In early 2007, two LoveFilm veterans concluded that UK consumers lacked the information they needed to understand what a home was worth. Zoopla was their answer, and it launched by giving value estimates away.
So how does Zoopla make money? We read its results, press releases and trade coverage to find out, and every figure below comes from a source.
What Is Zoopla and Who Is It For?
Zoopla is a UK property website and app where people search homes to buy or rent and where estate agents, letting agents and housebuilders advertise them.
Alex Chesterman and Simon Kain founded the company in 2007 and launched the site the following year, offering free value estimates on more than 26 million UK homes and free listings for agents.
Chesterman’s earlier venture, LoveFilm, sold to Amazon for £200m (approx.) in 2011.
Zoopla says it draws over nine million monthly users and over one billion property searches a year. Private sellers cannot list directly, so homes reach the site through estate agents.
How Does Zoopla Make Money?
Zoopla makes money by charging estate agents, housebuilders and advertisers for access to the people searching for and tracking homes on its platform.
That is the Zoopla business model in a sentence.
Chief executive Paul Whitehead describes a marketplace with consumers on one side and partners, meaning agents, builders and brands, on the other.
The Zoopla revenue model therefore rests on three payers: agents, who buy memberships and leads; housebuilders, who buy new-homes marketing; and advertisers.
Zoopla has chosen to trim advertising.
In its 2025 statutory accounts, it put its revenue dip to £83.2m down to lower programmatic and direct advertising income as it moved towards property-related advertisers.
The Two-Sided Marketplace Behind Zoopla
Zoopla runs a two-sided marketplace that attracts home-seekers and homeowners, then sells access to that audience to agents, builders and brands.
Whitehead says around 3.4 million homeowners were tracking their property’s value on Zoopla when he arrived. The figure reached 5.4 million by the end of 2025 and 6.4 million by September 2026.
In July 2025, Zoopla said 700,000 of its 4.5 million MyHome subscribers were serious sellers ready to move within 12 months.
Those homeowners are monetised in part by selling seller leads to agents through Prospect Plus, a cost-per-lead product launched in June 2025. We think that explains the shift Online Marketplaces describes, from advertising portal to data-driven homeowner platform.
Zoopla’s Pricing Model for Estate and Letting Agents
Zoopla does not publish its prices, so agents pay a membership tailored to their agency’s size, local market and Zoopla’s performance in their area.
In July 2026, it launched its biggest membership redesign in seven years for small and medium-sized (SME) estate agencies. The new structure has three packages, each starting with a Core membership and offering Plus and Max tiers:
- Listing, to sell and let homes faster
- Instruction, to win more instructions
- Complete, which combines both
Whitehead says Zoopla consulted more than 350 agents and sets each rate card by comparing local house prices with its performance in that area.
Prospect Plus is priced per lead, and agents choose their postcodes. Zoopla’s support page says each lead goes to only three agents and the price assumes 30% convert to instructions.
For scale, Rightmove’s average revenue per advertiser was £1,726 a month in the first half of 2026. Zoopla does not disclose a current equivalent, and the last figure it published, £359, covered FY2017.
Beyond Listings: Data, Software and Other Revenue Streams
Beyond agent listings, Zoopla earns from housebuilders buying new-homes marketing and from advertisers, while its parent group runs software and data businesses such as Alto and Hometrack.
Pay-On-Exchange, launched in June 2022, lets builders pay only when a Zoopla lead reaches exchange.
Zoopla said 4.7% of its leads converted to reservation at launch. Zoopla says housebuilders put just 10% of marketing budgets online, against more than 70% for estate agents, and it bought newhomesforsale.co.uk in February 2026.
The company sits inside a wider group, and Zoopla Limited’s accounts cover the company alone. ZPG’s other businesses include RVU and Tempcover, and in August 2026 it agreed to sell Hometrack to Providence Equity Partners, subject to regulatory approval.
Ownership, Funding and Growth
Silver Lake, the US private equity firm, has owned Zoopla through ZPG since 2018, when it bought the wider group for £2.2bn. ZPG’s property division was later branded Houseful.
Zoopla listed on the London Stock Exchange in June 2014 at a valuation of $1.56bn.
