What a client is
worth to a broker.

I looked for a reliable Australian figure on what brokers or advisers spend on marketing, and couldn't find one. The numbers that circulate tend to come from people selling leads or marketing services, which isn't a neutral source. The industry's best data, the MFAA's first State of Mortgage and Finance Broking report, published in September 2026, is about revenue, settlements and clawbacks, not marketing.

A percentage-of-revenue rule wouldn't fit anyway. A broker with ten years of past clients and three accountants sending referrals needs a very different budget to one who's just set up in Erina. What does travel between businesses is the maths: what one client is worth, and what you can afford to pay to win one.

The MFAA's consumer site explains it plainly. Upfront commission is a one-off payment at settlement, usually 0.65% to 0.70% of the amount drawn, excluding GST. Trail is paid monthly, generally 0.15% of the outstanding balance. Both exclude funds sitting in a linked offset account. The MFAA's own example: a $700,000 loan at 0.65% pays $4,550 upfront, or $4,062.50 if $75,000 sits in the offset.

That money usually goes to the aggregator first, which passes on the broker's share under their agreement. The split varies, so use your own figure in the calculator below.

Then there's clawback. If a loan is repaid or refinanced early, the lender may take back some or all of the upfront commission. Regulations made in 2020 ban clawback arrangements that run more than two years, and the MFAA says brokers can't pass that cost on to the borrower.

The MFAA report, analysed by Cotality, puts residential settlements through brokers at $495.55 billion across 838,815 loans in 2025. Divide one by the other and it's roughly $591,000 a loan. That's my sum, not the MFAA's, and your average will differ by region and client type.

The report also gives a median gross upfront revenue of $126,941 per broker, median gross trail of $77,894 and a median clawback of $11,442. The MFAA says they 'should not be interpreted as broker-level medians, net broker income, or whole-of-market benchmarks', and they come from a small group of aggregators, so treat them as a rough sense of scale rather than a target.

Financial advisers are mostly paid by fees. Adviser Ratings reported the median ongoing advice fee at $4,668 in 2025, up 18% on the year before, with an average of 131 clients per adviser, 101 of them recurring. A client who stays several years is worth several times the first fee.

Staying isn't automatic. Ongoing fee arrangements need written consent from the client each year. If it isn't given in time, the arrangement ends and no further fees can be charged. So retention is part of the marketing budget, not separate from it.

Life insurance advice works differently again. ASIC's instrument caps commission at 60% of the first year's premium and 20% in later years, and if the policy lapses, 100% is clawed back in year one and 60% in year two. General insurance commission varies by insurer and product, so use your own figures there.

Pick your type of business and put in your own numbers. The starting figures are the published rates where there is one, and clearly made-up examples where there isn't.

Once you know what a client is worth, the budget is four steps. The example uses made-up figures to show the method.

• Value of one client: say $6,000 over the life of the loan, after your split and expected clawbacks.
• Decide the most you'll pay to win one. That's a business decision, not a rule. At 20%, it's $1,200.
• Multiply by your lead-to-settlement rate. If one lead in eight settles, you can afford $150 a lead.
• Multiply by the leads you can actually handle well. Twenty a month at $150 is a $3,000 monthly budget.

Cheap leads that settle and then refinance within two years can cost more than they bring, because the upfront goes back to the lender. The same goes for an advice client who doesn't renew after year one. That's why I'd rather see a budget judged on settled loans still on the book after two years, or clients still renewing, than on cost per enquiry.

It also means the Google Ads or Meta account needs to know which leads became clients. Mark each one in your CRM as it settles, and feed that back, or the platform keeps finding more of the cheap ones.