Empire Flippers pricing, read firsthand August 2026

Empire Flippers fees: commission rates, the $10,000 minimum, and what selling actually costs

Empire Flippers charges sellers no listing fee at all. The entire cost is a commission taken at close, and it runs on four tiers: a flat $10,000 on any sale up to $66,666.66, a flat 15% from there to $700,000, 8% on the value between $700,000 and $5M, and 2.5% on anything above $5M. Buyers pay no published fee. Those figures were read on Empire Flippers' own seller FAQ in August 2026.

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The tier everyone misses is the first one. Because the bottom band is a flat $10,000 rather than a percentage, the effective rate on a small sale is enormous: a business that sells for $20,000 pays $10,000, which is 50% of the sale price, and a $30,000 sale pays 33%. The flat fee and the 15% rate meet exactly at $66,666.66, which is clearly deliberate, but below that point the percentage climbs fast as the sale price falls. The table on this page works the arithmetic out at twelve sale prices so you can see your own number instead of a rate card. Buyouts is a competing marketplace and our own fees sit in the comparison table too, including where Empire Flippers is the cheaper choice.

There is no listing fee, so the only number that matters is the commission. Below $66,666.66 that commission is a flat $10,000, which on a small sale is a far higher percentage than the headline 15%.

Every tier, worked out in dollars

What Empire Flippers actually costs at twelve sale prices

The published commission tiers applied to real sale prices, with the effective percentage and what reaches the seller. The effective rate is the number to budget from, not the tier you fall into.

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Sale price	Tier that applies	Commission	Effective rate	Seller receives
$20,000	Flat $10,000 band	$10,000	50.0%	$10,000
$30,000	Flat $10,000 band	$10,000	33.3%	$20,000
$50,000	Flat $10,000 band	$10,000	20.0%	$40,000
$66,667	Crossover point	$10,000	15.0%	$56,667
$100,000	15%	$15,000	15.0%	$85,000
$250,000	15%	$37,500	15.0%	$212,500
$500,000	15%	$75,000	15.0%	$425,000
$700,000	15%	$105,000	15.0%	$595,000
$1,000,000	15% then 8%	$129,000	12.9%	$871,000
$2,000,000	15% then 8%	$209,000	10.5%	$1,791,000
$5,000,000	15% then 8%	$449,000	9.0%	$4,551,000
$10,000,000	15%, 8%, then 2.5%	$574,000	5.7%	$9,426,000

Commission tiers read firsthand on empireflippers.com in August 2026. The tiers above $700,000 are applied here as marginal bands, which matches how Empire Flippers describes them as reductions on the value between each threshold. Empire Flippers publishes no worked example, so confirm the calculation in writing before you sign. Figures exclude legal fees and any wire costs, which are not published.

Side by side

What a $150,000 SaaS sale costs on each platform

A fair look at what each does well. Both are useful. Here is where they differ.

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Feature	Buyouts	Empire Flippers	Flippa
Upfront listing fee	$149, $499 or $1,500 by tier	None. Nothing is charged unless the business sells	$29 to $699 by band and package, non-refundable
Commission at close	5%, 4% or 3% depending on listing tier	$10,000 flat below $66,666.66, then 15% to $700,000	10% across every published band
Total on a $150,000 sale	About $6,499 on the $499 tier at 4%	$22,500 at the 15% tier	About $16,929 with Standard plus Escrow.com at 1.2%
Total on a $30,000 sale	About $1,649 on the $149 tier at 5%	$10,000, the flat minimum, or 33% of the sale	About $3,409 with the Standard package
Cost if it never sells	The listing tier fee only	Nothing. This is their strongest selling point	The full listing fee, non-refundable
Exclusivity required	None. List where you like	Two months requested when you list	None
Payment or escrow rail	Escrow-backed close included	Handled in-house; no separate rate published	FlippaPay from 1% or Escrow.com from 1.2%, billed separately
Migration help	Transfer checklist and escrow milestones	Migration services offered to all sellers	Not included
What the platform verifies	MRR, ARR, growth and churn verified before listing	Vets and packages every listing before it goes live	Vets stated financials above $50,000
Asset focus	AI SaaS only	Content, ecommerce, Amazon FBA, SaaS and apps	Websites, domains, apps, ecommerce and SaaS

Comparison reflects general, publicly understood positioning. Capabilities change, so check each marketplace for the latest. Trademarks belong to their owners.

