Follow Up Boss vs Wise Agent vs LionDesk (2026): The Real CRM Pick
Apr 28, 2026
If you are still comparing these three CRMs in 2026, start with one fact: LionDesk is gone. Lone Wolf announced the wind down on May 16, 2025 and shut LionDesk down in September 2025, and new signups are closed.
That changes the whole question. The real 2026 decision is Follow Up Boss versus Wise Agent, with Lone Wolf Relationships sitting there as the migration path for former LionDesk users.
This guide goes deep on those specific products, settles the is LionDesk still around question, and hands you a verdict by stage. It is tool neutral, with no affiliate hype and prices you can verify.
Before we dig in, a quick note on where this fits. If you want hands on help building the systems around whatever CRM you pick, that is what our real estate business coaching is built for. Now, the comparison.
Where I stand
I am Saad Jamil. I have been licensed since 2007, I have closed more than 800 homes and over $500M in Northern Virginia, and I still list and sell today. I have not run my own business on the tools compared here, and nothing below is presented as first hand testing. I also run Jamil Academy, and I sell coaching and systems that compete for the same agent budget line as the software compared here. Read this knowing I have an interest.
I have no affiliate link, no commission, no sponsorship and no free account with Follow Up Boss, Wise Agent, LionDesk, Lone Wolf or any company named here. Nothing on this page pays me whichever way you decide. Everything below names its source and the date I read it.
Quick Answer
LionDesk is gone. Lone Wolf wound it down in 2025, so your real 2026 choice is Follow Up Boss versus Wise Agent, with Lone Wolf Relationships as the LionDesk migration path.
Wise Agent wins on price for solos and small teams at 49 dollars a month flat for up to five members. Follow Up Boss wins for growing, lead heavy teams that need routing and accountability, starting at 69 dollars per user.
Current LionDesk user? Export your data now, then move to Lone Wolf Relationships, Wise Agent, or Follow Up Boss based on your stage.
On this page
The Short Answer: Who Each CRM Is For in 2026
Here is the honest short version, before the deep dive. LionDesk is no longer a live product. So a real 2026 comparison is Follow Up Boss versus Wise Agent, with Lone Wolf Relationships as the path for former LionDesk users.
This piece is the head to head spoke under our full best real estate CRM roundup. If you want the wider field, start there, then come back here to decide between these specific tools.
Wise Agent is the budget pick. At 49 dollars a month flat, it covers a solo agent or a small team of up to five on one login. It stays the lowest cost option at nearly every size.
Follow Up Boss is the growth pick. It costs more per user, but it delivers lead routing, action plans, and the team accountability a scaling operation needs to stop leaking leads.
Lone Wolf Relationships is the in house successor to LionDesk. It is the closest migration path if you are coming off the old platform and want to stay in a single ecosystem.
The rule that matters more than any feature list is simple. The best CRM is the one you will actually use every day. Match the tool to your stage, not to the longest brochure.
Two things make this comparison different from most CRM roundups. One, a major product is now dead, so half the old advice online is wrong. Two, these tools are priced for different jobs, so there is no single winner.
Read the whole thing if you are switching. Skim to the section that matches your stage if you already know your size. Either way, verify the current prices yourself before you buy anything.
By the end you will know which product fits your stage, what it will cost you this year, and exactly what to do if LionDesk was your CRM. No hype, no affiliate pitch, just the current picture.
What Happened to LionDesk
LionDesk was one of the most popular budget CRMs in real estate for years. It undercut nearly everyone on price and won a large base of solo agents and small teams because of it.
Lone Wolf Technologies acquired LionDesk in 2021. For a while the product kept running under its own brand inside the larger Lone Wolf portfolio of tools.
Then on May 16, 2025, Lone Wolf announced it would wind down LionDesk (Inman 2025). That announcement started the clock for every existing user on the platform.
The message to the market was clear enough. Lone Wolf would consolidate its customer relationship tools around one in house product rather than keep two overlapping CRMs running side by side.
