Building a website from scratch until it brings in revenue can be tedious. However, buying an established website can enable you to start earning from it immediately. Still, you can sell your website to someone else who doesn’t want to build theirs from scratch.
Buying and selling websites is just a business like others. It’s similar to buying and selling cars, properties, and other commodities. There are marketplaces for buying and selling websites with established and specialty brokers. Their role is to vet parties, establish the market value and ensure secure transactions.
So then, here are the top 20 places to buy and sell websites.
BizBroker24.com: The broker buys and sells websites with high valuations. Buyers choose websites with valuations between $150,000 and $20 million, while sellers have access to 15,000+ pre-qualified investors and buyers. The company is known for selling most e-businesses online.
BuySellEmpire: The website broker has more than 10,000 buyers and sellers as well as a 93% deal closing rate. You can sell any online business type, including eCommerce stores, content sites, Amazon FBA businesses, and SaaS tools. BuySellEmpire charges a commission ranging between 4% and 10% when your website is sold.
Digital Acquisitions: Since 2010, the broker has helped entrepreneurs successfully buy and sell websites. Buyers of the premium websites on its listing are assured of quick ROI. On the other hand, sellers are guaranteed high profit because the platform employs advanced technologies, innovative marketing strategies, and great customer support during the process.
Digital Exits: The broker processes the website sale and purchase transactions confidentially. It also sells its customers’ websites at the highest possible value by first giving them maximum valuation during appraisal and creating the best marketing strategy in order to get the highest bidder. The broker accepts websites with $100,000 to $2 million yearly profits.
Digital Point Forum: The platform lists any website type and has a separate forum for domain names. It does not charge a commission to list, buy or sell a website.
Empire Flippers: The website broker was founded with the goal of removing the barrier to buying and selling websites. It focuses on websites with valuations between $5,000 and $62,000 and sells them in less than 3 months. It starts the website listing process by vetting sellers and evaluating the site’s earnings and traffic history. Your website must have a minimum of $1,000 monthly profit in addition to 12 months’ revenue.
Exchange: This is Shopify’s marketplace where you can buy or sell eCommerce businesses. Sellers have an option of private or public listings. You will get a valuation when you click on the “Sell your business” icon and proceed to create your listing. Additionally, you can set your own price or use the suggested one. Each listing has its revenue and traffic data directly pulled from its Shopify account. The common search business types are partner stores, dropshipping, and staff picks. The seller receives payment throw escrow when Exchange transfers the store to the buyer.
FE international: The platform offers merger and acquisition advisory services for eCommerce, SaaS, and content businesses. The business must have sales ranging between $50,000 and $5,000,000. FE International helps entrepreneurs start and complete transactions such as due diligence, strategic negotiations, valuation analysis, legal structuring, acquisition accounting, exit planning, post-sale considerations, etc.
Flippa: This is a marketplace for online businesses with more than 120,000 registered buyers. The platform has facilitated over 250,000 transactions. You can search for domains, apps, websites, SaaS, digital content, eCommerce businesses, services, marketplaces, or more according to their age, price, and category. First-time buyers get concierge service, in-depth due diligence services, and access to third-party financing services and brokers.
Founders Advisors: This is a website broker for middle-market company websites with an income of over $2 million per annum. The broker focuses on large deals through strategic transactions. Founders Advisors is interested in software, digital media, healthcare, oil, and gas industries.
Freemarket: This is a marketplace for smaller, less-established sites. It’s a good option for smaller deals, different types of websites, and standalone domain names. Freemarket doesn’t charge when you submit a basic listing, but you will pay $30 to feature your listing and $35 to make it private. The platform charges a flat 5% commission when your listing sells.
Latona’s: The boutique mergers and acquisition broker trades established web properties with positive cash flow. The company began as a domain name broker before transitioning to eCommerce sites, membership, domain portfolios, lead generation, and SaaS. A property must meet the following conditions before listing on the site. They include; it must be one year old and has an annual profit of $20,000 and above.
MicroAcquire: Platform connects buyers and sellers anonymously. However, you will connect with the potential buyer to finalize the transaction. The marketplace targets startups and SaaS with below $500,000 ARR. Although the marketplace is limiting compared to Empire Flippers and Flippa, MicroAcquire gives you exactly what you want. Listing on this platform is free for both buyers and sellers. However, buyers who wish to have early access to deals can upgrade to MicroAcquire Premium, starting at $290 per annum.
Motion Invest: Buyers can list their websites on the marketplace, or the Motion Invest team can buy them directly from customers, eliminating commissions and giving you the money immediately. The platform doesn’t list specific criteria but deals mainly with content sites monetized with affiliate offers. Although there are no listing fees, the platform charges 20% when you sell a site below $20,000 and 15% for sales above that.
QuietLight brokerage: The platform sells high-value websites and has sold over 600 websites so far. The website broker helps every seller to build a unique marketing strategy. Its experienced team of website buyers and sellers is efficient in buying and selling these digital products.
Sedo: The full name of this platform is Search Engine for Domain Offers. It’s a site for the professional trading of domain names. It’s a searchable marketplace with more than 19 million domains listed on it as well as other services such as full-service marketing, value appraisals, and domain parking. Sedo charges a commission based on the type of sale ranging between 10-15% of the closing price.
SideProjectors: The marketplace focuses on side projects like eCommerce businesses, blogs, developer projects, and SaaS products. Thus sellers can list side projects that they’re no longer working on and wish to sell them. The platform doesn’t charge to list on its site or take a commission on sales. Additionally, users can post their ongoing projects on the site to showcase their skills, get feedback and find collaborators without any charges.
Transfersolt: This is a curated marketplace where founders of profitable side projects sell their products to an already established community of trusted buyers. A founder begins by applying for consideration on the platform. The site reviews it, and once approved, the design team prepares promotional materials to market the project to the community. Further, the site exposes the project to the top 5 select buyers for 5 days. These are companies or individuals with a positive track record for purchasing digital products in that niche. The project is listed publicly if none of the select buyers show interest.
Website Properties: Its founders have sold 50+ internet-based businesses in the past 20 years and have more than 25,000 clients who trade websites with valuations between $100,000 and $25,000,000. It has a tiered commission starting at 6%. The broker has an 85% success rate.
Wesellyoursite.com: The broker has been selling websites since 2006 through simple sales and purchase structures. The company deals with premium websites with valuations between $100,000 and $5 million and in different niches.
Tips for Buying and Selling Websites Online
Buyers
- Avoid mistakes by doing your due diligence. You can also work with established marketplaces that do thorough diligence on behalf of buyers.
- You should understand what type of buyer you are. Are you a website flipper, buying to instantly improve your earnings using your existing resources or diversifying your portfolio?
- Focus on SEO to avoid websites that engage in funny business, such as private blog networks (PBN). Manipulating search engine rankings can become a disaster when Google catches you.
Sellers
- Get multiple valuations since most brokers offer free valuations.
- Paying a commission motivates the broker to get you a higher close price.
- Keep your data ready, such as proof of revenue.
- Most established marketplaces prefer to keep the deal private to avoid lots of competitors popping up.
- Have existing systems in place because a buyer might pop up anytime.
