Connecting your MLS to DealFlow
What the connection actually does, what it doesn't do, and exactly how to get it switched on — including who to call and what it costs.
What the connection does
DealFlow already matches your buyers to listings using public-web data, automatically, twice a day. That works, and it's included in every plan. But public-web data is scraped from portal pages: it lags the MLS by hours or days, and details like lot size, HOA, and exact square footage are often missing or wrong.
Connecting your MLS replaces that source with the real one. Here's the actual flow:
- You and your broker are licensed onto the feed Your MLS licenses listing data to your brokerage, not to you personally. You and your managing broker sign a data license that names DealFlow as the data consumer — that signature is what proves you're entitled to receive the data.
- We switch your feed on — there is nothing for you to paste On MLS Grid markets, including IRES, the access credential is issued once to DealFlow as the registered data consumer, not to each agent, and it stays on our servers. When your license is approved, your feed starts. More on this below.
- DealFlow pulls new listings every hour It asks your MLS for the listings you're permitted to see, using the official RESO Web API — the industry-standard interface your MLS already publishes. Anything newly listed, price-changed, or gone under contract shows up within the hour, without you pressing anything.
- Every listing is scored against every active buyer Budget, beds, baths, square footage, lot size, HOA, must-haves, dealbreakers, and state. Anything that breaks a dealbreaker is discarded rather than shown.
- Each buyer's pool fills with only their matches You open a buyer and see the homes that actually fit them, ranked, with the reasons they scored the way they did. Nobody gets a wall of irrelevant listings.
The practical difference
Verified beds, baths, square footage, lot size, and HOA on every record instead of best-guess parsing. New listings within the hour instead of within a day or two. And your daily search limit stops applying to buyer matching entirely, because the listings come from your MLS rather than from our metered web-search service.
How much history you get
Two different things are kept, for two different reasons:
- Everything currently for sale — active, coming soon, under contract and pending. All of it, continuously refreshed.
- The last 6 months of closed sales, for comparables. Older sales roll off automatically as new ones arrive.
Six months is a deliberate figure, not a technical accident: it is the window Fannie Mae and most appraisers prefer for a comparable sale, and it keeps a CMA arguing from recent evidence rather than from a market that no longer exists. If you need to reach further back for an unusual property, pull those comps from your MLS directly and add them by hand.
Expired, withdrawn and canceled listings are deliberately not kept at all. Your MLS's license prohibits using its data to approach property owners, so DealFlow does not store the data that would make that possible.
What it is — and what it isn't
This trips people up, so it's worth being precise. An MLS data feed is not one single thing; there are several types, and they're licensed differently.
- This is a private, internal-use feed. The listing data comes into your CRM, for you, to match against your own buyers.
- It is not IDX. DealFlow does not publish MLS listings on a public website, and connecting your MLS will not put a search widget on your site.
- It is not a VOW. There's no consumer-facing portal where the public registers to browse listings.
- It is not a syndication feed. Nothing is republished, resold, or sent anywhere else.
- It does not bring listing photos. Your MLS's license does not permit us to reproduce its images, so listings arrive as facts and remarks with no pictures. Everything DealFlow prints for a client is built around that — market context, comparables and payment math rather than a photo sheet — and the open-house packet tells you which MLS numbers to print photos from in your own MLS system, where your membership already covers it.
Your MLS decides which feed type covers a private CRM. Most classify it as a back-office feed — listing data pulled into an agent's private CRM for their own buyer matching, with no public display — but the decision is always theirs, and it affects your fee, so we get it confirmed in writing before you commit to anything. Where your own MLS has already answered, it's recorded under your market below.
One consequence worth knowing: back-office feeds arrive as a single combined feed under NAR's "One Data Source" policy, and every record carries its own usage permissions. DealFlow reads those permissions on every listing and stores only what your license actually covers — so the app can never show you a record your agreement doesn't reach.
Where the access credential lives
The credential that pulls MLS data can reach an entire licensed feed, so it is worth being precise about who holds it.
- On MLS Grid markets, including IRES, we hold it — not you. MLS Grid issues one credential per data license agreement, to the registered data consumer. That is DealFlow. It is held on our servers, is never sent to your browser, and is never included in a backup or an export.
- Your own access is checked separately, on every pull. Because one credential reaches the whole licensed feed, the credential alone decides nothing. DealFlow verifies your entitlement each time: if your MLS membership lapses or you move off the MLS plan, MLS data stops reaching your account even though the credential still exists.