For agents who had built years of contacts, notes, and drip campaigns inside LionDesk, the wind down meant a forced decision. Stay inside the Lone Wolf world, or move your data somewhere else entirely.
NAR data explains why this stings. In its tech surveys, 36 percent of Realtors named a CRM among the top three tools producing their highest quality leads, second only to social media at 54 percent (NAR 2023/2025). A CRM is not a nice to have.
For context on scale, broad tech adoption kept climbing through 2025, and agents lean on more software than ever (NAR 2025). Losing a core tool like a CRM in the middle of that is disruptive, not a minor inconvenience.
It helps to understand why Lone Wolf made the call. Running two CRMs that chase the same budget customer splits engineering, support, and marketing. Consolidating onto one product is cleaner for the company, even if it stings for loyalists.
The acquisition timeline also matters for trust. A tool that changes hands and then gets retired four years later is a reminder that platform risk is real. When you pick a CRM, you are also betting on the company behind it.
Is LionDesk Still Around? (Shutdown, Signups Closed, Export)
Status check
LionDesk is discontinued. Lone Wolf shut the product down in September 2025 and no longer accepts new customers. If you still have a login, export your data now.
The blunt answer to the question people keep searching is no. LionDesk is not still around. New signups are closed and the product shut down in September 2025 (Inman 2025; Clientaro 2026).
During the transition, Lone Wolf gave existing users a window to export their contacts, with transition support pointed toward its successor product, Lone Wolf Relationships.
If you are reading this with a live LionDesk login still open, treat it as urgent. Export your contacts, notes, and any templates you can pull before that access finally ends.
Do not assume your data will sit there safely forever. Once a portal closes, pulling clean exports gets much harder, and you never want to rebuild a database from memory.
The good news is that a modern CRM import is usually just a CSV upload. If you hold a clean export, moving to Wise Agent, Follow Up Boss, or Lone Wolf Relationships is straightforward.
Before access closes, make sure your export captures everything you actually rely on, not just the contact list. Rebuilding templates and campaigns from scratch is the part agents regret skipping.
- All contacts with names, emails, and phone numbers
- Notes and activity history on each contact
- Tags, categories, and any custom fields you built
- Email and text templates you want to reuse
- Any drip or campaign content you can copy out
You will still find old blog posts, review pages, and even ads that treat LionDesk as a live option. Ignore them. Most were written before the 2025 announcement and never updated after the shutdown.
If a comparison site is still telling you to sign up for LionDesk in 2026, that is your signal the content is stale. Cross check any CRM advice against the current vendor pages before you act on it.
What Replaced LionDesk: Lone Wolf Relationships
Lone Wolf points former LionDesk users to Lone Wolf Relationships, which is part of the broader Lone Wolf Foundation platform. It is the company's own answer to the CRM gap it created.
Be precise about what that means. Lone Wolf frames Relationships as the successor, but the LionDesk product itself was retired with no same brand continuation. It is a rebuilt tool, not LionDesk under a new label.
On pricing, Lone Wolf said Relationships would land on par with LionDesk, which started as low as about 25 dollars a month when it was the budget favorite (HousingWire 2025).
GetApp lists Lone Wolf Relationships starting around 33.25 dollars a month, roughly 399 dollars a year, with a free plan option (GetApp 2026). Treat the exact number as confirm on the vendor site.
Feature wise, Relationships leans on AI email, calendar sync, and texting, and it ties into the rest of the Lone Wolf Foundation stack. If you want to layer in AI tools for agents, that direction fits the trend.
The honest read is this. Relationships is the natural landing spot if you liked LionDesk pricing and want to stay in one ecosystem. It is newer, so it carries a shorter track record than the other two.
Should you follow LionDesk into Relationships automatically? Not necessarily. The migration support makes it the path of least resistance, but least resistance is not the same as best fit for your business.
If LionDesk only ever worked for you because it was cheap, then price is your real requirement, and both Relationships and Wise Agent meet it. Compare features and support before you let inertia decide for you.
