LionDesk alternatives (2026).
LionDesk is gone. The official replacement is widely reviewed as a downgrade. Here's where its 165,000+ agents are actually landing.
Disclosure:Aveliox is our product and it's recommended below. We've also listed the alternatives that beat us for specific situations — including the cheapest credible option, which isn't us.
What happened — and why the official path stings
In September 2025, Lone Wolf Technologies shut down LionDesk, the budget-friendly CRM it had acquired in 2021. Over 165,000 agents got migration notices. The official path was Lone Wolf Relationships: $25–50/mo, plus an $11/mo texting add-on, plus an $80 setup fee— to move to a product that user reviews have broadly described as a downgrade. The texting and video-texting workflows that made LionDesk beloved didn't survive the move intact, and paying a setup fee to receive fewer features than you had is a uniquely frustrating way to spend $80.
Months later, many former LionDesk users are still parked in a CRM they didn't choose, with broken follow-up workflows and a database they haven't fully re-activated. If that's you, two things are true: your contacts are still portable, and this is actually a rare chance to upgrade rather than sideways-grade. Here are the honest options.
Where to land.
Aveliox — the upgrade path
Our product — see disclosure above.
LionDesk was loved for doing a lot for a little money. Aveliox is built on the same instinct, taken further: everything on every tier — full CRM, power dialer with AI call summaries, email automations and drips, an AI marketing studio that designs your listing posts, transaction management with e-signature, printed postcards, reputation management and buyer portals — from $149/mo flat. And the shutdown-proofing LionDesk users now know to demand: no contract, no setup fee, export your data any day, free white-glove migration in.
Why ex-LionDesk agents pick it
- Replaces LionDesk plus the 3–4 tools you ran beside it, at one flat price
- No setup fee and no contract — the opposite of the Lone Wolf path
- Free white-glove migration: send us your CSV, we rebuild your follow-up for you
- AI does the follow-up drafting LionDesk made you write yourself
Honest trade-offs
- $149/mo is a real step up from LionDesk's old ~$25–39 pricing — if budget rules, see Wise Agent below
- LionDesk's signature video texting isn't what we lead with — our strengths are the dialer, email automation, AI content and pipeline
- Newer company than the legacy names on this list
Pricing: Minimum $149/mo · Pro $399/mo · Elite $599/mo · Team $299/seat/mo · Brokerage $199/seat/mo.
Wise Agent — the budget successor
The closest match to LionDesk's original spirit: cheap, simple, month-to-month. At $49/mo flatwith no setup fee, it's the honest pick if price was the whole reason you ran LionDesk.
Strengths
- Cheapest credible CRM in real estate — $49/mo flat
- Friendly support, simple to learn
- Solid transaction checklists for the price
Trade-offs
- No dialer, no IDX website, no AI — it's a contact manager, not a platform
- Dated interface
- You'll assemble the rest of your stack from other vendors
Pricing: $49/mo flat. Contract: Month-to-month.
Follow Up Boss — the team-grade core
If the LionDesk shutdown is your moment to go team-grade, FUB is the polished CRM core — with two eyes-open caveats: it's owned by Zillow (whose Nov 2025 privacy-policy update covers "mutual customer" data), and it's a core, not a platform — website, transactions and marketing tools are all extra.
Pricing: Grow: $58–69/user/mo (power dialer is a +$33/user add-on). Best for: Teams that live on Zillow leads and want a best-of-breed CRM core they extend with other tools. Full breakdown in our head-to-head.
Real Geeks — if you also need a website
LionDesk never gave you a lead-generating website; Real Geeks' whole pitch is the proven IDX site + CRM combo from $299/mo. Mind the $250 setup fee and 6–12 month commitment — exactly the kind of terms shutdown survivors should weigh carefully.
Pricing: $299 / $599 / $999 / $1,599 per month by tier. Setup: $250. Contract: 6–12 month commitment.
