Bulma vs Mortgage Choice Policy Search 2026

Choose Bulma over Mortgage Choice Policy Search when you want lender policy research and borrowing-power comparisons together. Mortgage Choice Policy Search suits network brokers who prefer researching within Lending Toolkit.

For a broker outside Mortgage Choice, Bulma is the practical choice between these options. It works through a separate subscription, without joining a broker network.

A Policy Tool Choice for Mortgage Choice Brokers

Mortgage Choice calls its internal product the AI-powered Policy Search Tool within Lending Toolkit. This comparison uses Mortgage Choice Policy Search for that tool. Mortgage Choice’s consumer broking and franchise business is a separate subject.

Bulma’s Policy Advisor answers individual lender questions, and Scenario Planner checks a whole client file across 52+ lenders. You get policy fit and borrowing power together, with the policy wording behind each answer.

For an existing Mortgage Choice broker, staying with the network tool can keep policy research inside familiar systems. Choose Bulma when you want its combined research and scenario outputs, quoted evidence and team conversation history in a separate workspace.

The access difference comes first. A brokerage outside the network can subscribe to Bulma directly. Joining a franchise is a wider business decision than choosing a policy tool.

Policy Search, Evidence and Scenario Work

Both tools connect policy questions with lender selection. Mortgage Choice says its tool searches over 5,000 residential policy pages and returns answers linked to source documents. Bulma searches the current policy documents of 52+ lenders across about 50 policy areas.

Page counts and lender counts measure different things. Neither figure proves that the tools cover the same lenders or every rule for a particular file.

A Fictional Client File

Suppose your client is self-employed, has traded for 18 months and has one lodged tax return. They want a $600,000 loan on a $750,000 property. That is an 80% loan-to-value ratio (LVR), before any costs the client must fund separately.

Your first question is which lenders accept that trading history and income evidence. The next is how much each suitable lender allows the client to borrow after expenses and existing debts.

Mortgage Choice’s launch account describes matching several policy requirements to identify suitable lenders, alternatives and unsuitable options. For this file, that supports researching trading history alongside the proposed LVR. It doesn’t establish a particular lender’s answer for this fictional client.

With Bulma, ask Policy Advisor about the trading-history requirement or give Scenario Planner the whole file. Scenario Planner groups lenders by standard policy fit, conditional fit or the need for an exception. Each lender’s result includes borrowing power, conditions and documents to gather.

Bulma calculates borrowing power using each lender’s servicing rules, including expenditure assumptions, assessment buffers and the portion of income the lender accepts. If the client increases their deposit, Scenario Planner updates the lender list and borrowing power. The lender’s assessment sets the final borrowing figure.

These are different research outputs. A lender matching the client’s trading history still needs to accept the verified income and complete its credit assessment. A borrowing-power result also depends on the expenses and debts entered.

Sources and Follow-Up Questions

Mortgage Choice’s source-document links let a broker open the rule behind an answer. Its launch account also describes suggested questions for brokers to ask customers.

Bulma quotes the policy wording in every answer and identifies the lender and policy area. You can copy the answer with its sources into file notes. That helps keep the reason for including or excluding a lender beside the client’s facts.

Bulma keeps context through follow-up questions. For the fictional client, you can ask how another completed tax return changes the options without restating the entire file. An ambiguous question prompts a short clarification.

For difficult files, Bulma shows known exception pathways labelled Documented, Precedented or Reported. Those labels distinguish the support behind a pathway. Confirm an exception with the lender before relying on it, because an exception pathway isn’t written policy.

When choosing software for a particular brokerage, compatibility with its client fields is a separate question from policy coverage. Bulma can load scenarios from a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The network’s Quickli data transfer moves scenario details into Broker Platform.

Network Access and Daily Use

Mortgage Choice’s tool belongs to its network technology. Bulma is separately subscribed software for Australian mortgage brokers. That makes Bulma accessible as a tool purchase while a franchise relationship involves the brokerage’s broader business arrangements.

Bulma bills by plan, with monthly or yearly billing. Solo covers one broker and Team covers up to five members, with extra seats available. Every plan includes Policy Advisor and Scenario Planner with generous usage limits.

Team adds shared conversation history, so a colleague can see the earlier research before taking over a file. The Bulma plan comparison explains the team and Enterprise options. Every plan has a 14-day free trial without a credit card.

For an existing network broker, the cost decision concerns adding another subscription to the technology available under the brokerage’s arrangements. Don’t treat access to an internal tool as proof that the whole network relationship is free.

The broader Mortgage Choice workflow also includes a Quickli integration. Mortgage Choice says brokers retain their Quickli subscriptions for serviceability and can import selected scenario data into Broker Platform. That is a separate integration from Policy Search.

Bulma can load a scenario from your CRM, uploaded payslips or a fact find. It doesn’t connect to lender portals or lodgement platforms. Adding Bulma therefore doesn’t replace the application handoff into those systems.

Using both research tools creates overlapping policy searches. If the client’s income or deposit changes, both sets of research must reflect the new facts. Keep a single current client record and retain the source evidence supporting the lender you recommend.

Choose the Workflow That Fits

Decision	Bulma	Mortgage Choice Policy Search
Access	Separate broker subscription, without a network membership requirement	Within the Mortgage Choice network’s Lending Toolkit
Research output	Quoted lender policy and cross-lender comparisons	Answers with links to source documents
Scenario work	Policy-fit groups with borrowing power, conditions and documents	Published use includes matching several policy requirements to a scenario
Working together	Team includes shared conversation history for up to five members	Research sits within the network’s existing technology
Application boundary	No lender-portal or lodgement-platform connection	Distinguish Policy Search from the network’s separate Quickli and Broker Platform integration

Choose Bulma If

Choose Bulma if you need quick policy answers and full scenario planning in the same conversation. Its quoted evidence supports file notes, while borrowing-power comparisons help you move from an eligible lender list to a workable loan amount.

Bulma also suits a brokerage that wants research outside a network-owned system. No lender, aggregator or broker group owns Bulma.

Choose Mortgage Choice Policy Search If

Existing network brokers can keep source-linked policy research in Lending Toolkit through Mortgage Choice Policy Search. An established network workflow can be enough reason to retain it when your existing systems meet the file’s other needs.

Before advising, retain the policy passage that supports the lender choice, the client facts it applies to and the borrowing-power inputs. Keep any lender confirmation of an exception with that evidence. A matching result is research for your assessment, not loan approval.

For other tools used alongside policy research, see AI tools for mortgage brokers.