The Real 2026 Comparison: Follow Up Boss vs Wise Agent
With LionDesk out of the running, the live 2026 comparison is Follow Up Boss versus Wise Agent. These are the two products you are actually choosing between today.
They sit at opposite ends of the market on purpose. Wise Agent competes on flat, low price. Follow Up Boss competes on depth of workflow and the ability to scale a team.
Wise Agent is the value play. One flat monthly price covers a full CRM, transaction management, drip campaigns, marketing, and up to five team members on a shared login.
Follow Up Boss is the performance play. Zillow acquired it in a deal announced November 1, 2023, valued up to 500 million dollars (HousingWire 2023). It is built for lead heavy teams.
The trap is comparing them on price alone. They are priced differently because they solve different problems. Cheaper is not automatically better, and pricier is not automatically better either.
The rest of this guide breaks down each one, then puts real annual numbers on the table so you can see exactly what you would pay at your own team size.
Think of it as two different buyers. One is a solo agent or small team who wants a capable CRM without a big monthly bill. The other is a team leader who lives on lead volume and needs to hold agents accountable.
If you are the first buyer, price and simplicity win, and Wise Agent is hard to beat. If you are the second, the workflow depth in Follow Up Boss is worth paying for, and the calculator later shows the exact gap.
Both companies are stable, which matters after the LionDesk lesson. Zillow owns Follow Up Boss, and Wise Agent has run independently for years. Neither one looks likely to me to disappear on you anytime soon, though that is my opinion about the future rather than something anyone can promise.
Follow Up Boss: Pricing, Features, Who It Is For
Follow Up Boss is the CRM serious teams graduate into. Its reputation is built on lead routing and accountability, not on being the cheapest option on the shelf.
Pricing starts on the Grow plan at 69 dollars per user per month, or 58 dollars per user on annual billing (Follow Up Boss pricing 2026). I read that pricing page on or before 28 April 2026 and have not re-verified it since. That is the entry point for most solo agents.
The dialer is a paid add on at the Grow level, 39 dollars per user per month, or 33 dollars annual. Those add on figures come from my own reading of the Follow Up Boss pricing page on or before 28 April 2026 and are unverified since. Budget for it if your team lives on the phone all day.
Pro is 499 dollars a month for 10 users, plus 49 dollars for each user beyond that, or 416 dollars a month on annual billing. Unlimited calling and texting are built in at this tier.
Platform is 1,000 dollars a month for 30 users, plus 20 dollars per extra user, or 833 dollars a month annual. This is the tier for large, high volume operations that run on lead flow. The Pro and Platform figures, including the per extra user amounts, also come from my own reading of that pricing page on or before 28 April 2026.
What you are paying for is the workflow. Lead routing, action plans, deep integrations, and team accountability add up to the deepest lead to close pipeline of the three products.
The mobile experience is strong too, which matters when your day happens in the car and at showings. See the best mobile apps for agents for how the field compares on the phone.
The honest watch out is cost. Per user pricing adds up fast, and in my view the dialer add on at the Grow level means the sticker price is not the whole cost. My read is that it is the priciest of the three.
Who it is for: growing teams and serious producers who need routing and accountability, and who will use the workflow enough to justify the higher spend.
Integrations are a quiet strength here. Follow Up Boss connects to a long list of lead sources, dialers, and marketing tools, so it tends to sit at the center of a team's stack rather than off to the side.
Accountability is the feature agents underrate until they run a team. Seeing who followed up, who ignored a lead, and where deals stall is what separates a real team CRM from a shared address book.
Who should skip it? A solo agent on a tight budget who does not run paid leads. At that stage you pay for team features you will not touch, and Wise Agent covers the fundamentals for far less.
Wise Agent: Pricing, Features, Who It Is For
Wise Agent is the flat price workhorse. It has quietly served solo agents and small teams for years without ever trying to be the flashiest tool in the room.
