Epique is 85/15 with a $15,000 cap that declines to $10,000. Every recruiter can tell you that. Almost none of them will tell you that the cap is not the total, because two fees sit outside it and run all year. This page prints the all-in figure, then shows you what it includes, because one of those numbers without the other is useless to you.
Epique Realty uses an 85/15 commission split with a $15,000 annual cap for individual agents, declining $1,000 each year to a $10,000 floor. The transaction fee is 0.1 percent of sale price with a $500 per side ceiling, dropping to $250 once you have paid $5,000 in transaction fees that year. The technology fee is $149 a month, or $99 for team members.
| Line item | Individual agent | Traditional team member | Power Team member |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commission split | 85 / 15 | 85 / 15 | 85 / 15 |
| Annual company cap | $15,000 | $10,000 | $5,000 |
| Cap decline per year | $1,000 to a $10,000 floor | Non-declining | Non-declining |
| Technology fee | $149 / mo | $99 / mo | $99 / mo |
| Transaction fee | 0.1%, max $500 | 0.1%, max $500 | 0.1%, max $250 |
| Franchise fee | None | None | None |
There is no franchise fee because Epique is not a franchise. That is a structural fact rather than a discount, which matters because a franchise or royalty fee normally sits outside the annual cap and therefore keeps running after an agent has capped. Where that fee exists it is usually the largest line an agent forgets to count.
Which is a good moment to point the same lens back at this fee schedule.
No, and not at Epique either. An annual cap limits company dollar collected through the commission split. The $149 monthly technology fee and the 0.1 percent transaction fees sit outside it and continue for the rest of the year. Capping puts you at 100 percent of the split, not 100 percent of the commission.
This site criticises franchised brands for exactly this, so it has to be willing to say it here. An agent closing 24 sides at a $525,000 average price does not pay $15,000. They pay this:
| What you pay Epique | Amount | Inside the cap? |
|---|---|---|
| Commission split, capped | $15,000 | This is the cap |
| Transaction fees, 10 sides at $500 then 14 at $250 | $8,500 | No, continues all year |
| Technology fee, 12 months at $99 | $1,188 | No, continues all year |
| All-in | $24,688 | 65 percent above the cap |
The technology fee in that table is $99 rather than the standard $149, because 24 sides at a $525,000 average is $12.6 million in production, which clears the Power Award threshold. That is explained in full further down. An agent at the same deal count in a lower priced market would pay $149 and land at $25,288 instead.
Epique discloses every one of those lines and none of it is hidden. But the mental model an agent walks around with is "I cap at fifteen and then I am done," and that model is wrong by nearly ten thousand dollars at this production level. Correcting it is the single most useful thing this page can do for you.
Now the other half, because that number on its own would mislead you in the opposite direction.
The operating stack most agents pay vendors for separately: transaction coordination on every deal, E&O insurance, a Lofty CRM with an IDX site and a personalized .com domain, buyer and seller leads with no referral fee, and healthcare covering primary care and prescriptions at no cost.
This is why the all-in figure alone is not a verdict. Your own cap number almost certainly does not include any of those, so comparing our all-in against your headline cap is the same error in reverse, and it would be an error in our favour.
Compare all-in against all-in. Against a capped structure where the agent buys their own operating stack, at the same 24 sides:
| Line | Epique | Capped, agent buys own stack |
|---|---|---|
| Split or cap | $15,000 | $12,000 |
| Monthly fees | $1,188 | $600 |
| Transaction fees | $8,500 | $6,000 |
| Transaction coordination | included | $9,600 |
| Listing photography | included | $3,000 |
| Signs and installation | included | $900 |
| E&O insurance | included | $420 |
| CRM and IDX site | included | $1,800 |
| Primary care and prescriptions | included | $1,200 |
| All-in | $24,688 | $35,520 |
A difference of $10,832 on these figures, arrived at by publishing the least flattering version of our own number first. That is the whole method: the uncomfortable figure and the favourable conclusion live in the same paragraph, and you can check both.
The right hand column is a structural example built from the calculator's default figures, not an assertion about what any named company charges. Photography and sign installation are participating markets only, so uncheck them if yours is not one. Replace every figure with your own, because the only comparison worth acting on is the one built from your actual costs.
