For agents: how the process works
Four steps, in this order. Nothing is skipped and nothing is for sale along the way.
- Take the free training. Start the training. It covers how The Cusp works and what we expect of agents who work with people going through a divorce.
- Get the exam password at the end of the training. It is revealed on the last page, so you only get it by finishing the course.
- Pass the free exam. 20 questions, 16 correct to pass, retake as often as you like.
- Receive your pass code and the application link. After you pass, we email you a personal pass code (CUSP-XXXXXX) and the link to the panel application. The application is not available any other way, and we check your pass code against our records and your license against your state regulator.
What passing does and does not mean. Passing qualifies you to apply. It does not guarantee a place on the referral panel. Panel places are limited, are reviewed one at a time, and are never sold or promised. An optional paid badge exists for agents who have passed ($149 a year); it has no effect on panel decisions.
How referrals are paid. If you are introduced to a client and the sale completes, your brokerage pays a referral fee of 30% of the gross commission on the client’s side, valid 24 months, to Compass, the brokerage our founder works under. Nothing is paid up front, and nothing is paid if the sale does not close. The fee is never added to what the client pays.
Questions? Email hello@thecusp.app.
Cusp Certified
The training is free. The exam is free. Passing is free. The badge is $149 a year, and you only decide about it after you have passed.
Every free website has a business model. Most of them won’t tell you what it is, which is how you end up on a directory where the “top-rated” lawyer is simply the one who paid the most that month.
So here is every single way The Cusp earns money, in plain language, including the parts that are awkward to admit.
In this subject 5
What is free, and what is not
In this subject 5
The training is free. The assessment is free. Passing is free. There is no course fee, no membership and nothing to buy before you start. You can take the whole thing, pass it, and pay nothing.
What costs money is the badge and media kit — the emblem, the graphics and the letters DPCC, licensed for your listings, your marketing and your own site. You can say you are Cusp Certified for free once you have passed, as long as you link to thecusp.app and do not use our emblem. $149 a year, and that is the only thing being sold on this page. When you are ready: the certification mark and media kit.
By the time there is anything to buy, you have already done the work and you know whether the material was any good. That is deliberate. A credential that takes your money before you can judge it is selling you the receipt, not the training.
Why a divorce listing is different
A divorce sale is not an ordinary sale with sad people in it. It has a second decision-maker who may not want to sell, a court that can constrain the timing, a lawyer on each side who will read your emails, and a settlement that may turn on the number you produce.
The training covers the parts that actually go wrong:
- Who can sign what, and when.
- What an automatic order does to a listing the day the case is filed.
- How the proceeds get characterised, and why that is decided long before closing.
- Why the appraisal date matters more than the appraisal.
- What you can and cannot say to each spouse once lawyers are involved.
- The point at which you stop being the agent and start being a witness.
What the badge is, and what it is not
It is evidence that you completed a specific piece of training on divorce transactions and passed an assessment on it, on a stated date.
It is not a license. It is not a legal qualification. It is not a designation conferred by any real estate board or association. And it is not a lead source.
There is no public directory of agents on this site, and the badge buys no place on the referral panel. We introduce a certified agent to a person who asks, and we tell them there is a panel when we make the introduction. The Cusp is new, and referrals are not guaranteed. Anyone who tells you a badge will bring you referrals this quarter is selling you something. We would rather you bought the badge knowing that, and were pleasantly surprised later, than the other way round.
How it works
- Take the training. Free, online, at your own pace.
- Pass the assessment. Free. You will know immediately.
- Decide about the badge. $149 a year, and you can do it here: get the certification mark. It gets you the badge and emblem, the media kit with its link back to us, and the right to use the letters DPCC. Passing alone already lets you say you are Cusp Certified (with a link to thecusp.app, and without our emblem), and a place on the referral panel is free, never sold, and not guaranteed by passing.
- It renews annually, and it carries the date it was issued — like everything else on this site.
To ask for access to the training, write to hello@thecusp.app and it will come back the same day. Nothing is charged at that point — the training and the assessment are free, and the badge is only worth buying once you have passed and decided it is.
The part most credentials leave out
We check things and publish the date we checked them. Every filing fee on this site is traced to the court’s own schedule. Every professional listing is checked against the state register, and the date of that check is printed on the listing.
The badge is held to the same standard. If a certified agent’s real estate license lapses, the badge goes.
That is more friction than most credentials carry. It is also the only reason a credential is worth anything — a badge nobody can lose is a badge nobody should trust. If your license is current, you will never notice. If it is not, you would rather find out from us than from a client.
The Cusp LLC, 16 Railroad Place #1035, Westport, CT 06880. Questions: hello@thecusp.app. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date.