Zillow turned network effects into profit by keeping the consumer side free and charging the professional side, agents and landlords, for leads. After buying Trulia in February 2015, it folded the brand into Zillow Group. In 2025 Zillow reported revenue of $2.6 billion, up 16%, GAAP net income of $23 million and 221 million average monthly unique users in Q4.
Key takeaways
- Trulia sold to Zillow in a deal valued at $3.5 billion, completed in February 2015. It's now one of Zillow Group's brands.
- 2025: revenue $2.6 billion (up 16%), GAAP net income $23 million, Q4 average monthly unique users 221 million (up 8%).
- Q4 2025 rentals revenue jumped 45% to $168 million, driven by multifamily (up 63%).
- Network effects build the audience. Patient monetization of the professional side turns it into profit.
In 2004 Pete Flint was a fresh Stanford graduate who'd just arrived in Silicon Valley. He needed somewhere to live. He assumed someone had already built a good online tool to search for homes.
Nobody had.
Sitting at the back of a real estate conference in San Francisco, it hit him. This industry was still spending billions on offline advertising. What if agents could showcase properties online, and buyers could search them the way he'd wanted to?
That idea became Trulia. It's the story I opened Chapter 6 of The Subscription Playbook with, because it shows network effects better than almost any other.
The numbers: Trulia then, Zillow now
| When | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Pete Flint and Sami Inkinen found Trulia | The Subscription Playbook |
| Feb 2015 | Zillow completes the Trulia acquisition (deal valued at $3.5 billion) | Zillow; The Subscription Playbook |
| 2025 | Revenue $2.6 billion, up 16% | Zillow FY2025 results |
| 2025 | GAAP net income $23 million, meeting a 2025 target | Zillow FY2025 results |
| Q4 2025 | Revenue $654 million, up 18% | Zillow FY2025 results |
| Q4 2025 | 221 million average monthly unique users (up 8%); 2.1 billion visits | Zillow FY2025 results |
| Q4 2025 | Rentals revenue up 45% to $168 million; multifamily up 63% | Zillow FY2025 results |
How did Trulia solve the chicken-and-egg problem?
Pete had a pair of problems. How do you attract listings without an audience? And how do you attract an audience without listings?
His answer: start with supply.
The Trulia team asked brokers for their listing data feeds. Most didn't have one. So the team built a search engine just for real estate, where agents could index their listings. The agents got something straight away: traffic to their own websites.
It was slow, manual work. But as more agents indexed listings, more buyers came. More buyers meant more inquiries for the agents. More inquiries brought more agents. And so on.
That's the marketplace network effect, one of the six network effects in the book. Each side makes the platform more valuable for the other.
Supply first
In the book I said one side of the chicken-and-egg problem is usually harder to solve, and that tells you where to start. For Trulia it was listings. Agents could get value (traffic) before there were many buyers. Buyers couldn't get value before there were listings.
What did Zillow do with it?
It treated the brand as less important than the network.
After the February 2015 deal, Zillow folded Trulia into Zillow Group. Today Trulia appears as one of the group's brands. The audience, the listings and the agent relationships became part of one larger network.
Then Zillow did the patient part: monetization.
- Consumers stay free. Searching, browsing, saving homes. No charge.
- Professionals pay. Agents pay for buyer leads. Landlords and property managers pay to reach renters. That's the advertising model from the five pricing models in Chapter 3, aimed at the side that earns money from the audience.
- It expands into the next job. Think of it as the "home journey": rent, then buy, then finance, then move. Rentals revenue grew 45% to $168 million in Q4 2025.
The result: $2.6 billion of revenue in 2025 and a GAAP net income of $23 million, a profit Zillow had set as a target.
Which network effects could you build?
Find out which of the six network effects fit your business, and where to start, with the free Network Effects Scorecard.
Why did it work?
Because network effects compound and audiences are hard to copy.
In the MOATS framework, this is A for Audience at full strength. Zillow is the first place many US buyers and renters look: 221 million average monthly unique users in Q4 2025. A rival can build a nicer search tool. It can't easily build that audience, and without the audience, agents and landlords won't pay.
