List With Freedom: Should You Use It for Your FSBO Sale?

Overall rating | Quality of service | Marketing | Customer experience | Cost | User friendliness | Methodology

List With Freedom is a legitimate flat-fee MLS listing service that can help FSBO sellers get exposure to their listing via the local MLS, as well as other listing sites, for an upfront fee. Plans start at $89 (for a six-month listing and one photo) and work their way up to $295 (one year listing and unlimited photos). The company does not operate in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, or Puerto Rico, and it's a licensed brokerage in Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee.

On the surface List With Freedom seems like a decent value. But how does it stack up against other flat-fee companies? And how much are you really paying for their services? Below we’ll dig deeper into this popular listing service and help you decide if they're right for you.

Bottom line: Do we recommend List With Freedom?

We think List With Freedom can provide decent value – but only if you’re an experienced FSBO seller. The company will list you on the MLS and other popular real estate sites, such as Zillow and Realtor.com.

Each plan allows unlimited changes and add-ons (like showings and open houses) for a fee. If you want more than six photos, you’ll pay $188 or more, putting you in the same price range as most other flat-fee MLS listing services — plenty of which will put you on the MLS and Zillow for cheaper. Despite some trade-offs (for example, paying for edits), it might be wise to compare different FSBO services before you decide on one.

List With Freedom vs. top FFMLS alternatives

In-depth breakdown

Quality of services

List With Freedom cuts through the fluff and gives its sellers only the most essential services. Here’s what’s included under each plan:

Marketing

List With Freedom does a great job of exposing you to as many buyers as it can. For one, the company will list you on a local MLS, which is super important for utmost visibility. Second, your listing will be pushed to hundreds of other real estate websites, such as Zillow, Trulia, and realtor.com.

As far as the brand goes, ListWithFreedom has decent traffic to its website: roughly 1,200 monthly visitors, according to our analysis. In addition, "list with freedom" gets 1,600 search each month, while "listwithfreedom" has an additional 1,000 searches.

Note: List With Freedom will only put your listing on one local MLS. But if you live in an area that’s served by multiple MLS options, you’ll need to buy additional MLS listings for $99 a piece. This can add up quickly, so be sure to factor this into your total costs.

Customer experience

List With Freedom’s customer reviews were generally favorable. The aggregate customer rating on Google was 3.2 out of 5, which is fairly low. But this was based on 57 reviews, which is a small sample size for a company of this size.

Individual reviews provided a bit more insight. After combing through several, we found a few negative themes:

⛔ Unresponsive customer service

⛔ Slow communication, often only via email

⛔ Hard-to-implement changes to your listing

⛔ Cumbersome paperwork

Cost

List With Freedom offers four packages, starting at $89 and up to $295. Each one is decently priced, falling below the average range. Most flat-fee MLS listing service companies charge between $299 and $399 for a basic MLS listing and exposure on major real estate sites (Zillow, Realtor.com, etc). All four List With Freedom plans include these, plus exclusive access to your buyers leads and an unlimited number of changes.

We believe the two plans that'll give you the best deal are:

• Silver, plus maximum photos ($89 +$99 for a total of $188)
• Platinum+ ($295)

The Silver plan gives you a six-month MLS listing with one photo. However, only one photo is not enough to market your house well, so you should add unlimited photos to your plan for only $99. At $188, you can get listed to the MLS with as many photos as you want, which is a pretty good deal.

Adding unlimited photos ($99) to the Silver plan ($89) isn’t the cheapest plan we’ve seen, but it does allow you to edit your listing for free. Other listing services will charge a small fee to implement changes (usually $10), which can add up if you edit or reprice your listing frequently.

Platinum+ is fairly priced if you’re interested in the bells and whistles: unlimited photos, a 12-month listing, an online showing scheduler, unlimited open houses, and a virtual tour option.Gold and Platinum allow more photos than Silver for a marked-up price, but the features stay the same and aren't worth the extra cost.

Warning: List With Freedom has hidden agent fees

List With Freedom charges buyer agents a 0.25% compliance fee, which could discourage them from bringing home buyers to your listing since they'd make less commission.

If your buyer is working with an agent, you’ll likely pay their commission (2–3% of the final sale price). Some reviewers claim they were stuck paying the compliance fee when the buyer's agent refused to.

User-friendliness

From selecting a plan to checking out, the ListWithFreedom website was intuitive, fast, and straightforward:

1. Start by selecting a plan from their pricing menu.
2. Add optional services (if you want them).
3. Provide your address and payment information.
4. Write out your listing description, price your home, and ask ListWithFreedom to post it to the MLS and other listing sites.

The only complaint we’ve seen with the process involves changing to your listing. Users say it’s very difficult to make changes quickly, and many report inaccuracies.

List With Freedom contact info

Next steps

If you’re dead-set on selling your home through a flat-fee listing service, ListWithFreedom might be worth trying.

If you’re on the fence about selling your home yourself, you might want to check out some low-commission real estate companies before committing yourself to an FSBO sale. Many of these companies will connect you with a listing agent who charges a discount commission of 1% to 2%. You’ll pay more in fees than you would by listing with ListWithFreedom, but it might be worth the extra cost to avoid the hassle of selling on your own.

Methodology

We evaluated the value and quality of flat fee MLS (FFMLS) and for sale by owner (FSBO) listing services based on five core criteria:

• Quality and range of services
• Brand recognition and marketing methods
• Customer reviews and experience
• Cost value
• User friendliness