The core plan is 49 dollars a month flat, or 499 dollars a year, which works out to about 42 dollars a month (Wise Agent pricing 2026). I read that pricing page on or before 28 April 2026 and have not re-verified it since. That is the whole headline price.
That one price includes up to five team members on a shared login. For a small team, that is the real story. You are not paying per seat the way you would elsewhere.
It is month to month with no contract and a 14 day free trial. Need more seats? Additional members come in five person batches at 20 dollars a month per batch.
For the flat price you get transaction management, drip campaigns, marketing, landing pages, and 24/7 support. It is a full CRM, not a stripped down starter tool.
There is a CRM plus WiseSocial tier at 69 dollars a month, or 699 dollars a year, if you want the social content tools bundled in with the core CRM. That tier and the extra five person batch price come from my own reading of the Wise Agent pricing page on or before 28 April 2026.
Wise Agent handles the marketing side well too, which makes it a solid anchor for your full marketing stack rather than one more disconnected app to log into.
The honest watch out is scale. In my view it is not built for large team lead routing and accountability the way Follow Up Boss is, and on the plans I read SMS is a paid add on rather than baked in.
Who it is for: solo agents and small teams on a budget who want a real CRM, transaction management, and marketing on one flat, predictable monthly bill.
Support is a genuine differentiator. Wise Agent includes 24/7 support even on the entry plan, which is rare at this price. For a solo agent with no admin, that responsiveness matters more than a longer feature list.
The flat pricing also removes a common growth penalty. Add a fourth or fifth agent and your CRM bill does not move at all. Few tools at any price let a small team add headcount without adding cost.
Who should skip it? A large team that lives on inbound lead volume and needs granular routing and reporting. Wise Agent can run a small team beautifully, but it is not built to be an enterprise lead machine.
Lone Wolf Relationships and How to Migrate Off LionDesk
If you are a current LionDesk user, this is the section that matters most. You do not have the option to stay put. The product is gone, and the clock already ran out.
Path one is Lone Wolf Relationships. It is the closest in house successor, it keeps you inside a single ecosystem, and its pricing sits in a similar low range to old LionDesk.
Path two is Wise Agent. If your priority is keeping costs low and you do not need the Lone Wolf stack, import your exported contacts and land on a flat, cheap plan.
Path three is Follow Up Boss. If you are actively scaling and want routing and accountability, this is the moment to step up, even at a higher monthly price.
Whatever path you choose, the first job is identical. Export your data from LionDesk before portal access ends, and keep a clean CSV backup of absolutely everything.
Most CRMs import a CSV in minutes. Map your fields carefully, confirm that notes and tags carried over, and send a test drip before you trust the new system with live leads.
One more thing on timing. Do not wait for the last week of access to run your export. Portals get slow and buggy near a shutdown as everyone rushes out at once. Pull your data early and confirm the file opens cleanly.
Keep the exported CSV even after you import it. If a field maps wrong or a batch of notes goes missing, that original file is your only way back. Store it somewhere you will still find it in a year.
If you are torn between Relationships and moving out entirely, run a short trial of your second choice during the export window. Import a slice of contacts, test the daily workflow, and decide from real experience.
Side by Side: The Comparison Table
Here is the side by side, with the honest watch outs included rather than hidden. Prices are 2026 figures that I read from each vendor's own pricing page on or before 28 April 2026, rounded for comparison and unverified since, and they should be confirmed on each vendor site.