No. The bundle is only worth what you were actually buying. Fixed costs do not scale down with production, so an agent who was not purchasing the operating stack is paying for services they did not want.
The $149 a month is charged whether you close twenty deals or none. At three sides on a $300,000 average, that fixed cost is a meaningful share of a small gross, and the answer flips depending on one thing: whether you were buying a TC and a real CRM in the first place.
| This agent | Keeps at Epique | Keeps at 80/20, no monthly fee | Better off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Does their own TC, uses a free CRM | $16,437 | $17,255 | Staying put, by $818 |
| Pays for a TC and a real CRM | $16,437 | $14,255 | Epique, by $2,182 |
Same production, same market, opposite answers. The deciding variable is not volume, it is whether the services being bundled are services you were going to pay for anyway.
So if you are a part-time or low-volume agent who handles your own contracts and runs on a free CRM, this model is probably the wrong shape for you, and a good split with no monthly fee will likely serve you better. That is a real answer and it is worth having before you move rather than after.
A capped model with bundled services transfers cost away from producers. That is what it is for. Saying so plainly is the difference between a comparison and a pitch.
No. The $5,000 threshold that drops your ceiling from $500 to $250 per side resets annually. You do not earn the lower ceiling once and keep it, you re-earn it every anniversary year.
At a $525,000 average sale price, $5,000 in transaction fees is roughly the first ten sides. So every year begins at the $500 ceiling and stays there until you have closed about ten sides, at which point it drops to $250 for the remainder of that year, and then resets again.
This is the exact mirror of the declining cap, and the two are usually presented side by side as though they work the same way. They do not. One improves permanently with tenure. The other returns to its starting position every twelve months.
An agent budgeting on "I reached the $250 ceiling, so that is my rate now" will be wrong at the start of every anniversary year, and most wrong in January if their year resets there. Plan on the higher ceiling for the first stretch of every year.
Power Team members sit at the $250 ceiling from day one rather than earning down to it, so the reset does not affect them. That is a genuine structural difference between the team tracks, and it is covered on the teams page.
Power Award is production recognition at 24 closed transactions or $10 million in sales volume. It reduces the technology fee to $99 a month, doubles revenue share on your first line, and carries an equity award. Hitting the benchmark makes you eligible. It does not make it automatic.
First, a naming problem worth clearing up, because these two get conflated constantly. Power Award is individual production recognition. Power Team is an earned team designation with a $5,000 member cap. Different things, similar names.
| What it changes | Effect | What it is worth to you |
|---|---|---|
| Technology fee | $149 to $99 per month | $600 a year. Real, and modest. |
| Revenue share, first line only | Doubled to 20% | Nothing at all unless you attract agents who close. Levels two to five stay at 10 percent. |
| Equity award | Scaled to your cap | Unknown. See below. |
It is invitation based. The agreement states you cannot apply and do not qualify automatically without being invited by an executive member of the Epique team. Reaching the production benchmark makes you eligible, then you contact the transactions team to request an official review and audit. Anyone describing Power Award as something that simply switches on when you hit the number is describing eligibility, not the award.
It has to be re-earned every year. The benchmark must be met again each cap anniversary year to keep the benefits, and you have to hold current Power Award status for the doubled revenue share to continue. Drop below the production level and the $99 rate and the 20 percent first line go with it.
It requires good standing. Current on monthly dues with no outstanding balance owed to the brokerage.
The agreement sets it as up to 3,000 shares or up to $30,000 in company equity, whichever is less, scaled to your cap at the time you reach the award. A $12,000 cap produces 2,400 shares rather than 3,000. So the often quoted "3,000 shares" is a ceiling for an agent at the highest cap, not a flat figure.
Those are the contract terms and we will state them. What we will not do is treat the dollar side as a value you can count on.
Epique is a private company. The shares are not traded on any market, cannot be sold at will, and depend for their value on an acquisition or public offering that is not guaranteed and may never happen. A dollar ceiling written into an agreement tells you the size of the grant. It does not tell you what the grant is worth, and nobody can tell you that until there is a liquidity event.
Our due diligence page says anyone presenting stock awards as part of your effective income is doing math you should not accept. That still holds. Treat the equity as possible upside with no present value, which is how you should treat private equity in any company, including ones you like.
