Groundbase vs Follow Up Boss — for a solo agent who doesn't need a team CRM

Follow Up Boss is the CRM a lot of real estate teams run on, and for good reason. It pulls leads in from the portals and your website within seconds, routes them to the right agent, and makes it hard for anyone on the team to let a lead go cold. If you run a team, it's one of the best tools in the category.

Groundbase is a different thing: a $9-a-month CRM for one person. Not as fancy as Follow Up Boss. The question this post answers is whether a solo agent actually needs the fancy parts, and what they cost.

The prices

Checked on 2026-09-29 on Follow Up Boss's pricing page. Verify there before deciding; prices change.

For one agent who wants to call from the CRM, Follow Up Boss Grow plus calling is $91 a month on annual billing, or $108 month to month — about $1,100 to $1,300 a year. Groundbase is $108 a year, plus what Twilio charges for your number and your minutes and texts, which for most solo agents is a few dollars a month. (What sending an SMS actually costs.)

Where Follow Up Boss is the better pick

Here's what Follow Up Boss has that Groundbase doesn't. If you need these, the price is buying something real.

Leads from the portals, instantly. Follow Up Boss connects to 250+ lead sources and tools, so a Zillow, Realtor.com or website lead lands in the CRM with its source, ready to act on. Groundbase has no portal integrations or IDX. Its lead forms and inbound webhooks cover your own website and tools like Zapier, but not the portals directly.

Lead routing and teams. Round-robin assignment, team inboxes, reporting per agent, and plans built around ten or thirty users. Groundbase has none of this: it's built for one person, on purpose.

Real estate from the ground up. Smart Lists, action plans and reporting are designed around how agents work, refined by a large real estate customer base. Groundbase is a general CRM for one-person businesses with real-estate newsletter and form templates on top.

Calling that just works. Follow Up Boss's calling doesn't ask you to set up a phone account. Groundbase calls and texts through your own Twilio account, which you connect once — about fifteen minutes — and which is why there's no markup on your minutes and messages.

Support on the phone, seven days a week. Groundbase is one developer answering email.

If leads come to you from the portals, or you have agents working under you, Follow Up Boss is very likely the right choice.

Where Groundbase is the better pick

It's $9. For an agent whose leads come from referrals, their sphere and past clients rather than paid portal leads, most of what Follow Up Boss charges for is team and lead-source machinery. Groundbase keeps what a solo agent uses every day — contacts, a deals board, follow-up reminders, texting, calling, email — for $9 a month.

A newsletter for your sphere. Monthly market updates, new listings, just sold and seasonal issues, with listing cards, market numbers and your contact card, sent from your own email through your own Resend account. Resend's free plan is enough to start; Pro is $20 USD a month for 50,000 emails. When someone clicks a link, you get a task to follow up while they're thinking about it.

Lead forms of your own. A home-valuation or buyer-inquiry form with its own link, for your website, your social profiles or a button in the newsletter. Every submission becomes a tagged contact with a follow-up task.

A booking page. Let people book a call or showing on your calendar without the back-and-forth.

Texting from your own number, at cost. Texts and calls go through a Twilio number you own. You see every charge on your own Twilio invoice. (CRMs that use your own Twilio account.)

Your AI can do the busywork. Groundbase is a Model Context Protocol server: ask Claude or ChatGPT to "text everyone tagged open-house who hasn't heard from me this week" and it actually sends. (What you can do with a CRM connected to Claude.)

Your book stays yours. Everything you put in exports whenever you like, and the Twilio number is in your own account. If you change brokerages, your contacts and your number come with you. (How to leave Groundbase — written before you need it.)

The honest summary

Follow Up Boss is built for agents and teams who buy leads and need them handled fast, by whoever's free. Groundbase is built for one agent working their own sphere who'd rather not pay team prices for team features.

Pick Follow Up Boss if:

• You buy portal leads (Zillow, Realtor.com) and need them routed in seconds
• You run a team, or are about to
• You want calling with no phone account to set up, and phone support seven days a week

Pick Groundbase if:

• It's just you, working referrals, your sphere and past clients
• You want a monthly newsletter and lead forms without a second subscription
• You're happy to connect your own Twilio account to text and call at cost
• $1,000-plus a year matters more to you than lead routing you won't use

Try it

Groundbase is $9 a month flat with a 14-day trial. If you're a solo agent living off your sphere, give it two weeks. If you're running a team on portal leads, stay on Follow Up Boss — it's the better tool for that, and I'd say so either way.

(Also compared: Less Annoying CRM, Close, HubSpot. Not sure Groundbase fits? Here's who it's for and isn't.)

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Questions about this one? Email me directly: blog-followupboss@groundbasecrm.com — I read every one.