| CRM | Starting price | Best for | Standout strength | Watch out | Team pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow Up Boss | 69 dollars per user per month (Grow; 58 annual) | Growing teams and serious producers | Lead routing, action plans, integrations, deepest lead to close | Per user cost adds up, dialer is a paid add on on Grow, priciest | Pro 499 per month for 10 (plus 49 per user), Platform 1,000 per month for 30 (plus 20 per user) |
| Wise Agent | 49 dollars a month flat (499 per year) | Solo agents and small teams on a budget | Flat price covers up to 5 members, full CRM plus transaction mgmt plus marketing plus 24/7 support, no contract | Not built for large team routing accountability, SMS is a paid add on | Up to 5 included, plus 20 per month per extra 5 person batch, Enterprise custom |
| Lone Wolf Relationships (LionDesk successor) | About 25 to 33 dollars a month (confirm on vendor site) | Former LionDesk users and budget solos in the Lone Wolf ecosystem | Direct migration path from LionDesk, AI email, calendar sync, texting, ties into Lone Wolf Foundation | Newer and rebuilt, shorter track record, confirm pricing and parity | Team and broker pricing via Lone Wolf, not publicly tiered |
One number stands out. Wise Agent stays the cheaper product at essentially every team size because of its flat and batch model. You pay more for Follow Up Boss to get routing and accountability, not because it gets cheaper at scale.
Read the watch out column as carefully as the price column. The cheapest tool with a gap you cannot live with is not a bargain, and the most powerful tool you will not fully use is not worth the premium.
What Each Actually Costs by Team Size
A table is useful, but your real question is simpler than that. What will this cost me, at my team size, this year? The calculator below answers it in annual dollars.
Enter your number of users and your billing preference. It compares Follow Up Boss and Wise Agent side by side and shows the annual gap, with the Lone Wolf Relationships range for reference.
Interactive
CRM Cost Comparison Calculator
Enter your team size and billing to see the real annual cost of Follow Up Boss versus Wise Agent, with the Lone Wolf Relationships range for reference. Prices come from 2026 vendor pages that I read on or before 28 April 2026 and are rounded for comparison.
Play with the numbers. You will see the same pattern hold at every size. Wise Agent stays cheaper, and the gap is the premium you pay for Follow Up Boss routing and accountability.
A quick note on how to read the result. The dollar gap is not wasted money if you need what Follow Up Boss does. It is the price of routing and accountability. If you do not need those, the gap is simply savings.
How to Choose by Stage
Prices only get you so far. The right pick depends on your stage, not on which tool has the longest feature list. Here is the framework I use with agents.
Solo on a budget: Wise Agent. One flat price, a full CRM, and marketing built in. There is no reason to overpay when you are a team of one.
Small team of two to five: Wise Agent again. The flat price covers up to five members, so your per person cost is the lowest it will ever be.
Growing team that needs routing and accountability: Follow Up Boss, starting on Grow and moving to Pro as you add agents. This is where its workflow earns its price.
Serious, high volume team: Follow Up Boss Pro at 499 dollars for 10 users, or Platform at 1,000 dollars for 30. Built for lead volume and team management at scale.
Current LionDesk user: you must migrate. Choose Lone Wolf Relationships for the closest in house path, or import your contacts into Wise Agent for budget or Follow Up Boss for scale.
If you want help matching the tool to your business rather than guessing, that is exactly what real estate coaching for agents is for.
The rule underneath all of it stays the same. The best CRM is the one you will actually use daily. A cheaper tool you work beats an expensive one you ignore.
Notice that four of these five profiles have a clear answer, and only the growing team sits on the line. That is by design. Most agents overthink this decision when their stage already points to the obvious pick.
If you are the growing team on that line, let cash flow decide the timing. Start on the cheaper option, and step up to Follow Up Boss the month your lead volume makes routing and accountability worth the spend.
Switching and Migration Tips
Picking the CRM is the easy part. Switching well is where agents either save their pipeline or lose momentum for a month. A few tips keep the move clean.
Export first, always. Pull a full CSV of contacts, notes, and tags from your old system before you cancel anything or lose portal access to the data.
Import in stages. Load contacts, confirm the fields mapped correctly, then rebuild your drip campaigns and action plans before you point live leads at the new system.
Do not skip data hygiene. A migration is the perfect moment to merge duplicates and fix stale records. Learn how to set up your CRM the right way so it stays clean.
Rebuild your automations deliberately. Recreate your best performing drips and routing rules rather than importing bad habits from the tool you are leaving behind.
Train the team on day one. A CRM only works if everyone logs activity. Set the expectation before go live, not three weeks after adoption has already slipped.
