Eventually, every growing brokerage hits the same wall. The spreadsheets and sticky notes stop working. Deals slip through cracks. Compliance lives in someone’s head. So you start looking for a CRM.
You find two paths: generalist platforms like HubSpot that can do a lot of things with enough customisation, or purpose-built systems like BrokerEngine that already understand how brokers work.
Help us keep this page accurate: We want this comparison to help you make an informed decision.
If something’s out of date or incorrect, let us know. [ Last updated 25/02/2025 ]
| Feature |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Annual: Month-to-month: Onboarding: |
Free basic CRM (up to 2x users)1 Sales Professional (Annual Commit): Marketing Professional (Annual Commit): Onboarding: |
Fair warning: we often hear about firms being caught off guard when particular HubSpot features fall outside a given package, leaving you to weigh up the benefits of upgrading to the next (sometimes significantly more expensive) tier, or foregoing desired functionality. |
||
| Built for mortgage brokers | Yes, from the ground up |
No – requires extensive customisation |
| Apply Online integration | Direct lodgement with 90%+ data accuracy |
None |
| Document collection portal | FinanceVault included |
Requires third-party tools |
| BID compliance tools | Compliance Wizard, Product Comparison, Interview Guide, Loan Strategy Reports, Deal History Report |
None – build it yourself |
| Time to value | Weeks |
Months |
| Contract lock-in | None – cancel anytime |
Annual commitment required on paid plans |
| Broker-specific Onboarding |
|
|
…powerful, but it’s built for everyone: SaaS companies, ecommerce stores, dentists, recruiters. It has no idea what ApplyOnline is, what a conditional approval means, or why BID documentation matters. So you’ll spend months building what BrokerEngine has out of the box
…built by brokers and used by 3,000+ Australian brokers every day. Every feature, template and workflow comes from years of shared learning about what works. So you’re not configuring software, you’re switching on a system that already knows how your firm operates.
A lot of brokers see HubSpot’s free tier and think “that’ll do”. And for basic contact management, it might.
Most growth-focused brokerages want sales tools and marketing automation. In HubSpot, that’s two separate products. Marketing Hub Professional: $1,241/month (which covers three users). And Sales Hub Professional: $140/month per user.
By default, Marketing Hub includes 2,000 contacts. Once you exceed that, you’re paying $351/month per 5,000 extra contacts. A brokerage running nurture sequences across past clients and active prospects will hit that fast.
HubSpot also has a mandatory onboarding for Marketing Professional and Sales Professional, which is $4,320 and $2,160 respectively, plus and a 12-month lock-in.
BrokerEngine provides per-user pricing, month-to-month with unlimited contacts.
| Broker Engine | BrokerEngine Plus (AFG) | HubSpot (Sales + Marketing Pro) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| User | Annual: Month-to-month: |
Month-to-month: |
Free basic CRM (up to 2x users)1 Sales Professional (Annual Commit): Marketing Professional (Annual Commit): Onboarding:
|
| Onboarding | $1,100 |
$1,100 |
Free for basic CRM (up to 2 users) |
| Contract | Month-to-month or annual |
Month-to-month |
12-month minimum commit for premium plans |
| Contracts | Unlimited |
Unlimited |
2,000, then $351/month per 5,000 extra contacts |
| Apply Online lodgement |
|
|
|
HubSpot was built to track leads through a sales funnel. BrokerEngine was built to track borrowers through the lending process and back again for their next loan.
That means fields for employment history, living expenses, asset and liability positions, referrer relationships, lender preferences, loan structures and security details. Hundreds of fields that would take weeks to recreate in a generic CRM.
For a growing firm, that’s weeks your team can spend writing loans instead of configuring software.
Both platforms give you a visual kanban-style pipeline with drag-and-drop deal cards. The difference is what you’re starting with. HubSpot gives you a blank canvas. You’ll create custom deal stages, define what fields to track and build the properties you need for loan amounts and settlement dates. It’s flexible, but it takes time to set up. Whereas, BrokerEngine comes pre-loaded with the deal stages that mirror how loans actually move:
Each deal card pulls together applicant details, key dates, colour-coded urgency indicators, document checklists and activity history. Your team works in a familiar structure from day one.
HubSpot gives you powerful automation tools that can do almost anything. The trade-off is complexity: you’re building every workflow from scratch, and it takes time to get right.
BrokerEngine workflows are built around how loans actually work, with conditional logic that adapts to each deal. Self-employed borrower? Request different documents. Lender is ANZ? Use a different checklist. Settlement booked? SMS the client and email the referrer. File stuck in conditional approval? Alert the broker. These workflows come pre-loaded based on what actually works in high-performing brokerages.
