---
title: "The 33 Touch Plan, Updated for 2026 (Free Calendar)"
description: "The 33 Touch plan from The Millionaire Real Estate Agent gives every contact 33 touches a year, mostly mail. A tiered plan (about 25 touches for advocates, 12 for past clients, 6 for the wider sphere) costs less and gives referrers more real conversations."
canonical: https://getdex.com/blog/33-touch-plan/
source: https://getdex.com/llms.txt
---

# The 33 Touch Plan, Updated for 2026 (Free Calendar)

_By Kevin Sun_

**Tags:** Networking, Personal CRM

The 33 Touch plan has been passed around real estate offices for twenty years. The idea is simple: touch everyone you know 33 times a year, and nobody forgets who their agent is.

The idea still holds up. The details have aged. The original was built mostly on mail at a time when a stamp cost 37 cents, and it gave a casual acquaintance the same 33 touches as the friend who sends you three deals a year. In 2026 that's expensive, it's slow, and it spends your best attention on the people least likely to use it.

This guide covers what the original plan said, what changed, and a tiered version you can run with a normal week. The free calendar is at the bottom.

**Fast facts:**

- The 33 Touch comes from The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller with Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan, first published in 2004.
- Keller Williams' own training broke it down as 14 mailings, 8 thank-you and thinking-of-you cards, 3 phone calls, 4 personal cards and 4 holiday cards.
- A Forever stamp went to 82 cents on July 12, 2026.
- Running a flat 33 Touch on 300 contacts means 9,900 touches a year, about 40 every working day.
- The median seller now stays in a home 11 years (NAR 2025), so at 33 a year you'd send about 363 touches before they sell again.

![kanbanboard](https://images.ctfassets.net/u17em9tc1vdb/2zv6xORcpqAadYEjTjmZoH/13361f15f45e6f9c852f56372cfc4ce0/CleanShot_2026-08-26_at_22.00.44.png)

Image: Setting keep-in-touch frequencies on a kanban-style board in Dex

## What the original 33 Touch plan said

In The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, Keller splits your database into people you've met ("Mets") and people you haven't. Haven't-mets get a 12 Direct mail campaign. New mets get the 8x8: eight touches in eight weeks, alternating notes, items of value and phone calls, to cement the relationship. After that, everyone moves to the 33 Touch to keep it going. KW's slide summed up the philosophy as "Overkill, over time."

A 2015 Keller Williams instructor guide for the course "8 x 8 + 33 Touch = Magic!", which cites MREA page 147, gives this example breakdown:

| Touch type | Per year |
| --- | --- |
| Mailings (letters, cards, emails, drop-offs) | 14 |
| Thank-you and thinking-of-you cards | 8 |
| Personal cards (birthday, anniversary, Mother's Day, Father's Day) | 4 |
| Holiday cards | 4 |
| Phone calls | 3 |
| **Total** | **33** |

Two things stand out. First, 30 of the 33 are things you send. Only 3 are conversations. Second, even KW didn't treat 33 as sacred. The same guide shows a "work smart" version of 12 monthly newsletters, 6 calls and a birthday card, and notes that it doesn't add up to 33. It also tells agents to treat their Inner Circle (the people who actually refer business) differently: talk to them once a month, offer help, send something personal, text them.

So the source was already tiered. Most of the "33 touch plan" content online since then has flattened it into one schedule for everyone.

## What changed since 2004

### Mail got expensive

A first-class stamp was 37 cents when the book came out. It's 82 cents now, and a postcard stamp is 65 cents. If 20 of your 33 touches go by mail, postage alone is $16.40 per contact per year. For 300 contacts that's $4,920, before cards, printing or your time.

### Texting became the default

In 2004 a phone call was the personal touch and a letter was the polite one. Now most clients would rather get a two-line text than a call, and a text is the touch they answer.

### People stay put longer

NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers put median seller tenure at 11 years, an all-time high. A plan has to survive a decade. Thirty-three generic touches a year for eleven years is 363 messages, and by year three most people stop reading them.

### Repeat and referral business is still the prize

In the same NAR report, 66% of sellers used an agent they'd worked with before (28%) or one who was referred to them (38%). That part hasn't changed. Staying in touch still pays. The question is how.

## Why 33 identical touches stop working

### It spends the most on the people who give the least back

A flat plan sends your top referrer the same newsletter as someone you met once at an open house. Referrals in most agents' businesses come from a small group of people. Those people deserve conversations more than a 34th postcard.

### Generic touches teach people to ignore you

The fourteenth market update of the year doesn't feel like a touch. It feels like mail. Each irrelevant message makes the next one easier to skip, including the one that matters.

