Which platform actually gets you running ads? One is a specialized Facebook & Instagram engine built for real estate. The other is a CRM with ads bolted on.
Walled Garden is a specialized Facebook and Instagram ads platform built for real estate agents, loan officers, title companies, and teams. You pick a template, customize it, and launch — most users are live within days.
Lofty (formerly Chime) is an all-in-one CRM that includes a website builder, lead routing, power dialer, transaction management, and marketing automation — with paid advertising as one feature among many. Bigger system, bigger price tag, steeper learning curve.
Pricing, control, performance, and the features that actually move the needle.
8 of 8 ownership categories belong to Walled Garden HQ. See the full row-by-row breakdown below.
| Feature | Walled Garden | Lofty |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Focus | Facebook & Instagram Ads Platform | All-in-one CRM with ads add-on |
| Entry Price | $97/mo (Solo) | ~$449/mo (Core, 3 users) |
| Mid Tier | $297/mo (Advanced) | ~$699/mo (Premier, 15 users) |
| White-Label / Branded Platform | $497/mo + $49 setup (unlimited) | ~$1,499/mo + $2,000 setup |
| Enterprise Hub | $1,997/mo (multi-tenant) | Custom pricing |
| Setup Fees | $49 (Branded Platform only) | $500-$2,000 |
| Ad Management Fee | $14 flat + 15% of spend | 20% of spend ($150/mo min) |
| Minimum Ad Budget | None | $600/month required |
| Ad Account Infrastructure | Run on WG's seasoned, trusted ad account — skip agent denials & bans | Lofty's account, no access or control |
| You Control Your Own Ads | Yes, built-in ad manager | No — Lofty runs from their account |
| Edit / Pause Campaigns Yourself | Instant, self-serve | Submit ticket to Lofty analyst |
| Meta Special Ad Category Compliance | Automatic & mandatory | Manual configuration |
| AI Campaign Optimization | Auto-optimizes copy & placements | Manual, handled by Lofty ads team |
| AI Ad Creative Studio | Yes — generates images, copy, video | AI Assistant (CRM-focused) |
| Pre-Built Ad Templates | 100+ | Limited |
| Custom Lead Form Questions | Fully customizable | Unmatched fields saved as notes |
| Meta Pixel Auto-Retargeting | Yes — on WG's shared, seasoned pixel | Yes — on Lofty's pixel (no visibility) |
| AI Targeting (Market / Lists / Web) | Market Area, Custom Lists, Web Retargeting | Targeting set by analyst |
| Facebook Buyer CPL | $3-$7 average | $3.20 average |
| Seller Lead CPL | $3-$7 average | $25.00 average |
| Leads Per Campaign | 12-24 leads / 10-day campaign | Not published |
| Google Ads | No (FB/IG focused) | Yes |
| Direct Mail Campaigns | No | Yes |
| Title Company & LO Tools | Yes — LO-Agent Partner Model | No |
| Agency / Multi-Client Mode | Add clients, they add cards, you launch | Not supported natively |
| Multi-Agent Billing | Per-agent ad spend & cards | Team plans, co-mingled billing |
| Unlimited Users (Branded Tier) | Yes — unlimited clients & users | Capped by tier (3 / 15 / custom) |
| CRM & IDX Website | No (integrates with yours) | Yes, built-in |
| Power Dialer | No (integrates with yours) | Yes, built-in |
| Transaction Management | No | Yes |
| Time to First Ad | Days (live in 7) | Weeks of onboarding |
| Onboarding Complexity | Pick template → launch | CRM, IDX, dialer, ads all configured |
| Contracts | Month-to-month | Annual (reported) |
| Money-Back Guarantee | 60 days | Not advertised |
Built for the entire real estate transaction ecosystem
Built-in ad manager. Launch, target, pause, and scale on your schedule — not Lofty's analyst queue.
Loan officers run ads for their agent partners. Agent pays spend, brand stays theirs, leads flow to the LO — RESPA compliant.
Listing, buyer, open house, recruiting, mortgage, valuation funnels — proven templates with compliant copy baked in.
Spend $200 on a 10-day campaign and get 12-24 leads at $3-$7 each. Lofty requires $600/mo just to start.
The platform tests copy and placements, shifts budget to winners automatically. No analyst tickets.
Generates ad images, copy, and video tailored to real estate in minutes — not hours of back-and-forth.
Guaranteed onboarding in a week. Lofty users report weeks of CRM, IDX, and dialer setup before their first ad runs.
Month-to-month, cancel anytime, full refund inside 60 days. Lofty users report annual contracts and rigid billing.
