Disclosure. We have no affiliate or partnership arrangement with Flippa and earn nothing if you use them. I am, however, a paying Flippa customer right now, with a business listed and a broker I am working with weekly. That gives me first-hand detail you will not get from a desk review, and it also gives me a reason to think well of them. Weigh the positive parts of this review with that in mind. The criticism further down is the same criticism I would make either way.
Correction, 19 August 2026. An earlier version of this review said Flippa does not publish its success fee. That was wrong, and the error was mine. Flippa does publish a full tier table on its pricing page, but only inside an interactive slider that does not render for anything that reads the page without running JavaScript. The rates are below. What remains fair criticism is set out honestly further down.
Flippa charges a success fee of 10% falling to 5% depending on your asking price, plus either a self-service listing package or an upfront brokerage fee. The full table is below, and it is the most useful thing on this page.
I have been writing about small business economics for over two decades, and I want to be straight about how I got this wrong the first time. Flippa’s Terms of Service point sellers to a “Success Fee Page.” That page, flippa.com/success-fees, returns a 404. The help centre article on pricing gives no percentages and links to the pricing page. And on the pricing page the numbers only appear once you drag a slider. Every one of those things is still true. But the fee is there, and I should have found it.
Compare Flippa against what everyone else charges
Flippa at 10% is not the same deal as Empire Flippers at 15% with a $10,000 minimum, and neither is the same as a broker at 10% to 12%. We put every marketplace and broker side by side on real published pricing and the deal size each one serves.
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Flippa’s success fees, in full
Verified directly from flippa.com/pricing on 19 August 2026. Move the asking price slider on that page and the fee changes with it.
| Asking price | Success fee | Upfront cost |
|---|---|---|
| Sub $10,000 | 10% | Self-service listing, $29 to $199 |
| $10,000 to $49,900 | 10% | Self-service listing |
| $50,000 to $99,900 | 10% | Self-service listing |
| $100,000 to $249,900 | 10% | $799, six month brokerage term |
| $250,000 to $499,900 | 10% | $899, six month brokerage term |
| $500,000 to $999,900 | 9% | $899, six month brokerage term |
| $1M to $4.9M | 8% | $1,299, six month brokerage term |
| $5M to $9.9M | 7% | $1,299, six month brokerage term |
| $10M to $49.9M | 6% | $1,499, six month brokerage term |
| $50M and above | 5% | $1,499, six month brokerage term |
Two structural points that matter more than the headline rate.
The model changes at $100,000. Below that you are on self-service: you pay $29 to $199 for a listing, you run the sale yourself, and Flippa takes 10% at the end. At $100,000 and above you get a dedicated M&A broker, and the upfront fee jumps to $799 or more.
The fee is not blended. Unlike Empire Flippers, where 15% applies only to the first $700,000 and the rate steps down on the portion above it, Flippa’s rate appears to apply to the whole purchase price at the band you fall into. On a $1,000,000 sale that is 8% of the lot, or $80,000.
What is still wrong with the disclosure. Flippa’s sell page says in one place that “success fees start from 5%” and in another that sell-side fees start “at 3%.” The 5% matches the $50M+ tier. The 3% matches no published tier at all. And the Terms of Service still send sellers to a Success Fee Page that does not exist. Publishing the numbers behind a slider while three other Flippa pages point somewhere else is not good disclosure, even though the numbers are real.
Flippa at a glance
| Detail | |
|---|---|
| What it is | Open, self-serve marketplace for websites, apps, stores, domains and small online businesses |
| Founded | June 2009, spun out of SitePoint by Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz |
| CEO | Blake Hutchison, since September 2018 |
| Funding | $11M Series A led by OneVentures, September 2021, after twelve years bootstrapped |
| Offices | Melbourne, Austin and Amsterdam |
| Listing cost | $29 to $199 for assets under $10k; $49 to $599 per six months for larger |
| Success fee | 10% falling to 5% by asking price band |
| Minimum to list | None. Accepts unprofitable and pre-revenue assets |
| Vetting | “Vetted by Flippa” applies only at $50,000 and above |
| Median time to close | 15 days under $50k, 49 days $50k to $250k, 73 days above $250k |
| BBB | F, not accredited, 3 complaints with 2 unanswered |
Listing costs, escrow and buyer verification
Everything below is published plainly and has been for a while.
| Self-service package | Price | Term |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | $29 | 60 days |
| Boosted | $49 | 3 months |
| Premium, includes NDA protection | $199 | 6 months |
Above $100,000 you are into brokerage rather than self-service, and the upfront fee replaces the listing package: $799 at $100k to $249.9k, $899 to $999.9k, $1,299 to $9.9M and $1,499 above that, each for a six month brokerage term.
Payment processing. FlippaPay runs from about 0.5% to 1% depending which Flippa page you read, and holds funds in a regulatory trust account administered by licensed payment partners until you approve release. Escrow.com is the alternative at 3.25% up to $5,000, then a sliding scale down to 0.89% above $25,000, with Flippa applying a 20% discount to the variable portion.
Buyer verification is a $5 card hold, rising to an additional $500 authorisation for bids or offers of $5,000 or more.
