
