Eventually, most brokers hit a point in their growth journey where it doesn’t make sense to manage their business out of their inbox and spreadsheets. So they start to look for a CRM and lead management solution.
You find two paths: generalist platforms like Monday 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 If something’s out of date or incorrect, let us know.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 May 2026 ]
| Feature |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Annual: Month-to-month: Onboarding: |
Monday CRM Basic: Monday CRM Standard: Monday CRM Pro: No mandatory onboarding fee. |
| 3-seat minimum | No. |
Yes. Paid plans bill in multiples of 5 above 3 seats. i.e. a 4-broker firm pays for 5 seats. |
| Built for mortgage brokers | Yes, from the ground up. |
No. Generic CRM product. |
| Contact management | Full borrower profiles with employment, expenses, assets, liabilities, referrer relationships and loan history. |
Generic contact and deal records. |
| ApplyOnline integration | Direct lodgement (via BrokerEngine Plus). |
None. |
| Document collection portal | FinanceVault included: 2FA, TFN redaction, client-facing portal. |
None. Bolt on FileInvite or similar ($50–$100/month). |
| BID compliance tools | Compliance Wizard, Product Comparison, Interview Guide, Loan Strategy Reports, Deal History Report. |
None. |
| Workflow automation | Mortgage-specific workflows with conditional logic and pre-loaded templates. |
Generic recipes. Standard caps at 250 actions/month, Pro at 25,000. |
| Email automation | Stage-based outbound workflows with mortgage templates. |
Two-way Gmail/Outlook sync from Standard up. |
| Time to value | Weeks. |
Months. |
| Contract lock-in | None. Cancel anytime. |
None on monthly. Annual billing for the 18% discount. |
| Broker-specific onboarding | 8-Week Kickstart Program with a dedicated Customer Success Specialist. |
None. Self-service only. |
Monday pricing verified May 2026 from monday.com/crm/pricing as displayed to Australian visitors. AUD per seat per month and subject to change.
Here’s the thing most brokers don’t realise until they’re deep into a Monday setup: Monday is a project management platform with a generalist CRM product layered on top. It does what it does well. Thousands of sales teams use it to track pipelines, deals and contacts.
But Monday CRM has no native concept of a borrower, a loan, a lender or a settlement. You can build fields and stages to represent these things, but that structure has to be designed and maintained by you. Which means starting from scratch and keeping it consistent across your team.
…powerful, but it’s built for everyone: project teams, marketers, ops crews, IT helpdesks. The CRM, sold separately, is a credible sales pipeline tool with two-way Gmail sync and built-in automations.
But it has no idea what ApplyOnline is, what a conditional approval means, or why BID documentation matters. It’s a canvas that you have to paint yourself.
…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.
Monday CRM starts at $19 per seat per month. That covers the core CRM functionality: contact management, sales pipeline, automations and two-way Gmail sync.
Mortgage-specific needs like document collection, compliance tools and lodgement typically require separate platforms.
| Feature |  |
|
|---|---|---|
| Deal pipeline | Included |
Monday CRM |
| Contact management / CRM | Included |
Monday CRM |
| Email automation | Included |
Monday CRM |
| Document collection | FinanceVault included |
FileInvite or similar |
| E-signatures | DocuSign integration |
DocuSign direct |
| Compliance / BID tools | Included |
Build it yourself in spreadsheets |
| Loan product comparison | Included |
Build it yourself in spreadsheets |
| Lodgement (ApplyOnline) | Direct integration (BrokerEngine Plus) |
No pathway |
Adding document collection, e-signatures, compliance tracking and an ApplyOnline pathway means setting up and maintaining additional platforms. That can extend both the budget and the time it takes to get everything working together.
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, all there from day one.
Monday CRM gives you native contact and deal records, but they’re generic. No concept of a borrower as distinct from a guarantor. No native fields for loan structures, lender preferences or security properties. No structured link between a client and their referrer in the way brokers actually use it.
You can build all of this. Adding columns, linking boards, configuring views. But that’s hours of setup work, and ongoing maintenance every time something changes. For a growing firm, that’s setup time you’re not getting back.
Both platforms give you a visual kanban-style pipeline with drag-and-drop cards. Monday’s pipeline supports custom fields, automations triggered on stage changes and sales analytics dashboards.
The difference is what’s behind the cards. In Monday, you get whatever pipeline you build. In BrokerEngine, each deal card pulls together applicant details, key dates, colour-coded urgency indicators, document checklists and a complete activity history. Your pipeline comes pre-loaded with the stages that mirror how loans actually move:
Your team works in a familiar structure from day one.
Monday has genuinely powerful automation. Recipe-based, no-code, hundreds of pre-built triggers and actions.
The trade-off is that every workflow is generic. You’re building each mortgage automation from scratch with no understanding of how loans actually move.
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. You’re not building from scratch, you’re switching on a system that’s already been refined across thousands of brokers.
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.
Monday has no product comparison tools. You’d be doing this in a spreadsheet.
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.
Monday has no native client-facing document collection. Files can be attached to deal items, but clients can’t upload to your CRM. You’d be back to email attachments and Google Drive links, which may present cybersecurity risks.
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.
Monday has no native BID compliance tools. Users typically need to rely on external tools or manual processes to meet these requirements.
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.
Monday has no ApplyOnline integration and no marketplace pathway to build one.
Mortgage brokers handle some of the most sensitive financial data there is: tax file numbers, bank statements, payslips, ID documents, complete financial profiles. This is serious stuff.
BrokerEngine’s FinanceVault has two-factor authentication enabled by default on every account. It includes automatic TFN redaction to protect clients’ tax file numbers, and all documents are collected through a secure, purpose-built portal.
Monday includes standard enterprise platform security (SOC 2, ISO 27001, with HIPAA available on Ultimate), but no specific features designed for financial data. No TFN redaction. No purpose-built client document portal. No mortgage compliance audit trail. Documents attached to Monday items are accessible to anyone with board access. Brokers handling sensitive personal and financial information should carefully consider whether Monday’s general-purpose document features align with their compliance and security requirements.
Both platforms support a wide range of integrations. Monday’s marketplace covers 500+ apps. BrokerEngine connects via direct integrations and Zapier to thousands of apps including Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Microsoft and Google suites.
The integrations that matter most for Australian brokers (ApplyOnline, AFG Flex, Connective Mercury, Loan Market MyCRM, Salestrekker, Quickli, illion) have no native Monday connector.
Monday offers self-service onboarding resources and templates. Paid partner-led implementation is available through Monday’s certified partner network. There’s no broker-specific onboarding pathway.
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!
Yes, technically. The realistic question is whether you want to spend weeks building a mortgage CRM from scratch, then maintain it as your firm grows and Monday’s platform changes.
Keep using Monday for project work, recruitment and internal campaigns. BrokerEngine handles the loan-specific workflows Monday wasn’t built for. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
BrokerEngine Standard works with any aggregator. You lose direct ApplyOnline lodgement but keep FinanceVault, compliance tools and workflow automation. Partners can manage lodgement for you if you want it hands-off.
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.
Monday is a powerful platform. But it isn’t designed to operate as a full mortgage brokerage system.
You could build mortgage broker workflows in Monday. It would take months, cost thousands of dollars, and you’d still be bolting on document collection tools, still lacking an ApplyOnline pathway, 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.
This comparison is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors based on your specific circumstances. Any opinions expressed are subjective and are not intended to be statements of fact. All product information, features and pricing referenced in this comparison are drawn from publicly available sources and are current as at the date specified, however, they may change without notice.
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.