### Nobody can keep it up

9,900 touches a year is 40 every working day. Agents start strong in January and drop it by spring, and then the database gets nothing. A plan you'll follow beats a better plan you won't.

## The 2026 version: a three-tier plan

Keep the core idea, which is frequent, planned contact all year, and give each tier its own cadence.

| Tier | Who | Rough share | Touches a year | Mix |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A: Advocates | People who have referred you, or clearly would | about 10% | about 25 | Monthly text or call, 4 in-person (coffee, event, pop-by), birthday and close anniversary, 3 handwritten or holiday cards, quarterly email |
| B: Past clients and warm sphere | Clients you've closed with, friends who know what you do | about 30% | about 12 | Birthday and close anniversary, 4 seasonal texts that fit them, 1 call, 1 mailed card, quarterly email |
| C: Wider sphere | Acquaintances, old colleagues, parents from school | about 60% | about 6 | Quarterly email, 1 holiday card, 1 personal check-in |

Treat those shares as a starting point; they don't come from research. Sort your own database by who has sent you business and adjust.

New relationships still get a short burst first. KW's 8x8 logic works fine with texts and coffees in place of drop-offs. When the burst ends, put the person in a tier.

## Flat 33 vs tiered, on 300 contacts

Here's the same 300-person database run both ways. Assumptions: 20 of the flat plan's 33 touches go by mail; in the tiered plan, A gets 4 mailed pieces, B gets 2, C gets 1. Postage at 82 cents.

|  | Flat 33 Touch | Three-tier plan |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Total touches a year | 9,900 | 2,910 |
| Touches per working day | about 40 | about 12 |
| Postage a year | $4,920 | $394 |
| Conversations a year with your top 30 contacts | 90 (3 calls each) | 480 (12 texts or calls and 4 meetups each) |

The tiered plan does less than a third of the work, costs less than a tenth in postage, and gives your best 30 people more than five times as many real conversations. That last row is the one that pays.

## Moving people between tiers

Tiers aren't permanent. Review them once a quarter.

Promote anyone who sends a referral, buys or sells with you, or starts replying more than they used to. One referral is enough to move someone to A.

Demote anyone who hasn't responded to anything personal in a year. They drop to C and keep getting the quarterly email, which costs you nothing.

Life events deserve a temporary bump. A new baby, a promotion, an empty nest or a job in another city often comes before a move, so move that person up a tier for a while and listen closely.

## The free 33 Touch calendar for 2026

Here's how the three tiers play out month by month. Personal dates (birthdays, close anniversaries) sit on top of this for A and B and fall on each person's own date.

B-tier texts are offered most months, but each person only gets the four or so that fit them. A recent buyer gets the homestead text; a family gets the back-to-school one.

[**Download the tiered 33 Touch calendar as a spreadsheet (CSV)**](https://assets.ctfassets.net/u17em9tc1vdb/5P4lfv4BNR3OxnvqrO5N9Q/fd52e39c82f5f8bded146d81792a002e/33-touch-plan-2026-tiered-calendar.csv)

| Month | A: Advocates | B: Past clients and warm sphere | C: Wider sphere |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| January | Text: year-ahead check-in; quarterly email | Text: first tax season reminder (last year's buyers); quarterly email | Quarterly email: last year's local market in five numbers |
| February | Coffee or lunch; text | Text: homestead exemption deadline (recent buyers) | None |
| March | Text: something you saw that reminded you of them | None | None |
| April | Text: spring sales on their street; quarterly email | Text: spring sales on their street; quarterly email | Quarterly email: spring market and a vendor tip |
| May | Handwritten thinking-of-you card; text | Call: ten-minute catch-up | None |
| June | Client event or pop-by; text | Text: storm or AC season (where it fits) | Personal check-in text |
| July | Text: mid-year value check; quarterly email | Quarterly email | Quarterly email: mid-year numbers |
| August | Coffee or lunch; text | Text: back to school (families) | None |
| September | Text: fall vendor recommendation | Text: fall maintenance vendor list | None |
| October | Client event or pop-by; text; quarterly email | Invite to client event; quarterly email | Quarterly email: fall market and event invite |
| November | Handwritten Thanksgiving card; call | Handwritten Thanksgiving card | None |
| December | Holiday card and small gift drop-off; call | Text: year-end, anything planned for next year? | Holiday card |

For copy-paste texts for each of these months, see [how to stay in touch with past clients: a 12-month plan with scripts](https://getdex.com/blog/how-to-stay-in-touch-with-past-clients/).

