BizBuySell Reviews: Listing Cost, Lead Quality and Who It Suits

Short answer: BizBuySell is a legitimate business-for-sale advertising site owned by CoStar Group, and it is the biggest main street marketplace in the US, but it is an ad board rather than a broker. Sellers pay $74.95, $99.95 or $199.95 a month on a six-month term for Basic, Showcase or Diamond and owe no commission when the business sells. Buyers browse free or pay from $20 a month for Edge. Its Trustpilot score was 1.9 out of 5 from 55 reviews when we read it on 18 September 2026, and the complaints are almost all about lead quality and fraud attempts, which fits BizBuySell's own statement that it has not independently verified any of the information in its listings. It is cheap exposure for a main street seller who can run the sale, and a thin filter for a buyer who cannot check numbers.

Every figure below was read from BizBuySell's own pages and from Trustpilot on 18 September 2026. Where something is not published, we say so. Nothing here is investment advice.

What BizBuySell is, in its own words

The single most useful line on BizBuySell's site is in its listing FAQ, under the question of whether sellers pay a commission: "No, BizBuySell is a marketing platform that enables you to list your business for sale and we only charge advertising fees. We are not a brokerage firm." Almost every complaint in the reviews traces back to that sentence. BizBuySell sells visibility. It does not qualify buyers, check the seller's numbers or run the transaction, and it says so.

Its avoid-scams page is just as direct. BizBuySell says it warns buyers that each listing "is provided by the business seller and we have not independently verified any of the information about the business", that it does "not participate in any business buying transactions and cannot refund your money if you are scammed", and that it "cannot guarantee that our sites are 100% free from false or fraudulent listings". Those are not criticisms from a rival. They are the terms of the product, and a buyer or seller who reads them first will not be surprised by the reviews.

How much does BizBuySell cost?

Over a full six-month term that is $449.70 for Basic, $599.70 for Showcase and $1,199.70 for Diamond, by our arithmetic. BizBuySell does not publish the exact 3-month or 12-month rates in its FAQ, only that one costs more per month and the other less. There is no one-month option. The term starts one week after purchase, and a valuation report is included with every listing.

The detail sellers miss is what happens at the end. BizBuySell's FAQ says the listing then "will proceed at your monthly rate" on a month-to-month basis. You can cancel at any time, but if you let it lapse and want back in later, you buy a new 3, 6 or 12-month term. BizBuySell also notes that most businesses take six to nine months to sell, so a six-month budget is the minimum, not the plan.

Edge, the buyer upgrade, adds alerts on new, popular and price-reduced listings, comparison against industry financial benchmarks and up to four valuation reports a year. BizBuySell shows it "as low as $20/month" and does not publish the full plan terms on the page we could read.

What the reviews say

Treat that score as a signal, not a verdict. Fifty-five reviews is a small sample for a site of this size, and Trustpilot itself notes that BizBuySell has not invited customers to review, so every entry is someone who went looking for a place to complain or praise unprompted. Unhappy sellers do that far more often than satisfied ones. For comparison, the same Trustpilot page showed Flippa at 4.2 from about 3,300 reviews and Acquire.com at 4.4 from 238.

The themes are consistent, though, and they line up with the platform's own disclaimers. Sellers in 2026 describe too many fake or unserious leads, inquiries from people fishing for a video call rather than a deal, and six months of fees with little to show. One reviewer who spent close to $600 on a half-year listing wrote that nothing came of it. Buyers complain about listings for businesses that do not appear to exist. Third-party reviewers add a complaint Trustpilot does not surface: new listings attract a wave of broker solicitations within days, because brokers watch the site for owners selling on their own.

The positive reviews, and the sellers third-party sites quote favorably, share a pattern. They had a real, well-documented business, priced it sensibly, filtered hard, and waited several months. BizBuySell's reach is not in dispute. Its filtering is.

Is BizBuySell legit?