Rebuilding the follow-up volume you lost
LionDesk's real value was never any single feature — it was volume: cheap, systematic touches going out every day without you thinking about it. That's the thing the shutdown actually broke, and it's the thing to rebuild first, whatever you choose. A practical replacement plan looks like this:
- Speed-to-lead: every new inquiry gets an immediate, automated first touch and lands on a call list. In Aveliox, AI follow-up answers and qualifies new leads while the power dialer queues your callbacks by priority.
- Drip nurture:your 30/60/90-day and long-term buckets each get an email sequence that actually fires. Rebuild these before redirecting lead sources, so there's never a gap.
- The unforgettable touches: birthdays, home anniversaries, past-client check-ins — the ones LionDesk users set up once in 2021 and forgot were quietly working. Aveliox runs these as lifecycle automations, and adds a channel LionDesk never had: real printed postcards, designed and mailed for you.
- Staying visible: the AI marketing studio turns your listings into designed social posts on a schedule you approve — the top-of-funnel presence most solo agents never find time to do manually.
Notice what that plan doesn't depend on: any single channel. The agents who came out of the shutdown strongest weren't the ones who found a feature-for-feature LionDesk clone — they were the ones who rebuilt the systemof touches on a platform that won't strand them again.
Moving your LionDesk database (even now)
- Locate your export
If you exported from LionDesk before shutdown, that CSV is gold — find it. If you were auto-migrated to Lone Wolf Relationships, export your contacts from there (Settings → Export). Either way you end up with a CSV of contacts, tags and notes.
- Clean it once, properly
A forced migration is the best excuse you'll ever get to de-dupe, fix phone/email formatting and archive dead leads. Twenty minutes in a spreadsheet now saves months of automation noise later.
- Import and rebuild your follow-up
Import the CSV into the new CRM, then rebuild your drip campaigns before pointing lead sources at it. On Aveliox, send us the file instead — white-glove migration rebuilds your sequences for you, free, on every plan.
- Re-point your lead sources & verify
Update Zillow/realtor.com forwarding, website forms and ad webhooks to the new CRM. Send a test lead through each source, confirm it routes and triggers follow-up, and keep your CSV as a permanent off-site backup. That backup habit is the real lesson of September 2025.
Life after LionDesk, answered.
What happened to LionDesk?
Lone Wolf Technologies, which acquired LionDesk in 2021, shut the product down in September 2025. More than 165,000 agents were told to migrate, with Lone Wolf Relationships ($25–50/mo plus an $11/mo texting add-on and an $80 setup fee) offered as the official replacement.
Is Lone Wolf Relationships a good LionDesk replacement?
User reviews have been broadly negative — it's widely described as a downgrade. The texting and video-texting workflows that made LionDesk popular didn't survive the transition intact, texting costs extra ($11/mo on top of the subscription), and there's an $80 setup fee to move to a product with fewer of the features you had.
Can I still get my data out of LionDesk?
If you exported before shutdown, you have a CSV and you're fine — every CRM on this page imports it. If you migrated to Lone Wolf Relationships, you can export your contacts from there and move anywhere. Your database was never locked in; don't let the shutdown convince you otherwise.
What's the cheapest LionDesk alternative?
Wise Agent at $49/mo flat is the closest thing to LionDesk's budget-friendly spirit — simple, cheap, month-to-month. Just know it's a contact manager: no dialer, no IDX, no AI. If you want a platform that replaces several tools, Aveliox starts at $149/mo with everything included.
Why should a former LionDesk user consider Aveliox?
Because the lesson of the shutdown is commitment risk. Aveliox has no contract and no setup fee, your data is exportable any day, and migration in is free and done for you. You also get far more than LionDesk offered — power dialer, email automations, AI marketing studio, transaction management, e-signature and printed postcards on every tier.
Will another CRM just shut down on me too?
It can happen anywhere — LionDesk users learned that the hard way. The protection isn't picking a 'too big to fail' vendor (LionDesk's owner is one of the biggest in real estate software); it's refusing lock-in: no annual contracts, no proprietary data formats, regular CSV exports of your own database. Judge every CRM on this page — including ours — by how easy it makes leaving.
Land somewhere that can't hold you hostage.
No contract, no setup fee, free migration in — and your data exports out any day you want it. That's the deal.