There's a data network effect too. More users and listings mean better estimates, better recommendations and better leads, which make the product better for the next user.
Where this goes wrong
Two-sided networks are slow to start and fragile until both sides are active. And once they work, the two sides may try to deal directly and cut you out. That's disintermediation, the problem that sank HomeJoy. Read why HomeJoy's collapse explains why marketplaces add software.
What the book said in 2022
I told the Trulia story as the perfect example of network effects as "the secret weapon," and of solving the chicken-and-egg problem by building supply first. I said the business "grew to such a size that Pete was able to sell it to Zillow in a transaction valued at $3.5 billion."
What's happened since
The Trulia name matters less. The network matters more.
Zillow has turned the combined audience into a profitable business: revenue of $2.6 billion in 2025, up 16%, GAAP net income of $23 million and a rentals business growing fast. It earns mostly from professionals, not consumers.
What you can steal from Zillow and Trulia
- Keep the consumer side free, charge the professionals. In a two-sided business, charge the side that makes money from the other side's attention.
- Start with the harder side. Give it value before the other side shows up, as Trulia did by sending agents traffic.
- Start local. A directory of tradespeople for one suburb, a booking platform for one type of clinic, a referral network for one industry. Prove it small, then expand.
- Expand into the next job your audience needs done. Rent, buy, finance, move. For a small business: first job, maintenance plan, upgrade, referral. That's land and expand for a network.
- Measure monthly unique users like a subscription metric. Your audience is the asset. Track it every month.
Worked example: a local trades directory
A directory lists plumbers, electricians and builders in one region, free for homeowners. Once it has 5,000 homeowner visits a month, it charges featured listings at $99 a month. If 40 trades sign up, that's $3,960 a month, or about $47,500 a year, from a network homeowners use for free. (Illustrative numbers.)
Your next step
Ask yourself: is there a group of professionals who'd pay to reach my customers, or a group of customers who'd pay to reach my professionals?
If so, you may have the start of a network. Score it with the Network Effects Scorecard. If you run a real estate or property management business, see subscription models for real estate for the recurring-revenue side of the same industry, and why (as I explained in the case for recurring revenue) buyers of an agency look at the rent book first.
Frequently asked questions
How much did Zillow pay for Trulia?
The deal was valued at $3.5 billion, the figure I used in The Subscription Playbook. Zillow completed the acquisition in February 2015, according to Zillow's own company history. Trulia now appears as one of Zillow Group's brands rather than as a separate company.
How does Zillow make money?
Mostly by charging professionals for access to its audience. Agents pay for buyer leads, and landlords and property managers pay to reach renters. Consumers search for free. Zillow has also expanded into rentals (where Q4 2025 revenue grew 45% to $168 million) and other steps in the home-buying and renting journey.
Is Zillow profitable?
Zillow reported GAAP net income of $23 million for full-year 2025, a positive result it had set as a 2025 target. Revenue was $2.6 billion, up 16%. Q4 2025 revenue alone was $654 million, up 18%, according to its 10 February 2026 results.
What type of network effect does Zillow have?
Mainly a marketplace network effect: more listings attract more buyers and renters, and more of them attract more agents and landlords. It also has a data network effect, because more activity improves its listings, estimates and recommendations. Those are two of the six network effects in the book.
Can a small business use marketplace network effects?
Yes, if it starts small. Trulia didn't launch nationwide; it worked directly with agents to build the supply side first. A local business can do the same with a directory, a referral network or a booking platform for one suburb or one trade, then expand once both sides are active.
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Robert Coorey, MBA
Robert is the author of The Subscription Playbook and Feed a Starving Crowd and a Director at BPAG Accountants in Sydney. More about Robert.
Sources
- Zillow Group, fourth quarter and full-year 2025 financial results (10 Feb 2026)
- Zillow, Our Brands and Businesses (Trulia acquisition, Feb 2015)
Facts and prices checked 27 October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.