Yes. BizBuySell is a real, long-running marketplace owned by CoStar Group, the commercial real estate data company that also owns LoopNet and BizQuest, and it charges exactly what its FAQ says. The fraud complaints are about individual listings and leads, not about BizBuySell taking money for nothing. The honest summary is that the platform is legitimate and the listings are unverified, and those are two different questions a buyer has to answer separately.

Is BizBuySell worth it for sellers?

For a main street business you can sell yourself, it is the cheapest serious exposure in the market. A six-month Showcase listing is $599.70 and no commission, against a broker who typically takes 10% or more on a small deal. If your business sells for $400,000, that gap is roughly $40,000. You do all the screening, negotiating and paperwork in return, and you should expect broker pitches and junk inquiries along the way.

For a software business it is a harder call. BizBuySell's category list puts "Online and Technology" alongside restaurants, retail and service businesses, and the buyers browsing it are mostly looking for owner-operated local companies with SBA financing in mind. A SaaS listing there competes for attention with car washes. Buyers who underwrite recurring revenue look on software marketplaces instead, which is where our BizBuySell alternative comparison starts, and why the Flippa vs BizBuySell breakdown matters if you are choosing between general marketplaces.

Is BizBuySell worth it for buyers?

Browsing is free, and the inventory is the widest in the country for main street deals, so every buyer should at least search it. The cost is time. Because nothing is verified, every listing you like needs the same work before an offer: tax returns, bank statements tied to the P&L, customer and staffing detail, and a signed NDA. If the seller only has bank statement PDFs rather than clean books, you can load those statements into QuickBooks and rebuild the monthly P&L yourself, which is often faster than waiting for the seller's accountant. BizBuySell's own red flags are worth memorizing: a price well below market, reluctance to share financials, and any request to wire money before a proper closing.

Most BizBuySell buyers finance with an SBA 7(a) loan, and the question that decides whether a listing is worth that diligence is whether the cash flow covers the debt. Run the asking price through our business acquisition loan calculator before you request documents, and you will skip the listings a lender would reject anyway.

BizBuySell alternatives, with the prices we could verify

BizBuySell wins on cost for a seller, and we will say that plainly: no commission beats any commission. What the others charge for is work BizBuySell does not do. Flippa's fee schedule steps from 10% down to 5% as deals grow, and from $100,000 up it assigns a broker. Empire Flippers vets the financials before a listing goes live. Buyouts is built only for AI SaaS, with MRR, ARR, growth and churn verified before a listing publishes, a buyer pool that pays membership to be there, and escrow on every close. If you are buying or selling software, that verification is the thing BizBuySell cannot give you at any price.

Are BizBuySell listings verified?

No. BizBuySell states that listings are provided by the seller and that it has not independently verified any of the information about the business. It reviews some listings before they go live "to ensure accuracy and appropriateness" and removes listings reported as suspicious, but checking revenue, profit and ownership is left entirely to the buyer.

Does BizBuySell charge a commission?

No. BizBuySell charges only advertising fees for the listing and takes nothing from the sale price. If you hire a broker from its directory, the broker's commission is a separate agreement between you and that broker, usually paid by the seller at closing.

Can you cancel BizBuySell?

Yes, at any time, according to its FAQ. The catch is timing: listings roll onto month-to-month billing at the end of the term, and once you cancel you cannot restart that monthly plan. Coming back means buying a new 3, 6 or 12-month term. Card payment only, and there is no one-month listing.

If what you are buying or selling is an AI SaaS business, start where the numbers are already checked: browse SaaS companies for sale with verified metrics, or compare every venue's fees side by side in our BizBuySell alternative guide.

Sources read on 18 September 2026: BizBuySell listing FAQ (create-a-listing-FAQ), BizBuySell avoid-scams page and Edge plan panel, Trustpilot page for bizbuysell.com. Flippa, Acquire.com and Empire Flippers fees are from our own fee pages, read on each provider's site. Trademarks belong to their owners.