The two models charge for different things and you're comparing them on price alone.
A fee-based or capped-fee brokerage prices near its marginal cost of carrying a licensee. That cost is mostly compliance overhead, insurance, and a share of the supervising broker's attention. At $3,200 a year, the amount of supervising broker attention you can expect is small, because the math only works at high headcount and low touch. That is a coherent business and it suits a productive agent who already knows how to run a file.
A split brokerage is charging for the difference between what you can do alone and what you can do with support. Whether that difference is worth $16,000 depends entirely on your closing rate and error rate in year one, and you have no data on either yet.
The compliance load is the part worth pricing carefully. Since the NAR settlement, agents have to handle written buyer agreements before showings and be clear about how compensation is disclosed and negotiated, including where offers of compensation now sit outside the MLS. The specific requirements vary by state and by MLS, and they've been moving. A brokerage that has built templates, file review, and training around that is doing work you would otherwise do yourself, badly, at first.
So ask both shops the same four questions. Who reviews my files and how fast. What buyer agreement forms do you provide and who updated them last. How many of your agents closed nothing last year. What happens to my pending files if I leave.
The answer to the third one will tell you more than the fee schedule does.