On timing, the agreement describes it as a program created at the Board's discretion whose benefits "may change as the company grows and the program evolves." So treat it as a benefit that currently exists on stated terms rather than a fixed entitlement, and in the year you first qualify expect your technology fee to be a blend of $149 and $99 rather than a clean $1,188.
Everything in this section comes from the independent contractor agreement, which Epique publishes at ica.epiquerealty.com. That document governs, not this page. It carries a revision date at the top and its terms can change, so check the date when you read it. The Power Award, commission cap and transaction fee sections are all in there and they are worth reading in full rather than in summary.
Epique's individual cap starts at $15,000 and drops $1,000 on each anniversary until it reaches $10,000 in year six, where it stays. Most capped brokerages hold their cap flat or raise it over time, so staying produces no compounding benefit.
| Year | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cap | $15,000 | $14,000 | $13,000 | $12,000 | $11,000 | $10,000 |
Across six years that is $15,000 of cumulative cap reduction against a flat-cap structure, and it only accrues to an agent who caps every year. An agent who does not reach their cap never feels the decline at all, because they were never paying the ceiling in the first place.
Worth being precise about that, because a declining cap is frequently described as though everyone benefits from it. It is a benefit to consistent producers specifically.
If two or more of those describe you, the honest recommendation is to stay where you are. That recommendation costs us, we publish it anyway, and it is the reason the rest of the page is worth reading.
I benefit if you affiliate with Epique. I am a Colorado Broker Associate affiliated with Epique Realty and I participate in the revenue share program, which means I earn a share of company revenue on transactions closed by agents I introduce. This page is published by Jing Marketing LLC, which I operate. It is not an Epique corporate page and Epique did not review it.
That is exactly why this page publishes the $24,688 rather than the $15,000, and why the section above tells a low-volume agent to stay put. A fee page written by someone with my incentives is only worth reading if it is willing to print the numbers that work against me. Check every figure here against Epique's current documents and against your own last twelve months of statements.
No. The cap limits company dollar collected through the split only. The monthly technology fee and the 0.1 percent transaction fees sit outside it and continue for the rest of the year. At 24 sides on a $525,000 average that is $24,688 all-in rather than $15,000, using the reduced $99 technology fee that level of production qualifies for. At the standard $149 it would be $25,288. Capping means 100 percent of the split, not of the commission.
Production recognition at 24 closed transactions or $10 million in sales volume. It drops the technology fee from $149 to $99 a month, doubles first line revenue share to 20 percent, and carries an equity award of up to 3,000 shares or up to $30,000, whichever is less, scaled to your cap. Three things the pitch usually omits: it is invitation based rather than automatic, you must re-earn the benchmark every cap anniversary year to keep it, and it requires good standing. We state the contract terms for the equity but not a value, because Epique is private and the shares cannot be sold at will. Power Award is not Power Team, which is an earned team designation with a $5,000 member cap. Read it yourself at ica.epiquerealty.com.
Yes. The $250 per side ceiling applies once you have paid $5,000 in transaction fees, and that threshold resets annually rather than being earned for the life of your affiliation. At a $525,000 average price you reach it around the tenth side, so each new year starts at the $500 ceiling again.
No. Fixed costs do not scale down, so a capped model with bundled services is only cheaper if you were genuinely buying those services. An agent closing a few sides a year who does their own transaction coordination and uses a free CRM can keep more at a traditional split with no monthly fee.
No, because Epique is not a franchise. This matters more than it sounds: where a franchise or royalty fee exists it normally sits outside the annual cap, so it continues after an agent has capped, every year they stay. Check your own agreement for whether yours caps.
The individual cap drops $1,000 a year from $15,000 to a $10,000 floor in year six, which is $15,000 of cumulative reduction across six years against a flat cap. It only accrues to an agent who actually caps each year. An agent who never reaches the cap never feels the decline.
Traditional team members cap at $10,000 and pay a $99 monthly technology fee. Power Team members cap at $5,000, pay the same $99, and sit at the $250 transaction fee ceiling from day one instead of earning down to it each year. Team structures carry obligations as well as lower caps, which is covered on the teams page.