## Running it in Dex

Full disclosure: [Dex](https://getdex.com/) is our product. It's a personal CRM, and the tier model maps onto it directly.

Make three groups (A, B and C) and give each a [keep-in-touch frequency](https://getdex.com/docs/workflows/keep-in-touch): 30 days for A, 90 for B, 180 for C. Dex resets the clock whenever you text, email or meet someone, so you're only reminded about people you've drifted from. [iMessage sync](https://getdex.com/docs/integrationsandfeatures/syncfeatures/sync-imessage) through the Mac app and [WhatsApp sync](https://getdex.com/docs/integrationsandfeatures/syncfeatures/sync-whatsapp) log your texts, which is what keeps those dates honest.

Close anniversaries get yearly [reminders](https://getdex.com/docs/workflows/reminders) that land in your daily digest and as push notifications. The quarterly emails can go out through [Mail Merge](https://getdex.com/docs/integrationsandfeatures/mail-merge) on the Professional plan: up to 200 contacts per send, from your own Gmail or Outlook, with first names filled in. And Dex flags [LinkedIn job changes](https://getdex.com/product/linkedin/) for your contacts, a good trigger to bump someone up a tier.

![Mail Merge in Dex: one email with first-name variables sent to a whole group](https://images.ctfassets.net/u17em9tc1vdb/5WdxuAyjAKpjrbIUDQePC3/9768d1da807db1da15ce7187bbe3a1f0/dex-mail-merge.png)

Image: Mail Merge in Dex: one email with first-name variables, sent from your own account to a whole group

Dex doesn't print cards, send texts for you or run drip campaigns. You still write the messages. The point is knowing who's due and what to say.

## Who should stick with a flat 33

If you have a small database (under 100 people) and the time, 33 touches for everyone is fine. The cost and time problems shrink with the list. And if you've outsourced your mail program to a service that prints and sends everything, the marginal effort of a flat plan is low. Just keep the conversations, the part a service can't do, for the people who refer.

## FAQ

### What is the 33 Touch plan in real estate?

It's a contact plan from The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller: reach everyone you've met 33 times a year with a mix of mailings, cards and calls, so you stay their agent. Keller Williams' training broke it into 14 mailings, 8 thank-you cards, 4 personal cards, 4 holiday cards and 3 calls.

### Who created the 33 Touch plan?

It comes from The Millionaire Real Estate Agent (2004) by Gary Keller with Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan, and was taught in Keller Williams courses alongside the 8x8 and 12 Direct campaigns.

### Is 33 touches a year too many?

For acquaintances, usually yes. For people who refer you, it's about right, if the touches are personal. A tiered plan gives about 25 touches to advocates, 12 to past clients and 6 to the wider sphere.

### What is the difference between the 8x8 and the 33 Touch?

The 8x8 is eight touches in eight weeks for someone you just met, to establish the relationship. The 33 Touch is the yearly plan that keeps it going afterward.

### How much does a 33 Touch plan cost?

Mostly postage and cards. At the July 2026 stamp price of 82 cents, 20 mailed touches cost $16.40 per contact a year, or $4,920 for 300 contacts, before cards and printing.

### Can I run a 33 Touch plan by text instead of mail?

Yes, and for personal touches you probably should. Keep one or two handwritten cards a year, such as Thanksgiving, because paper stands out when everything else is a screen.

## The bottom line

The 33 Touch got one thing right: you have to stay in touch on purpose, all year, for years. What doesn't hold up in 2026 is giving everyone the same 33. Tier your database, spend conversations on the people who send you business, and keep the rest warm with a light, steady cadence.

Download the calendar, sort your contacts into A, B and C this week, and if you want the reminders handled, [start a 7-day Dex trial](https://getdex.com/pricing/).

---

**Related guides**

- [How to stay in touch with past clients: a 12-month plan (+ scripts)](https://getdex.com/blog/how-to-stay-in-touch-with-past-clients/)
- [How to follow up with past clients (without a boring newsletter)](https://getdex.com/blog/how-to-follow-up-with-past-clients/)
- [Real estate sphere of influence: how to build one and maintain it](https://getdex.com/blog/real-estate-sphere-of-influence/)
- [Referral partners for real estate agents](https://getdex.com/blog/referral-partners-for-real-estate-agents/)
- [Best personal CRM for real estate agents](https://getdex.com/blog/best-personal-crm-for-real-estate-agents/)
- [Dex vs Follow Up Boss](https://getdex.com/blog/dex-vs-follow-up-boss/)
- [The real estate agent's guide to sphere, past clients and referral partners](https://getdex.com/guides/real-estate-networking/)