Broker FAQ

A Preferred Buyer Program for your firm. Qualified buyers pay you a monthly or annual membership, and in return they see your new listings before the public does, by default 14 days earlier. Prelook runs the sign-up page, the early-access window and the buyer list; the money is paid out to your business bank account.

Go to the Prelook sign-in page, choose Create account, and enter your name, work email and a password. On the next screen enter your firm name. That's your workspace; the Starter plan is free and needs no card.

The Overview page walks you through four: bring your buyers (paste emails or share the sign-up link), put the sign-up link on your website, publish one listing into embargo, and set up payouts. Checkout for buyers stays closed until payouts are set up.

Everything. 25 program seats, the sign-up page and website link, buyer checkout with payouts to your bank account, listing alerts to members, and the HubSpot sync. Larger plans only add seats; see Your Prelook plan below.

Every new listing you publish is visible to active members for the embargo window before it goes public, with full financials. The public sees a teaser without financials until the window closes.

14 days by default. Change the firm-wide default under Firm settings, between 1 and 90 days, and override it per listing when you publish.

You set the price under Firm settings: a monthly amount and an annual amount. The defaults are $99 a month and $990 a year. Buyers choose which when they join. Prelook takes no percentage of it.

Yes. New buyers pay the new price. Buyers already subscribed keep the price they signed up at until they cancel and rejoin.

Anyone with the link. It shows your firm, the window, the price, and your current listings with financials hidden on embargoed ones. Signing in as a member unlocks them.

Listings > New listing. Enter the title, industry, location, asking price, cash flow, revenue and a summary, and set the embargo days for this listing. It goes into embargo the moment you save: members can see it, the public sees a teaser without financials.

When the embargo clock runs out. The Overview page shows every embargoed listing with days remaining.

Yes. Open the listing and change its embargo days, or set its status to Public.

Set its status to Withdrawn. It disappears from the program page and the member portal.

Yes. The moment you publish, every buyer with an active paid membership gets an email with the listing's key numbers, how many days remain before it goes public, and a link to the full listing. Buyers on the free mailing list are not emailed; seeing it first is what the membership buys. The confirmation after you publish tells you how many members were emailed. For a wider announcement, send it from your CRM to the Preferred Buyers list (see CRM integration).

Three ways. They sign up on your program page, either joining the free mailing list or paying for a membership. You invite them under Buyer list by pasting emails, and Prelook sends each one an email in your firm's name with your sign-up link (replies come to you). Or they pay directly from a listing's page.

Yes. On Buyer list, click Upload a spreadsheet and choose a .csv or .xlsx exported from your CRM or Excel. Prelook reads the first sheet, guesses which columns hold email, name (or first and last name) and firm, and shows you a preview so you can correct the columns before anything is sent. Rows without a valid email are skipped, buyers already on your list are left alone, and each new buyer gets your invite email. Up to 500 rows per file.

That your firm is opening a Preferred Buyer Program, what members get (your early-access window, full financials, an email when a listing is published), the price, and a Join link. It's sent by Prelook on behalf of your firm, with replies going to your email. Buyer list shows when each invite went out, and you can resend to anyone who hasn't joined. Up to 500 invites per paste.

A buyer who has joined your program: on the mailing list, paying, or lapsed. Seats are what your Prelook plan counts; Starter has 25. Invited buyers hold no seat until they sign up, and contacts off the program hold none.

You can keep inviting; invites are free. A buyer who signs up for the free mailing list at the cap is kept as a contact without a seat, so you lose no leads, and you can't put more buyers on the program until you upgrade. A buyer who pays is never turned away: a paying member always gets a seat.

On the Buyer list, take someone off the program (they become a contact) or remove them. Removing a paying member doesn't cancel their subscription; ask the buyer to turn off renewal in their portal, or contact Prelook to cancel it.

Yes. Each buyer carries a type (private equity, search fund, individual and so on), industries and geography. Set them on the Buyer list; buyers also fill them in when they sign up.

Buyers pay your firm directly and the money is deposited into your business bank account, usually two business days after each payment. Prelook never holds it and takes no percentage. The card processor's standard fee (2.9% + 30¢ per payment) comes out of your side, the same as any card payment you take. You don't need a Stripe account or a merchant account; payments run on Stripe behind the scenes.

