Flippa vs Acquire.com

Flippa vs Acquire.com (MicroAcquire) on Fees, Buyer Pool and Which Marketplace Fits a SaaS Business

Flippa vs Acquire.com comes down to an open marketplace against a curated one. Flippa is self-serve and sells every kind of online asset, charging a non-refundable upfront listing fee plus 10% when the deal closes. Acquire.com is built around startups and software, charges a small monthly fee while the listing is live, takes 6% to 8% on close, and puts founder contact behind a paid buyer membership.

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Verified metrics · published multiples · vetted buyers · escrow-backed closes

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Verified MRR / ARR Published multiples Vetted, capital-qualified buyers Escrow-backed closes AI-SaaS-native

For a recurring-revenue software business, Acquire.com is the closer fit of the two, and it is worth saying that plainly: its listings are mostly bootstrapped SaaS, its metrics sync from the founder's own stack, and its buyers arrived looking for software rather than for a domain or a content site. Flippa wins on reach and on speed to publish, with a far larger audience and assets at every price point, but that reach is also why a SaaS listing there sits beside ecommerce stores and parked domains. The gap neither one closes is that verified recurring-revenue metrics remain optional on both: a seller chooses whether to connect a data source. Buyouts is the marketplace built only for AI SaaS, where verified MRR, ARR, growth and churn appear on every listing before it publishes, multiples are published per deal, buyers are capital-qualified, and closes run through escrow. Listings, metrics and buyers shown here are illustrative product UI, and valuation content is educational rather than a guaranteed sale price or return.

Flippa charges an upfront fee plus 10% on close below $500,000 and sells every kind of online asset, Acquire.com charges $25 to $100 a month plus 6% to 8% and curates startups behind a buyer paywall, and Buyouts sits apart from both for AI SaaS with mandatory verified metrics, a 3% to 5% success fee and escrow on every close.

Side by side

Flippa & Acquire.com vs Buyouts, honestly

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

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Feature	Buyouts	Flippa	Acquire.com
What it sells	AI SaaS only, with AI-aware deal tooling	Every online asset: websites, domains, apps, ecommerce, some SaaS	Startups and software, mostly bootstrapped SaaS
Who lists	Founders directly, metrics verified before publish	Anyone who pays, self-serve and published fast	Founders directly, listings reviewed before going live
Cost to list	$79, $249 or $699 a month while listed, by tier	$29 to $699 under $100,000, or $399 to $1,499 for a brokered term above it, non-refundable	$25, $50 or $100 per month while listed, by asking price
Success fee on close	3%, 4% or 5% by listing tier	10% on the price bands published on its pricing page	8% under $250k, 7% from $250k to $1M, 6% above $1M
What a buyer pays	Monthly access membership from $99	Free plan, or Premium at $49 a month ($490 a year)	Free to browse public listings, paid membership from $390 to reach founders
Metrics on the listing	Verified MRR, ARR, growth and churn on every deal, required	Seller-reported unless an integration is connected, and assets above $50,000 are reviewed by its vetting team	Synced from the seller stack when the founder connects it
How price is set	Published AI-aware multiple on every deal tombstone	Auction or asking price, set per listing	Founder asking price, supported by a valuation tool
Payments at close	Escrow on every close	FlippaPay or Escrow.com, paid by the buyer	Escrow included at no extra cost
Best for	Recurring-revenue AI software with real MRR	Digital assets and smaller online businesses at any price point	Bootstrapped SaaS founders selling direct to individual buyers

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

Run the total cost, not the headline rate

On a $300,000 software sale, Flippa takes 10%, so $30,000, plus the $499 brokered fee paid upfront, and its help center puts the payment rail on the buyer. Acquire.com sits in its $250k to $1M band at 7%, so $21,000, plus $50 a month while the listing is live, with escrow included. The same close on Buyouts is 4% at the middle tier, so $12,000, plus $249 a month while the listing is live. Flippa read September 2026, Acquire.com re-checked 15 September 2026.

A buyer paywall cuts both ways

Acquire.com charges buyers from $390 before they can contact a founder. That filters out tire-kickers, which sellers like, and it also thins the pool to people already committed to buying something. Flippa is open, so a listing gets far more eyeballs and far more unqualified inquiries. Neither is wrong, but they produce very different inboxes.

Verified metrics are optional on both

Flippa pulls data from Shopify, Stripe, WooCommerce, QuickBooks Online, Google Analytics, AdMob, AdSense and SEMRush when a seller connects an account, and its team reviews stated financials above $50,000. Acquire.com syncs metrics from the seller stack. In both cases connecting the data is the seller choice, so verification quality varies listing to listing rather than being a floor.

