When an agency owner looks at software, the first question is usually the price. It is the wrong question to start with. For an agency with a handful of agents, counsellors and admin staff, the subscription is the smallest number on the page. The larger costs are the ones nobody invoices you for: commissions never claimed, invoices never chased, advertising you cannot measure, and the week lost every time someone leaves.
This post walks through six places agencies lose money, in rough order of size. We build Centrio, and each section says what it does. The leaks exist whatever tool you use.
1. Pricing that grows with every hire
Most agency software is priced per user. That is reasonable when you have three people. It changes your hiring decisions when you have fifteen, because every new counsellor, intern or admin hire is a new licence.
Here is what a team of ten people costs per month at published list prices, excluding GST, checked on 18 October 2026:
| Software | How it is priced | Ten people, per month |
|---|---|---|
| Agentcis (Premium) | A$30 per user | A$300 |
| Agent Manager (Migration) | A$66 per user | A$660 |
| LodgeHQ | A$99 per registered agent, support staff free | A$396 with four agents |
| Migration Manager | $339 per licence, 12-month term | $3,390 if each person needs a licence |
| Centrio (Practice) | A$99 flat, unlimited users | A$99 |
Prices change and plans differ in what they include, so check the details. We set them out vendor by vendor in best migration agent software in Australia, with sources.
The point is not only the monthly figure. With flat pricing you can give the receptionist, the casual counsellor and the accountant their own login instead of sharing one, which is also what keeps your audit trail meaningful.
2. The tool stack nobody added up
Look at what the agency pays for beside its CRM. A typical list: an e-signature service, a booking tool, a form builder for questionnaires, an SMS provider, file storage, and a spreadsheet for client money that someone reconciles by hand each month.
Each is cheap. Together they are a second subscription bill, and each tool holds a slice of the same client. When something goes wrong you search six places.
In Centrio: the service agreement is signed in the client portal, consultations are booked on a public booking page, questionnaires and document checklists run in the portal, SMS goes through your own ClickSend account, and client money sits on the matter with firm-wide reconciliation. Email goes from your own Gmail. One client, one file.
3. Commissions that were earned and never claimed
For education agencies this is often the biggest leak. Provider commissions are usually paid per study period or instalment, and in practice many are only paid when the agency raises an invoice. A student who continues into a second year earns you a commission that nobody claims, because the person who enrolled them has moved on and the reminder lived in their inbox.
The rules also changed. Since 31 March 2026, providers cannot pay commission for most onshore transfers that happen before a student finishes their principal course. An agency now needs to know, per student, when they were accepted, which course is their principal course, and whether a move counts as a transfer. Invoicing a commission that is no longer payable damages the provider relationship. We explain the rule in the commission ban on onshore transfers.
In Centrio: each provider has a commission schedule, each enrolment carries its CoE dates, and commission invoices are raised per instalment as PDFs, sent and marked paid. Reminders fire when an instalment is due to be claimed. Sub-agents are recorded on the enrolment with their share, so splits are calculated rather than remembered.
4. Client invoices that age quietly
Migration fees are often paid in stages: on signing, on lodgement, on decision. Each stage is an invoice, and each invoice is a chance for payment to slip. Most agencies do not know their total unpaid fees on any given day, let alone how old they are.
In Centrio: invoices are created from the matter with GST, and clients can pay by bank transfer, or by card through a pay-by-link page if you connect Stripe. A reminder goes before each invoice is due. The receivables report shows what is owed at 30, 60 and 90 days, by client and by staff member, so the follow-up call happens in week five rather than month five.
5. Marketing you cannot measure
Agencies spend real money on Facebook and Google ads, education fairs, and referral partners. Few can say which of them produced clients who signed and paid. Without that, the budget follows whichever channel produced the most enquiries, which is not the same as the most clients.
In Centrio: every enquiry has a source and a stage, from new through consultation and quote to converted or lost. The lead conversion report shows, by source, how many enquiries became clients. Put that next to what you spent on each channel and you know your cost per signed client. Enquiries from your website, your booking page and the embedded points calculator arrive with their source already set.
6. The week lost when someone leaves
Staff turnover is normal. What makes it expensive is when a person’s caseload lives in their head, their inbox and their own spreadsheet. A departure becomes a week of reconstruction, a few missed dates, and sometimes a complaint.
In Centrio: every matter holds its documents, notes, tasks, deadlines and messages. Reassigning a matter moves all of it. Roles control what each person can see, and the audit log shows who did what. Deadlines escalate to the account owner if they go overdue, whoever was meant to handle them.
The cost nobody budgets: a complaint
OMARA set up a Compliance and Monitoring Section in October 2025 and now uses its powers to check compliance with the Code of Conduct, not only to investigate complaints. In the second half of 2025, cautions were issued for missed deadlines, missing records of oral advice, and agreements not signed by all parties. We go through the cases in what OMARA sanctioned in late 2025.
A sanction against one registered agent is a risk to the whole agency’s reputation. Systems that make the right order the default (agreement before money, a note after every call, a reminder before every date) are cheaper than the alternative.
How to work out your own number
You do not need our figures. Take an hour and fill in these five lines for your agency:
- Software and tools: everything you pay monthly that touches a client, added up.
- Staff time on re-keying and chasing: ask each person how long a day they spend copying information between tools, chasing documents and chasing payments. Multiply by working days and their hourly cost.
- Unclaimed commissions: pick ten students enrolled more than a year ago and check every instalment was claimed.
- Aged invoices: total everything unpaid after 60 days.
- Cost per signed client by channel: marketing spend divided by clients who signed, for each source.
As an illustration only: if ten staff each lose 20 minutes a day to re-keying and chasing, that is about 730 hours over 220 working days. At a loaded cost of A$40 an hour, that is around A$29,000 a year. Replace each number with your own. Most owners who do this find line 2 is the largest.
For larger groups
Agencies with branches can report revenue and performance by branch. White-label branding puts your name on the client portal. Client data is hosted in Australia only, and groups that need data to stay entirely in their own environment can licence Centrio self-hosted. Talk to us about Enterprise and self-hosted.
For everyone else, Practice is A$99 a month flat, excluding GST, for unlimited users and clients, with a 14-day trial and no card. Import your clients and run one month alongside what you use now. Then fill in the five lines again.
Prices are vendors’ published list prices on 18 October 2026, excluding GST, and may have changed. This is general information, not financial, legal or migration advice.
Sources: