Why we built ClosingPack: a founder's letter

I want to write this without any of the pitch language because the story is more honest that way.

In 2014 I started LoadUp, a junk removal marketplace. We were the on-demand version of a service that had been done by a few national brands and a thousand local crews. We did the unglamorous work of building the operational layer (dispatch, routing, payments, customer service) and we grew the business one job at a time. Ten years and 200,000+ jobs later, LoadUp is a real company.

Along the way I noticed something I couldn’t unsee.

A meaningful share of our customers came to us through real estate agents. Not paid ads. Not Google. Not yard signs. A homeowner would close on a house, get the keys, walk into the garage full of the previous owner’s stuff, text their agent, and the agent would text back our phone number.

That handoff was worth hundreds of dollars to us per customer. Sometimes thousands when the job turned into multiple visits or a referral to other neighbors.

The agent who’d just done six months of work shepherding that homeowner through inspections and negotiations and closing? Got nothing. Maybe a thank-you text. Sometimes a holiday card.

For a decade I watched this happen across thousands of transactions and assumed someone would eventually fix it. Nobody did.

The reasons nobody fixed it

I asked agents about this for years. They told me the same things:

“I don’t want to be seen as selling something to my clients.” This is the cultural objection, and it’s real. Most agents I respect view themselves as fiduciaries, not commercial actors. They were trained to be cautious about anything that looks like a commission.

“Isn’t this illegal?” It’s not, if it’s structured correctly. RESPA prohibits paying for referrals on settlement services (mortgages, title, escrow, inspection). It does not prohibit paying for placement in a curated list of non-settlement services (painters, cleaners, junk removers, the actual stuff homeowners need). But the legal confusion has kept most agents from formalizing.

“Nobody’s built me a way to do it.” This is the real reason. Even agents who understood the model and were open to it had no infrastructure. Building a platform that handles billing, payouts, disclosures, vendor verification, RESPA-compliant pricing structures, and homeowner experience all at once is real work. It needed to be built.

So we built it.

What ClosingPack actually is

ClosingPack lets a real estate agent assemble a curated list of vendors they trust, share it with every closing client on a personal page like closingpack.ai/r/yourname, and earn a small recurring fee from each vendor on the list.

The structure is deliberately RESPA-clear: flat monthly fees, non-settlement services only, full disclosure on every booking page. The agent earns 70% of every slot fee. The vendor gets warm referrals at a fraction of the cost of Angi or Thumbtack. The homeowner gets a vetted vendor list from someone they already trust, and never pays a cent to ClosingPack.

I wrote a longer piece on how this complies with RESPA for the agents who want to understand the legal framing. And a field guide on how agent vendor referrals actually work today for anyone who wants the broader context.

Why this matters now

Three things are converging that make this the right moment.

The RESPA framework is well-understood. The category of compensated referrals on non-settlement services has been operating quietly in adjacent industries (HomeKeepr, ClientLinkt, Compass’s internal referral programs) for years. The legal posture is clear if you build correctly.

Agent economics are under pressure. The buyer-side commission changes that took effect in 2024 have squeezed agent income. Agents are looking for additional value streams that don’t conflict with their fiduciary obligations to clients. ClosingPack is one of the few that doesn’t.

Vendor economics are broken. Angi, HomeAdvisor, and Thumbtack have made the home services lead market worse over time, not better. Vendors are paying more for worse leads. The model that wins is the model that gives vendors fewer, higher-quality leads at predictable cost.

What we’re doing first

We’re starting in Atlanta. Greater Atlanta has roughly 16,000 active real estate agents, a strong network of home service vendors, and a high concentration of new homeowners (Atlanta has been a top inbound migration market for three years running). It’s also where LoadUp is headquartered and where we have the deepest vendor relationships.

The first 25 agents are being recruited personally. We want operators who close real volume, recommend real vendors, and would benefit from formalizing something they’re already doing informally. If that sounds like you, apply here.

Vendors are being onboarded through the agents who invite them. The first 45 days are free. After that, the slot fee is $49 to $199 a month depending on the service category. The vendor can cancel anytime.

Update: We’ve since moved to a flat $79/month price across all categories. See /pricing for the current model.

What this isn’t

A few things ClosingPack is not, just to be clear:

• It’s not a lead-generation platform. We don’t sell leads. We don’t take a cut of any work vendors do. We don’t sit between the homeowner and the vendor. The agent’s recommendation does the work.
• It’s not for settlement services. No title companies, no mortgage brokers, no insurance, no escrow, no mortgage-required inspections. RESPA is explicit on this and we don’t go near it.
• It’s not a tool for spamming homeowners. Booking pages are shared by agents with their actual closing clients. We don’t email-spam or text-spam homeowners we don’t have a relationship with.
• It’s not anti-vendor. The structural problem with platforms like Angi is they extract from vendors. ClosingPack is built for vendors to win. Flat monthly fees, no per-lead pricing, warm referrals.

A note on disclosure

Every ClosingPack booking page openly tells the homeowner that vendors pay a monthly placement fee to be listed. The disclosure is prominent and unambiguous. The homeowner sees it before they engage with any vendor.

This is non-negotiable for us. The single most important thing about getting this category right is that the homeowner is never confused about what’s going on. The agent has recommended these vendors because they trust them. The agent is also being compensated by the vendor. Both are true. The homeowner knows both.

Done this way, the model holds up legally, ethically, and reputationally. Done any other way, it doesn’t.

What’s next

We’re shipping new versions of ClosingPack weekly. The features that matter most for the next 90 days: making it easier for agents to invite vendors, making vendor pages work better on mobile, building out the booking-request flow, integrating with the tools agents already use.

If you’re an agent in Atlanta, apply to join. If you’re a vendor and an agent invited you, you can apply directly. If you’re somewhere else and curious, we’ll be expanding to the next markets in the second half of 2026.

If you have thoughts on what’s broken about how agents and vendors interact today, I’d love to hear them. Email me at greg@closingpack.ai.

Thanks for reading.