Keep reading on the parts of a deal this page touches: every Flippa fee, totalled on a real sale, what Acquire.com charges buyers and sellers, every SaaS marketplace side by side, how to verify MRR before you wire money, what SaaS businesses sell for right now.

Good questions

Flippa & Acquire.com vs Buyouts, answered

Flippa is an open, self-serve marketplace for every kind of online asset, charging an upfront listing fee plus a 10% success fee. Acquire.com is a curated marketplace for startups and software that charges $25 to $100 a month to list, 6% to 8% on close, and requires buyers to pay for a membership before contacting founders.

For most recurring-revenue software, yes. Acquire.com was built for startups, its listings are largely bootstrapped SaaS, and its success fee is lower than Flippa's 10% below $500,000. Flippa is better when you want maximum reach, a fast self-serve listing, or you are selling a digital asset that is not really software.

Sellers pay a monthly listing fee of $25 under a $250,000 asking price, $50 from $250,000 to $1M, and $100 above $1M, plus a closing fee of 8%, 7% or 6% in those same bands, with escrow included. Buyers browse public listings free and pay for a membership starting at $390 to reach founders. Checked July 2026.

Under $100,000 Flippa charges a non-refundable listing package of $29 to $699 plus a 10% success fee. From $100,000 up the only seller option on its pricing page is Brokered by Flippa, one payment of $399 to $1,499 plus a success fee of 10% below $500,000, 9% to $999,999, 8% from $1M and down to 5% at $50M and above. Buyers browse free or pay $49 a month ($490 a year) for Premium, and Flippa's help center says the buyer pays the FlippaPay or Escrow.com fee. Read September 2026.

Free for buyers only up to a point. Browsing public listings and basic company information costs nothing, but contacting founders and seeing detailed financials requires a paid membership from $390. Sellers are never free: a live listing costs $25 to $100 a month plus the closing fee when the deal completes.

Yes. Acquire.com, formerly MicroAcquire, is an established startup marketplace that publishes its full seller rate card, reviews listings before they go live and includes escrow in its closing fee. Its published pricing and vetted-listing model are the two things buyers most often check, and both hold up.

Flippa if you want volume and free browsing, and you are willing to verify numbers yourself. Acquire.com if you want software deal flow specifically and will pay for access. Buyers who look at both tend to use Flippa for discovery and Acquire.com for serious software conversations.

Yes, Flippa lists SaaS alongside websites, apps and ecommerce stores, and plenty of software changes hands there. The trade-off is context: your listing competes for attention with assets that behave nothing like recurring revenue, and buyers arriving from a domain search are not underwriting churn or net revenue retention.

Yes. MicroAcquire rebranded to Acquire.com, so both names refer to the same company and the same marketplace. Plenty of older reviews and search suggestions still use the previous name. It is not connected to Acquisition.com, which is a separate education and holding company and does not run a marketplace.

MicroAcquire is now Acquire.com, so this is the same comparison as above. Acquire.com skews toward startups and SaaS with founder-reported financials and a lower all-in cost below $1M. Flippa covers a far wider range of assets including websites, apps and ecommerce, at a 10% success fee plus listing fees.

Acquire.com for startups and SaaS, Empire Flippers for vetted profitable online businesses, Website Closers and Quiet Light on the brokered side, and BizBuySell for main-street businesses. They differ most in vetting: Flippa and Acquire.com are largely self-serve, while Empire Flippers vets seller financials before a listing goes live.

The closest by model are Acquire.com and BizBuySell, both self-serve marketplaces where sellers list directly. Empire Flippers is a curated marketplace with pre-listing vetting rather than an open wall. Brokers like Website Closers and Quiet Light run a represented sale instead of a listing, which changes both the process and the fee.

Flippa if you want volume across many asset types, Empire Flippers if you want your financials vetted before listing, and a broker if the business is large enough to justify a represented process. Buyouts is the AI SaaS specialist option, with verified MRR and ARR, published multiples and vetted buyers.

Flippa figures were read across all ten price bands of its pricing page in September 2026, with payment rail rates from its help center. Acquire.com was read from its buyer and seller pricing pages in July 2026 and re-checked, including its help center, in August and on 15 September 2026. Marketplace pricing changes, so confirm the current rate card on each site before you budget. Buyouts fees are published in full on our pricing page.

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See how buying works See how selling works See pricing

The deal room for AI SaaS, not a yard sale

Buy with verified metrics, published multiples and escrow-backed closes, or list your AI SaaS to a pool of vetted, capital-qualified buyers.

Listing figures are published by their sellers and self-reported · valuation content is educational, not a guaranteed sale price or return · trademarks belong to their owners