- If your MLS issues you your own token — some RESO servers outside MLS Grid do — you can paste it into Settings → Listing feed instead. A token you paste yourself stays on that device, is never uploaded to our servers or included in your cloud backup, and is cleared when you sign out.
Either way, no MLS credential is left behind on a shared or borrowed computer, and nothing that could pull your MLS's entire database ever sits in your cloud backup.
Before you start
- An active MLS membership in good standing.
- Your managing broker's agreement to sign off. MLSs license data to the brokerage, not to individual agents — your broker signs, every time, without exception.
- A conversation with us first. We complete vendor registration market by market. Contact us before you approach your MLS and we'll tell you exactly where we are with yours, so you don't open a request that can't be completed yet.
How to get connected
- Tell us which MLS you're on We'll confirm whether that market is ready, what feed type applies, and what the fees are before you commit to anything.
- Get your managing broker on board They'll be asked to approve a data license. A quick heads-up now prevents the most common delay later — an approval email sitting unopened.
- We start the request Data feed requests are initiated by the software vendor, not the agent. We open it on our side; your MLS and your broker review it.
- You and your broker approve You'll get an email asking you to sign the data license. Watch for it — this is where requests stall. Three signatures are needed in all: yours and your broker's, ours as the data consumer, and your MLS's. Your MLS has the final say and can decline. The usage rules attached to your feed apply to every listing you receive.
- We enable the feed on your account On MLS Grid markets there is no token for you to copy. The credential belongs to our data-consumer license and stays on our servers; once your MLS approves, we switch MLS data on for your account.
- Check that it's flowing In DealFlow: Listings → Listing feed (or Settings → Listing feed). You'll see your MLS, your license type, and when it last pulled; ⟳ Pull now fetches immediately if you'd rather not wait for the hourly sync. If your MLS issues per-agent tokens instead of going through MLS Grid, this is also where you paste yours and press ⚡ Test connection — you'll get a real sample listing back if it worked, or a plain-English explanation if it didn't.
The specifics depend on your market
Everything above is the same wherever you are. The parts that differ — which platform delivers your data, what your MLS charges, who to call, and whether your market is switched on yet — are listed per MLS in the next section.
What it costs
Your MLS charges its own fee for data access, and it varies by market and feed type. Every one of those fees is billed to us as the vendor, and reaches you as the price of the MLS plan — one line on your DealFlow invoice, in place of the Core plan rather than on top of it.
Because the underlying fee is set by your MLS and not by us, the MLS plan price is quoted per market. Your market's actual numbers are below.
Three things we'll always do:
- Show you the exact amount before you're charged — no MLS fee ever appears on your invoice as a surprise.
- Start billing on activation, not on purchase — and carry you until then. License approval takes days to weeks and can be declined by your broker or your MLS. From the day we open your request until the day data actually starts flowing, DealFlow is free: not the MLS price and not the Core price, for up to 60 days. If your MLS approves, billing starts at the MLS price that day. If it declines, or the request is still pending after 60 days, you move to the Core plan and keep the whole CRM.
- Publish what your MLS actually charges, next to what we charge, so you can see exactly which part of the price is your MLS's fee and which part is ours. That is the whole of the section below.
Moving between Core and the MLS plan is one change in either direction, and your contacts, campaigns and CMA work are untouched by it.
Availability. We are completing MLS Grid vendor registration market by market, starting with IRES. Until your market is live, MLS Connect can't be purchased — talk to us and we'll tell you exactly where your MLS stands rather than have you open a request that can't be finished.
Available MLS connections
Everything above applies wherever you work. What changes market to market is who delivers the data, what your MLS charges for it, and whether we have finished vendor registration there yet. Open your market for the specifics.
Only markets listed as available can be connected today. We would rather show you a short honest list than a long one that implies coverage we don't have.
IRES Northern Colorado — Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, Windsor, Estes Park Available
IRES is the market DealFlow was built in, and the first one connected. Its license is signed and vendor registration is complete.
Feed type
IRES has confirmed in writing that this use case is Back Office (BBO) — listing data pulled into an agent's private CRM for their own buyer matching, with no public display. That classification is what sets the fee below.
How the data arrives
IRES delivers its data through The MLS Grid. The technical values are:
Base URL https://api.mlsgrid.com/v2
MLS system name ires
Both are filled in for you when you pick IRES from the list. There is nothing further for you to enter and no token for you to copy — the access credential belongs to our MLS Grid data-consumer license and stays on our servers.
