The Australian proptech that treats "which agent should sell my home?" as a data problem - then puts a human on the phone to make sure the numbers fit real life.
Most people sell a home once or twice in a lifetime. The agent they hire does it every week. That lopsided information - one nervous first-timer on one side of the table, a seasoned negotiator on the other - is the exact gap OpenAgent set out to close. The Sydney company does not sell houses. It answers the question that comes just before the sale: of the hundreds of agents working your suburb, which few are actually right for your property?
OpenAgent was founded in 2013 by Zoe Pointon and Marta Higuera, two former analysts at McKinsey & Company who left management consulting to build something in a market they felt ran on gut feel and lawn signs. Their premise was simple and, in real estate, mildly heretical: the raw material for a better decision already exists. Every sale in Australia leaves a trail - who sold what, when, how quickly and for how much. Read enough of those trails and a picture of genuine agent performance emerges.
A decade on, OpenAgent has grown into one of the country's leading agent-comparison services. More than two million people a year visit its site to research property, and the company says it helps over 20,000 homeowners a year land on the right agent to sell. It is, notably, a proptech founded and long led by women in an industry not famous for either.
The pitch is not that software beats people. It is that software plus people beats either one alone - a stance that shows up in everything from the product to the company's blunt internal values.
OpenAgent crunches the transaction data for your suburb, builds a shortlist of high-performing agents, and then a consultant adds the human layer - what an agent is actually like to work with - before you ever pick up the phone.
Enter your address and a few details about the property you want to sell.
OpenAgent analyses local sales - speed, price, track record - to find agents who perform on homes like yours.
Consultants add personal knowledge of the agents to turn a data list into a bespoke shortlist.
You compare and pick. There's no cost to you; the agent pays a fee only if they win and sell your home.
How the OpenAgent agent-matching service works, per the company's public description.
Around the core agent match sit a set of no-cost consumer tools. They answer the questions sellers ask first - what's my place worth, what's happening in my suburb - and quietly bring people into OpenAgent's world.
A personalised shortlist of recommended agents with a proven track record of selling properties like yours, backed by data and consultants.
A free property value estimate in under a minute, with value history, suburb trends and a timeline of rental and sales activity.
Free reports covering estimated value range, recent comparable sales, local price movements, suburb medians and property details.
Market trends, demographics, medians and forecasts for suburbs across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
There is a reason the tools cost nothing. OpenAgent is a lead-generation marketplace: home sellers use it for free, and a recommended agent pays OpenAgent a referral fee - reported at roughly 20-30% of the agent's commission - but only when they actually sell the property.
Illustrative view of OpenAgent's success-fee model, based on the company's public statements. Not exact figures.
The elegance is in the alignment. OpenAgent earns nothing if it sends you to an agent who underdelivers and your home sits unsold. That single incentive is what lets it credibly call itself the independent voice in a transaction where nearly everyone else is paid to sell.
*Per OpenAgent, based on the 2024 REB Top 100 list (67 opted-in agents). Other figures are company-reported.
OpenAgent operates in a crowded stretch of Australian proptech. On one side are dedicated comparison rivals like LocalAgentFinder, Which Real Estate Agent and Compare Real Estate Agents. On the other loom the giants - realestate.com.au (REA Group) and Domain - whose listing portals now bundle their own property estimates and agent tools.
OpenAgent's differentiation is less about having more listings and more about the posture it takes. It does not sell property itself, so it can position as the neutral party pointing sellers toward the best agent rather than the best listing. And instead of handing over a raw directory of hundreds of agents, it narrows the field with data and then a consultant's judgement - trading breadth for a shortlist that actually reduces a seller's anxiety.
That blend - national sales data plus human curation, wrapped in a free-to-seller model - is the seam OpenAgent has mined since 2013. In a market where the biggest players make money from listings and ads, being the one that only wins when your house sells is a genuinely different place to stand.
It is a fintech-adjacent story too: the company's largest backer, Reinventure, is a Westpac-linked fund with a portfolio built around financial services - a reminder that the home-selling decision is, at bottom, one of the biggest financial decisions most Australians ever make.
Ex-McKinsey consultant and serial entrepreneur; began developing OpenAgent in 2012 after her own real estate experiences and leads strategy and innovation.
Ex-McKinsey consultant who co-founded the company in 2013, previously served as Co-CEO and now chairs the board.
Joined leading product and growth, became COO and then Co-CEO in 2020, focusing on technology and operations.
OpenAgent's first employee, on board since 2013, now leads technology.
OpenAgent's stated values read less like a poster and more like house rules - including the invitation to be a bit strange.
Benefits include work-from-home flexibility, 18 weeks of paid parental leave and additional paid leave days - and the company points to its founder-led, majority-women origins as central to its identity in a traditionally male-dominated field.
Zoe Pointon starts building OpenAgent, inspired by frustrating personal experiences with real estate.
Co-founded with Marta Higuera and backed by an early round of about A$400k; Dan O'Connor joins as first employee.
Westpac's Reinventure leads a A$12M round with Qualgro and Breakthrough Labs to scale the platform.
Johanna Seton becomes Co-CEO alongside Zoe Pointon.
OpenAgent reports 7 of the top 10 performing agents in Australia (2024 REB Top 100) are clients.
Publishes 2026 property market data, trends and forecasts across all major capital cities.
Market commentary and property guides, including "Federal election 2025: will property prices rise, fall or hold steady?"
Yes. For home sellers OpenAgent is 100% free. It earns a referral fee from the real estate agent only when a recommended agent successfully sells the customer's property.
OpenAgent was founded in 2013 by former McKinsey & Company consultants Zoe Pointon and Marta Higuera. Zoe Pointon co-leads the company as Co-CEO and Marta Higuera serves as Chair.
It analyses every property sale in Australia - who sold what, when, how quickly and for how much - then consultants add their knowledge of individual agents to produce a personalised shortlist for your property and suburb.
OpenEstimates for instant property value estimates, downloadable property reports, and suburb profiles with market trends, medians and demographic data.
OpenAgent has raised more than A$15M across several rounds, including a A$12M Series B in 2016 led by Westpac's Reinventure fund.