Give it 90 days before you judge it. Every new system feels awkward at first. Judge the tool on whether your follow up improved, not on week one friction.
Communicate the change to your active leads too. A short note that your email or texts may come from a new system prevents your follow up from landing in spam or getting ignored as unfamiliar.
Finally, keep your old system read only for a month if you can. Even a clean migration misses something. Having the old tool for reference beats discovering a gap after you have already cancelled it.
Common Mistakes When Picking a CRM
Most CRM regret traces back to a handful of avoidable mistakes. Watch for these before you sign up for anything or move your whole database.
Chasing price alone. The cheapest plan is a bad deal if it does not fit how your team actually works. Fit beats sticker price every single time.
Buying for a team you do not have yet. Do not pay for enterprise routing when you are a solo agent. You can upgrade when the volume is actually real.
Ignoring adoption. The fanciest CRM is worthless if your agents will not log calls in it. Simplicity that gets used beats power that gets skipped.
Skipping the export. Waiting too long to pull your data from a dying platform is how agents lose years of contacts. LionDesk users, this one means you.
Treating the CRM as a database only. A CRM earns its keep through follow up and automation, not by sitting there as a fancy digital address book.
Never revisiting the choice. Your needs change as you grow. The right tool at five agents may not be the right tool at twenty, and that is completely fine.
Buying a CRM and never configuring it. Out of the box, every tool is generic. The value comes from your smart lists, your action plans, and your routing rules, set up for how you actually work.
And do not let a free trial fool you. Every CRM feels great for a week. Load real contacts, run your actual follow up for the full trial, and judge the daily workflow before your card gets charged.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is LionDesk still around in 2026?
No. Lone Wolf announced the wind down on May 16, 2025 and shut LionDesk down in September 2025. New signups are closed. If you still have data there, export it and move to a new CRM.
What replaced LionDesk?
Lone Wolf steers users to Lone Wolf Relationships, its in house successor and part of Lone Wolf Foundation. It is the closest same company migration path, though it is a rebuilt product, not the old LionDesk under a new name.
Which is better, Follow Up Boss or Wise Agent?
It depends on your stage. Wise Agent is cheaper and covers up to five members on one flat price. Follow Up Boss costs more and is built for lead routing and team accountability as you scale.
How much does Follow Up Boss cost in 2026?
Grow is 69 dollars per user per month, or 58 dollars annual. Pro is 499 dollars per month for 10 users. Platform is 1,000 dollars per month for 30 users. Those figures were read on or before 28 April 2026 and are unverified since, so confirm current pricing on the vendor site.
Is Wise Agent cheaper than Follow Up Boss?
Yes, at nearly every team size on the pricing I read on or before 28 April 2026. Wise Agent is 49 dollars per month flat and includes up to five members. You pay more for Follow Up Boss to get team routing features, not because it becomes cheaper at scale.
About the Author
Written by Saad Jamil, founder of Jamil Academy and a currently producing Top 1% Realtor in Northern Virginia, with $500M+ in career sales and 800+ homes closed. Licensed since 2007 in VA, DC, MD, and WV, Saad has carried more than 800 transactions from ratification through recording across every loan type. He has coached agents through choosing a CRM, migrating a database off a retired platform, and getting daily use out of the software compared above. View Saad’s Zillow profile.
Educational content only. Not brokerage, legal, tax, financial or investment advice, and not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Jamil Academy is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company named in this article. Company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only to identify what is being discussed. This page carries no affiliate links, no commissions and no sponsored placements, and the author earns nothing whichever way you decide. Prices, fees, contract terms, ratings and review counts were read from the sources named on or before 28 April 2026 and change without notice. Statements drawn from lawsuits, complaints, employee reviews and customer reviews are allegations by the people who made them, not findings of fact, and unresolved matters are described as unresolved. Views expressed are the author's own opinion. Confirm current terms directly with the company before signing anything. If you believe anything here is inaccurate, tell us and we will correct it.
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