Why founders and buyers pick Buyouts

One deal room built specifically for AI SaaS

No listing fee is a real advantage

Empire Flippers states plainly that if they cannot sell your business you pay nothing. That removes the single worst outcome on a fee-charging marketplace, which is paying upfront for a listing that expires unsold. If your business is hard to place, or you are unsure it will sell at all, a pure success-fee model shifts that risk onto the platform. This is the honest case for using them.

The $10,000 floor is the catch

Because the bottom tier is a flat $10,000 rather than a percentage, small sales carry an effective rate that no rate card advertises. A $20,000 sale gives up half the price. A $30,000 sale gives up a third. Only at $66,666.66 does the flat fee finally equal 15%. If your SaaS is worth under roughly $70,000, run the dollar figure before you assume a no-listing-fee platform is the cheaper option.

The upper tiers are marginal, not retroactive

The 8% and 2.5% rates apply to the value between each threshold, not to the whole sale price. A $2M sale is not charged 8% of $2M. It is charged 15% on the first $700,000 and 8% on the remaining $1.3M, which totals $209,000, an effective 10.5%. Empire Flippers publishes no worked example of this, so get the arithmetic confirmed in writing before you sign the exclusivity agreement.

Good questions

Empire Flippers vs Buyouts, answered

Empire Flippers charges no listing fee and takes commission only when your business sells. The commission is a flat $10,000 on sales up to $66,666.66, a flat 15% from there to $700,000, 8% on the value between $700,000 and $5M, and 2.5% above $5M. Buyers pay no published fee.

Fifteen percent is the headline rate, and it applies to sales between $66,666.66 and $700,000. Below that the commission is a flat $10,000 regardless of price. Above $700,000 the rate steps down to 8%, then to 2.5% on any value above $5M, applied to each band rather than to the whole sale.

No. Their seller FAQ states there are no listing fees, and that if they cannot sell your business you do not have to pay anything. That is a genuine difference from marketplaces like Flippa, which charge a non-refundable upfront fee whether or not the asset ever sells.

Free to list, not free to sell. There is no upfront cost and no fee if the business never sells, but a completed sale triggers a commission of at least $10,000. Buyers are not charged any published fee, though they must unlock a listing to see the URL and the detailed traffic and earnings reports.

$10,000. Any sale at or below $66,666.66 is charged that flat amount, which means a $20,000 business gives up 50% of its sale price and a $50,000 business gives up 20%. Empire Flippers does not publish a minimum listing price, so the floor effectively sets one for you.

A $100,000 sale falls in the 15% band, so the commission is $15,000 and the seller receives $85,000. There is no listing fee to add and no separate escrow rate published, though legal costs and any wire fees sit outside the commission and are not published on their site.

About $129,000, an effective 12.9%. The first $700,000 is charged at 15%, which is $105,000, and the remaining $300,000 is charged at 8%, which is $24,000. The seller receives roughly $871,000 before legal fees. Confirm this marginal calculation in writing, since Empire Flippers publishes no worked example.

Their published tiers read as a fixed schedule rather than a starting point, and no negotiation policy appears anywhere on their site. On larger deals it is always worth asking, since the difference between tiers is substantial, but treat the published rate as what you will pay unless you get something else in writing.

Yes. Their seller FAQ asks for a two-month exclusivity period when you list a business with them. That means you cannot run a parallel process on another marketplace during those two months, which is worth weighing if speed matters or if you already have a buyer circling.

No buyer fee is published anywhere on their site. Buyers do have to unlock a listing to see the URL, the detailed traffic and earnings reports, and to ask the seller questions. Their buyer FAQ states all sales are final, and that the first wire received secures the purchase.

Their seller FAQ states they offer migration services to all sellers and lists no separate charge for it, so migration appears to be covered by the commission. No migration rate card is published, so if your product has an unusual transfer path, confirm the scope before you list.

It depends entirely on your price. On a $30,000 sale Flippa costs roughly $3,400 against Empire Flippers at $10,000. On a $150,000 sale Flippa costs roughly $16,900 against Empire Flippers at $22,500. Flippa is cheaper at most sizes, but charges you whether or not the asset sells.

Their seller FAQ describes processing taking one to three weeks on average from the sale completing to the seller being paid. That is separate from how long the business takes to sell, which depends on the asset, the price and how quickly a vetted buyer engages with the listing.

Every figure here was read on empireflippers.com in August 2026 and matched an earlier check in July 2026. Empire Flippers publishes its commission tiers openly, which many brokers do not, so the rates are verifiable. Marketplace terms change, so check the source before you commit to a two-month exclusivity.

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Listings, metrics and buyers shown are illustrative product UI · valuation content is educational, not a guaranteed sale price or return · trademarks belong to their owners