doorsteps.co.uk Vs Purplebricks

Doorsteps and Purplebricks are two very different online agents, targeting different sections of the market, which poses some interesting challenges to compare them directly. It's fair to say Doorsteps are known as the cheapest online estate agent, while Purplebricks is the market leader.

Fees & Features

Firstly, Doorsteps.co.uk's most prominent package, their £99 fee one, is so inexpensive because it provides only what you need. You are expected to do much of the work in exchange for this extremely low fee. In contrast, Purplebricks' one size fits all offering - £899, or £1399 in London - tries to completely replace a traditional estate agent, with the the aim being that the only discernible difference is the lack of a walk-in office and (optionally) conducting your viewings yourself. Please visit our Purplebricks profile for more information on them.

The most pertinent question to ask when choosing between these two agents is what you are actually looking for in your agent. If you are intent on saving as much as possible, and are happy to provide your own photography, make your own floorplans, and write your own descriptions, then Doorsteps may be very appealing to you. Conversely, if you're unsure, Purplebricks may be a 'safer' option. Doorsteps invites you to ask yourself whether paying an agent to provide the photography, floorplans and a description is worth an extra £800.

Viewings

With Doorsteps, there is no option for them to host your viewings. You will have to do them yourself. With Purplebricks, you can opt for a hosting package where you get unlimited hosted viewings, and this is priced at £300, or £399 if you're in a London postcode. If you are dead-set against doing your own viewings, Purplebricks is the obvious choice.

Doorsteps' Fuller Featured Packages

However, Doorsteps does now provide more extensive packages than just their £99 fee one, which allows for more direct comparison. Please check our Doorsteps profile for more in-depth details. Their more expensive packages still don't provide viewings, but the £199 package does provide professional photography, floorplans and a description. By our reckoning, the photography with both Doorsteps and Purplebricks appears to be about the same, and at a very high level. It's fair to say that Doorsteps' £199 package is near like-for-like with Purplebricks, so the savings are potentially huge.

Doorsteps' £599 package includes everything that the £199 does, except it also includes a For Sale Board and, more importantly, premium listings on Rightmove and Zoopla, which is the reason for the hike in price. Premium listings are generally very expensive with traditional and other online agents, so there is an opportunity to use the savings you make from opting for Doorsteps for this.

Reviews

Purplebricks can rightly claim to be the most reviewed estate agent in history: they have an absurd 69,000 reviews at time of writing! They are rated 9.4 on Trustpilot, giving them a five star rating. Meanwhile, Doorsteps are rated ever so slightly better at 9.5, but with a much smaller body of reviews, that still comes in at over 1,800.

In regard to allAgents, there is a much larger disparity. Doorsteps are rated 4.4/5 giving them a 4 star rating, while Purplebricks are rated 1.2/5, giving them a 1 star rating. This seems to be because allAgents is the go-to place for bad Purplebricks reviews to have their voice heard. Purplebricks and allAgents had something of a public spat, evidence of which you can read about here and here with Purplebricks trying to have allAgents reviews removed under threat of legal action (and indeed, they were temporarily removed). As of right now, the reviews remain up. This incident likely inadvertently brought more attention to Purplebricks review profiles and the difference between them.

Market Position

Both Purplebricks and Doorsteps have a significant presence amongst online estate agents, although it's fair to say they target different ends of the price spectrum.

Purplebricks is the largest online agent by most measures we can think of: listings, valuation, values of property sold, employees, and so on. Since 2016, Purplebricks' market dominance in the online estate agency space has hovered between 60% and 70%. We have found many people seemingly opt for Purplebricks due to a 'safety in numbers' feeling, which can't necessarily be discarded. With that said, Doorsteps has made a splash itself, and claims it is the 6th largest online estate agent, and the 14th largest estate agent in the UK outright. They have also successfully crowdfunded recently, and so are positiom to continue to grow.

Summary

Overall, Doorsteps and Purplebricks both provide compelling offers. Purplebricks is much more of a household name, and has the advantage that you may well be able to ask someone you know for their person experience, but Doorsteps is just as well reviewed online as Purplebricks, and offers significant savings even when comparing like-for-like packages. Please see the table below for more detailed information, and compare Doorsteps' and Purplebricks' packages head to head.

Feature	doorsteps.co.uk	Purplebricks
allAgents Rating	3.80	1.20
TrustPilot Rating	4.70	4.00
Number of Packages	4	2
Fee on Completion	Not Available	Not Available
Cheapest Price	£195.00	£1199.00
Property Count	1895	16801
Market Share	5.63%	49.88%
Hybrid Agent	No	Yes
Founded	2016	2012