Buyer payments > Set up payouts. A short form asks for your legal business name and EIN, the owner's name and date of birth, and the routing and account number for your business checking. It takes about three minutes. Once the details are verified, Buyer payments shows Ready and checkout opens on your program page. Payout statements and Change bank or business details are on the same page.

On your program page they create an account, pick monthly or annual, and pay on a secure checkout page. The membership is active within seconds and they land in their buyer portal.

Contact Prelook with the buyer's email and the amount; we issue the refund from your balance the same day. A refund doesn't end the membership on its own; say so if you want the subscription cancelled too.

From their portal: Turn off renewal. Access runs to the end of the paid period, then ends. If you need to cancel one yourself, contact Prelook.

The card is retried for a few days. During that time the buyer keeps access and shows as Payment failed in their portal. If every retry fails, the subscription ends and so does their access.

Buyer payments shows paying members and monthly recurring revenue, and Payout statements lists every deposit to your bank. The Buyer list shows each person's status.

CRM & site shows it. It looks like prelook…/b/your-firm/sign-up. Point your site's Sign Up Today or Preferred Buyers button at it.

Yes. CRM & site has a copy-ready iframe snippet that drops a compact sign-up box into any page. It works on WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and plain HTML. Paying still happens on the secure checkout page, not inside the iframe.

Not yet. The program page and sign-up live under Prelook's address. A branded address per firm is planned.

It carries your firm name, tagline and website, set under Firm settings. Logos and colors are planned.

It keeps every buyer current in your HubSpot, one way, Prelook into HubSpot. Each buyer becomes a contact (matched by email, created if missing) with four Prelook fields, and active members are kept on a contact list called Prelook Preferred Buyers. Nothing is pulled out of your CRM.

You need a service key from HubSpot.

1. In HubSpot, open Development, then Keys > Service keys, and click Create service key.
2. Name it Prelook and add these scopes: crm.objects.contacts.read, crm.objects.contacts.write, crm.schemas.contacts.write, crm.lists.read, crm.lists.write.
3. Create the key and copy it.
4. In Prelook, go to CRM & site, paste the key into the HubSpot card and click Connect.

Prelook checks the key, creates the fields and the list in your HubSpot, and pushes every buyer. The card then shows the last push and how many buyers are in HubSpot.

Within seconds of any change: a sign-up, an invite, a payment, a cancellation, a removal. Sync now pushes everyone again if you ever want to be sure.

In HubSpot, create a marketing email and send it to the list Prelook Preferred Buyers. Only buyers with an active paid membership are on it, so lapsed buyers never get the private listing. For a wider note to everyone on your program, filter contacts by Prelook status instead.

Under CRM > Lists (HubSpot sometimes calls them Segments). Search "Prelook" if the menu has moved.

It's stored encrypted and never shown again after you paste it; the card shows only its last four characters. Disconnect deletes it. You can also revoke it from HubSpot at any time.

Coming next, with the same design: a Prelook status field on each person and a Preferred Buyers label. Other CRMs follow based on demand.

Only the seat plan. Buyer memberships are yours.

Every plan is the whole product; only the seat count changes. Annual is ten months. Over 1,000 buyers, contact us for a custom plan.

Plan & billing > Continue to checkout on the plan you want. Payment runs on a secure checkout page. The new seat count applies as soon as the payment goes through. Switching between paid plans is immediate and prorated.

Choose the smaller plan. It takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you keep the larger plan until then. You can't move to a plan smaller than your current seat count.

Plan & billing > Manage card & invoices opens the billing portal for your firm.

Sign-in page > Forgot your password? A reset link arrives by email and works for one hour.

Not yet. One login per firm today; team seats are planned.

Reload the page. It can happen when Prelook updates while you have a tab open; the app now checks for that and reloads itself, so you should rarely see it. If it keeps happening on one page, tell us which one.

Payouts aren't set up yet, or the bank and business details are still being verified. Check Buyer payments.

The key is missing a scope or was copied short. Create a new one with all five scopes listed under CRM integration.

Wait a minute, then reload the Buyer list. If it's still wrong, Buyer payments > Check status, and contact us with the buyer's email.

Reply to any email from Prelook, or contact your Prelook representative.