What it costs
IRES publishes its data feed fee schedule. For a Back Office feed it is:
$35 per agent, per month — IRES calls this the participant fee; it is charged for each individual agent using the feed
$8 per month — vendor fee
$150 one time — setup
Only the first of those three is yours. IRES confirmed in writing on September 17, 2026 that the $8 vendor fee and the $150 setup fee are charged against the vendor account — ours — rather than per agent. The setup fee was paid once when our Back Office subscription was opened and, in their words, “would not be charged again for the same Back Office subscription.” The vendor fee is a single ongoing monthly charge on that same account. Adding an agent adds one $35 participant fee and nothing else.
So there is no setup fee for you to pay — not to IRES, and not to us. No $150 invoice is coming, and there is not one folded quietly into your first month either.
The MLS plan is $93 per agent, per month on IRES. It replaces the $42 Core plan rather than being added to it. Your $35 participant fee is passed through in it, along with our vendor-account costs and the license administration on our side. IRES bills us as the registered vendor, so no invoice from them ever reaches you. If IRES changes its fee schedule, this price changes with it and we will give you at least 30 days' notice by email.
There is no minimum term. The MLS plan is month to month and you can move back to the Core plan, or cancel altogether, at any time. Two things follow from the fees being IRES's rather than ours: they are not prorated, so canceling part-way through a month does not refund the remainder of that month, and your access to MLS data ends immediately rather than at the end of the period. That last one is required by the license, not chosen by us. Your own contacts, campaigns and CMA work are untouched either way.
Who to contact
Talk to us before you contact IRES. Data feed requests are opened by the vendor, not the agent, so a request you start yourself will stall.
REcolorado Denver metro and the Front Range Not yet
Not available yet. We have not completed vendor registration for REcolorado, so there is nothing to purchase and no request we could open on your behalf today.
We are not going to guess at the fee or the feed type before REcolorado has told us in writing — those are the two things that decide what the MLS plan costs there, and quoting them early would be quoting a number we made up.
If you are on REcolorado, tell us. Demand is how we decide which market to register in next, and we will come back to you with the real numbers once we have them.
Another MLS Anywhere else in the US Ask us
Quite possibly workable. DealFlow talks to the RESO Web API, which is the standard nearly every MLS now publishes, so the technical side usually is not the obstacle — the license is.
Two things decide whether your market can be switched on:
- Whether your MLS distributes through MLS Grid. If it does, we add your MLS to our existing data-consumer license, which is the faster path. If it runs its own RESO server, we register with your MLS directly, and some issue each agent their own token — in which case you paste it into Settings → Listing feed yourself.
- What your MLS classifies a private CRM as. This sets your fee, and only your MLS can answer it.
Send us the name of your MLS and we will find out both, and tell you plainly whether it is worth pursuing. That costs you nothing and commits you to nothing.
If something doesn't work
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Rejected the token | The credential is wrong, expired, or your license doesn't cover this MLS. On IRES and other MLS Grid markets the credential is ours, so tell us and we'll sort it out. If you pasted your own token, re-copy it from your MLS's platform — it's easy to miss a character or pick up a trailing space. |
| Rejected the query | Usually the MLS system name is wrong for your market. Pick your MLS from the list rather than typing it, and clear any extra filter you've added. |
| Rate-limited | Too many requests too quickly. Wait a minute and pull again — normal daily use never hits this. |
| Connected, but 0 listings | The connection works; your filter is too narrow. Clear the extra filter and pull again. |
| Listings pulled, but no matches | Listings are sorted into the pools of buyers whose search is switched on. Turn on at least one buyer's search in the Searches tab, then pull again. |
If your MLS license lapses
Buyer matching automatically falls back to public-web data, so your pipeline keeps working while you sort it out. You'll see a notice in the app rather than a silently empty buyer list.
Who to contact
Start with us, whatever the question. Data feed requests are opened by the vendor rather than by the agent, so a request you start at your MLS will stall — and we can usually tell you in one reply whether your market is workable at all.
Your MLS and its data platform
Listed under your own market in Available MLS connections — including the direct data-feed contacts for IRES.Once a feed is live, anything about the license or the billing goes to your MLS, and anything about how the data behaves inside DealFlow comes to us. If you are not sure which it is, ask us first.
Not sure where your market stands?
Email me before you approach your MLS and I'll tell you exactly where vendor registration is — so you don't open a request that can't be finished yet.