Paul Whitehead, formerly chief executive of Cazoo, took over in 2025.
Sky News reported in September 2025 that the owner was planning a break-up and sale, and Zoopla said it was business as usual. We found no completed sale of Zoopla.
The figures show a company that has held its margin better than its sales. The 2024 loss followed a £19.5m writedown, and Zoopla also reports a 2025 statutory profit of £20.7m.
Zoopla vs Rightmove and OnTheMarket
Rightmove earns far more than Zoopla: £425.1m of revenue in 2025 against Zoopla’s £83.2m, with operating profit of £287.9m.
How does that compare in practice? Both sell memberships to agents and builders, and Zoopla runs the same basic idea at a fraction of the scale.
Whitehead says Zoopla competes on lead intent and quality while rivals compete on volume, and that it will raise prices only where it delivers value. We think that stance explains why its rate cards tie to local performance.
OnTheMarket sits third: CoStar bought it in December 2023 for about £99m and says visits are up 55% since.
Risks and Pressure Points in the Model
Zoopla’s biggest pressures are two years of falling revenue, a wide earnings gap to Rightmove and a heavily funded challenger in OnTheMarket.
Revenue fell 7% in 2024 and 1.1% in 2025, partly through product rationalisation and lower advertising income. Q1 2026 revenue rose 9%, and Whitehead says the new strategy is starting to deliver.
OnTheMarket says CoStar has committed almost £50m of investment. Ownership also remains unsettled after the Hometrack sale agreement.
Against that, Connells Group, the UK’s largest estate agency business, signed a five-year deal with Zoopla in January 2026.
Lessons for Founders Building Marketplaces
We think the Zoopla business model offers founders three lessons.
1. Build the audience first: Zoopla launched with free value estimates and free agent listings. That drew homeowners, and the number tracking their property’s value grew from around 3.4 million to 6.4 million by September 2026.
2. Charge the side that profits from the audience: Zoopla now sells memberships and leads to agents. By its own figures, 43% of Prospect Plus leads became listings in 2025.
3. Tie pricing to results: Pay-On-Exchange, cost-per-lead pricing and local rate cards all link cost to performance.
One caution remains: revenue has not returned to its 2023 level of £90.5m, so Zoopla stays a useful case study and an unfinished one.
So how does Zoopla make money? It sells access to an audience it first attracted with free tools, and it increasingly prices that access on outcomes.
FAQs
1. Is Zoopla free for sellers and buyers?
We found no charge for consumers searching or tracking a home’s value on Zoopla, because its income comes from agents, housebuilders and advertisers. Sellers cannot list a home themselves, so they go through an estate agent, who pays Zoopla. Whitehead has also said he doubts that directly charging homeowners through MyHome is the route to success.
2. How much does Zoopla charge estate agents?
Zoopla does not publish what it charges estate agents, so no verified current fee exists. The Zoopla pricing model tailors memberships by agency size, local market and Zoopla’s performance there, and prices Prospect Plus per lead. For context, Rightmove’s average revenue per advertiser was £1,726 a month in the first half of 2026.
3. Who owns Zoopla?
Silver Lake owns Zoopla through its parent group ZPG, which it bought for £2.2bn in 2018 (Online Marketplaces). ZPG’s other businesses include Alto, RVU and Tempcover, and it agreed in August 2026 to sell Hometrack to Providence Equity Partners. Reports of a Zoopla sale have circulated since 2025, but we found no completed deal.
Also Read: Can UK Proptech Startups Fix Britain's Broken Property Market?
Sources: Zoopla press releases, help centre and support pages; Zoopla Limited results as reported by Online Marketplaces, Property Industry Eye and Business Matters; Rightmove FY2025 and H1 2026 results; Spark Intel (Companies House data); Business Wire; BusinessCloud; Startups.co.uk; Estate Agent Today. Figures reflect the latest available data at the time of writing (November 2026). Zoopla’s audience, lead-conversion and package-performance figures are company-reported.
The EP+ Editorial Desk covers UK startups, founder stories, and venture capital. All editorial content is independently produced and human-reviewed before publication.