BrokerEngine includes a Product Scenario tool that lets you compare up to five loan options side-by-side, highlighting the best rate, lowest fees and key differences. It handles splits, generates client-ready PDFs and feeds directly into your Loan Strategy Reports.
HubSpot doesn’t have product comparison tools 🥲
BrokerEngine includes FinanceVault, a secure client portal for collecting documents. You send a request, your client uploads their payslips, bank statements and ID, and everything lands in one place with two-factor authentication and automatic TFN redaction.
HubSpot has no native document collection functionality.
BrokerEngine has purpose-built tools to manage the BID documentation burden: a Compliance Wizard for documenting your rationale, Interview Guides for capturing client goals, Product Scenario comparisons showing why you recommended what you did, and a Deal History Report that provides a complete audit trail if you ever need to demonstrate your process.
HubSpot has no BID tools. You’d be building compliance documentation from scratch.
For AFG brokers, BrokerEngine Plus integrates directly with ApplyOnline. Data flows straight from your deal record to the lender, saving you time and minimising the errors that come from retyping the same information twice.
For BrokerEngine Standard users, we have partners who specialise in loan processing and can manage your deals through to lodgement via ApplyOnline, making this a fully hands-off process.
HubSpot has no ApplyOnline integration and no pathway to build one.
Both platforms are well supported when it comes to integrations.
BrokerEngine, via direct integration and Zapier, connects to thousands of apps including DocuSign, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Microsoft and Google suites. No coding required, just point and click.
The workflows and client experiences you can build are limited only by your imagination.
HubSpot offers onboarding, but it’s designed to teach you how to use the software rather than how to grow your firm.
BrokerEngine’s 8-Week Kickstart Program is different. You get a dedicated Customer Success Specialist who understands broking. It’s not just education on the technology. It’s a structured program to get BrokerEngine working for your firm, based on what’s worked for 3,000+ brokers before you.
For more information on our 8-Week Kickstart Program, click here.
BrokerEngine has a network of certified partners who can help with:
Get set up faster with expert configuration
and training
Outsource lodgement so you can focus
on clients
Offshore support staff trained on
BrokerEngine workflows
Grow your brokerage with proven methods
As we have grown, we’ve found it more and more important to ensure we don’t sacrifice quality as we grow volume. BrokerEngine handles all the details so brokers can be more productive and clients can experience a better service.
We needed a system that was going to be able to assist us in streamlining our processes while maintaining high quality. BrokerEngine freed up our growth bottleneck so we could continue serving new clients.
This is mortgage broker software that has been built by a high-producing broker, not by someone at the administration level, and not at the aggregator level (non end-user). It keeps our brokers focused on the task at hand.
Auto-prioritised tasks remind you to follow up on certain deals if you haven’t heard back from the assessor. And the checklists ensure you never overlook important steps that may have an impact on settlement.
Being able to work more efficiently allows us more time to concentrate on growing our business and ensuring all our current clients are well looked after. Whether you are a part of a large broker group or work independently, BrokerEngine is a must-have.
In short, BrokerEngine has given me a strong platform to scale my business and achieve the targets I’ve set myself.
I expect to see large growth in my settlement volumes in the coming months and years!
Technically, yes. But you’re looking at thousands of dollars, months of configuration, and you’re still bolting on document collection tools and building compliance workflows from scratch.
BrokerEngine Standard works with any aggregator. You lose direct ApplyOnline lodgement, but you still get FinanceVault, compliance tools and workflow automation. We also have partners who can manage lodgement for you if you want it fully hands-off.
BrokerEngine sits alongside your aggregator’s lodgement system, handling workflows, client communication, document collection and compliance that aggregator platforms weren’t designed for.
Export to CSV anytime. No lock-in contracts, no exit fees.
Your data stays with you. BrokerEngine sits alongside your aggregator, not inside it. So if you move, your client records, deal history and workflows come with you.
No. We offer live demos and a structured 8-week onboarding instead.
The Interview Guide captures what you need. The Loan Strategy Report serves as your client document. The Deal History Report generates an audit-ready PDF.
You could build mortgage broker workflows in HubSpot.
You’ll spend months and thousands of dollars doing it, and you’ll still be bolting on document collection tools, still lodging through your aggregator’s system, still explaining your business to support teams who don’t understand broking.
Or you can use a system already built by brokers, for brokers, designed specifically for how Australian mortgage deals actually work.
Book a demo and we’ll show you how BrokerEngine works for brokerages like yours.
We respect your privacy.
Ultimate List of Mortgage Broker Lead Generation Ideas
31 Practical Ways To Start Conversations With Highly-Qualified Mortgage Prospects
We respect your privacy.
The Ideal Mortgage Broker Sales Process
How To Convert +95% Of Prospects Into New Clients, Like Clockwork
We respect your privacy.
We respect your privacy.