The features below are either missing from Lofty entirely or locked behind their Enterprise tier and analyst workflow.
Lofty is designed primarily for agents and brokerages. If you're a title rep or loan officer, you're working around a platform that wasn't built for your workflow. Walled Garden was built from day one to serve the full real estate transaction ecosystem — title companies use it to provide marketing value to their agent partners, LOs use it to generate borrower leads through their agent network, and agents use it for listing, buyer, recruiting, and farming ads.
Lofty simply does not offer this. With Walled Garden, a loan officer sets up ad campaigns for their agent partners. The agent's card covers the ad spend, the ads run under the agent's brand, and the borrower leads flow back to the LO. It's a genuine value-add that strengthens the LO-agent relationship while keeping everyone RESPA compliant. No other platform in the space supports this model natively.
Want a branded version of the platform under your company's name? Walled Garden's Branded Platform starts at $497/month + $49 setup — and includes unlimited clients, unlimited users, and the ability to run ads on behalf of other people. Lofty locks white-labeling and SSO behind Enterprise at ~$1,499/month + $2,000 setup. Title companies, brokerages, and mortgage companies get a real branded marketing tool at roughly a third of the price with no user caps.
Both platforms run ads on the provider's ad account — but the experience is night and day. With Lofty, you can't access, edit, or manage your own campaigns. If you want to change targeting, swap an image, or pause a campaign, you contact a Lofty Digital Marketing Analyst and wait. With Walled Garden, you launch, adjust targeting, swap creative, and pause or scale on your own schedule through a built-in ad manager. And because most agents' personal Facebook ad accounts get flagged, restricted, or outright banned for real estate ads, running on Walled Garden's mature, seasoned ad account is a real advantage — you skip the rejection cycle entirely and inherit years of platform trust and performance data.
Walled Garden charges a $14 flat fee plus 15% of ad spend, with no minimum ad budget. You decide how much to spend and change it anytime. Lofty charges a flat 20% management fee with a $150/month minimum (if your budget is under $700), and requires a $600/month minimum ad budget just to start. That's at least $1,199/month committed ($449 subscription + $150 minimum fee + $600 ad spend) before generating a single lead.
With Walled Garden, you can customize Facebook and Instagram lead ad forms with any questions you want — price range, timeline, preferred neighborhood, loan type, whether they already have an agent. Answers come through structured and attached to the lead. Lofty supports lead form integration, but custom questions that don't match Lofty's predefined CRM fields get dumped into a text note rather than stored as structured data. Field mapping is fragile too — names have to match Lofty's exact spelling and capitalization or the data won't sync at all.
Walled Garden comes pre-loaded with over 100 high-converting ad templates built specifically for real estate: listing ads, buyer lead ads, open house promotions, recruiting campaigns, mortgage rate ads, home valuation funnels, and more. Each template includes compliant ad copy, targeting parameters, and lead form configurations. You're not starting from scratch. Lofty doesn't offer the same depth of pre-built, real-estate-specific ad creative.
Lofty users commonly report a steep onboarding process — it's a complex platform with a CRM, IDX website, dialer, transaction management, and dozens of features that all need to be configured. Multi-week onboarding timelines are not unusual. Walled Garden guarantees you'll be live and running ads within 7 days. Most users launch their first campaign within a few days of signing up.
Walled Garden uses AI and machine learning to continuously optimize campaigns — testing ad copy variations and placements, identifying winners, and shifting budget toward the highest-performing combinations automatically. You're not guessing which headline works or manually adjusting placements. With Lofty, optimization is handled by their ads team on their schedule — you're relying on a human analyst and have no visibility into or control over that process.
Walled Garden includes an AI-powered creative studio that generates ad images, copy, and video content tailored to real estate. Need a new listing ad with professional creative? The AI studio handles it in minutes, not hours of back-and-forth with an analyst.
Walled Garden offers a 60-day money-back guarantee across all plans. If the platform doesn't work for you, you get your money back. No questions, no runaround. Lofty users have reported difficulty with billing flexibility and cancellation, and annual contracts are the norm.
Subscription + management fees before a dollar reaches Facebook
Monthly fee savings: ~$398/mo (~$4,776/yr) — plus full control of your campaigns
To be fair, Lofty offers capabilities Walled Garden intentionally does not:
If you need all of those in one system and the budget supports it, Lofty may be worth considering. If your primary need is running effective social media ads, Walled Garden gets you there faster, cheaper, and with full control.
5,000+ real estate professionals have made the switch since 2020. Launch a campaign in days, not weeks — for a fraction of the price.
Month-to-month • 60-day money-back guarantee • No minimum ad budget
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