The $50,000 vetting cliff
Flippa markets trust hard. There is a verifications team, integrations with Shopify, Stripe, QuickBooks, Google Analytics and AdSense, and badges on listings. Here is what those badges actually mean, from Flippa’s own help centre.
“Data Verified” means only that data from a third party platform has been connected to the listing. It is a plumbing confirmation, not an audit. Nobody has checked whether the numbers make sense.
“Vetted by Flippa” is the real one. Flippa checks revenue via platform access or a live screen share, primary expenses via invoices, and traffic via analytics. It applies only to listings of $50,000 and above.
So the entire $29 to $199 self-serve band, which is most of the marketplace by volume, gets no Flippa vetting at all. And even above the cliff, the Terms of Service state that for “Vetted by Flippa” listings, Flippa “makes no warranties or representations as to the accuracy and completeness.”
Flippa also publishes the size of the team doing this work. Their safety page says the marketplace integrity and listing review team is ten people, and that each revenue-generating asset gets a 25 point check before going live. Their own throughput figure is over 20,000 assets a year.
Ten people, twenty thousand assets. That is roughly eight assets per person per working day, at a 25 point check each. Both numbers are Flippa’s. Draw your own conclusion about how deep the check can be.
What happens when a deal goes wrong
This is where I would want a buyer to pay attention.
Flippa’s dispute process opens 48 hours after an auction ends or an offer is accepted, and the other party gets 72 hours to respond. Flippa reviews and can resolve in either party’s favour or “without fault,” and says it typically resolves without fault absent evidence of improper conduct.
The critical sentence: Flippa will not process a dispute once payment has been made via PayPal, or once funds have been released from Escrow.com or FlippaPay, unless both parties agree to unwind the deal. Release the money and the platform’s dispute machinery is finished.
After that, Flippa points you to independent legal advice or arbitration, referencing the ICDR for cross-border matters. Flippa’s own 2025 data says 85% of its transactions are cross-border. So for most disputes, the realistic fallback is international arbitration over an asset that might have cost $8,000.
The Terms also state Flippa is “not a party to any transaction,” and excessive disputes may result in sanctions including a permanent ban.
The ratings, and why they contradict each other
| Platform | Score | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| BBB | F | Not accredited. 3 complaints, 2 unanswered. File opened May 2024. |
| SmartCustomer (was Sitejabber) | ★★☆☆☆ 1.8 | 139 reviews. 65% one star, 20% five star. |
| Trustpilot | Widely reported around 4.2 | I could not retrieve the page to confirm the review count. |
A 4.2 on one platform and a 1.8 on another is not a contradiction. It is a bimodal distribution, and it is exactly what you would expect from a high-volume open marketplace. Most transactions go fine. A minority go badly, and the people they go badly for are very motivated to write about it.
The BBB complaints, which are the best-documented material available
- April 2025, unanswered. A buyer purchased an ecommerce fashion brand and roughly $70,000 of the previous owner’s outstanding balance landed in their account. When the buyer raised it, Flippa deferred to the broker and seller to sort out directly.
- November 2024, unanswered. A complainant won an auction, the seller refused to complete, the complainant left negative feedback on the seller’s page, and Flippa deleted the complainant’s account.
- May 2024, resolved. A listing did not sell. Flippa charged $60 to relist despite the dashboard saying “relist for free”, and applied a 90 day exclusivity clause.
Two of the three went unanswered, which is why the rating is an F. The pattern in the first two is the same one the Terms describe: Flippa positions itself outside the transaction, and the dispute lands between buyer and seller.
What I could not verify, and will not repeat
Search for “Flippa scam” and you will find a great deal. Most of it does not survive contact.
The tiered success fee figures that circulate everywhere, usually 10% then 7.5% then 5%, trace back to competitor blogs with no primary source. Several of the most prominent “Flippa problems” articles are published by competing marketplaces. There is a dedicated anonymous complaint site that names no victims, no dates and no losses, and carries a disclaimer that its content may be incorrect and includes satire. None of that is evidence.
What I can tell you is what I looked for and did not find: no lawsuit, class action, court judgment, FTC action or regulatory enforcement action against Flippa. I am not saying none exists. I am saying I could not find a record of one.
What I have actually experienced, buying and selling on Flippa
I have been in the internet industry since the nineties, and I have been buying and selling domains on Flippa for years. It is one of the oldest marketplaces still standing in this business, and longevity counts for something in a category where platforms appear and vanish inside a single cycle. For domains and smaller digital assets it has been a reliable place to transact, and I say that as someone who has been on both sides of the table there more than a few times.
Right now I am going through the process again, and this time with a real business rather than a domain.
The current sale, and what the $799 actually bought
I have a digital agency listed. The asking price puts it in the $100,000 to $249,900 band, which is the tier where Flippa stops being self-service and gives you a dedicated M&A broker. The upfront cost for that was $799 for a six month brokerage term, with the 10% success fee payable at closing on top.
I want to be specific about what that money has bought, because “you get a broker” is vague and the difference between a good one and a bad one is most of the outcome.
- My broker responds within hours, not days, and has done consistently for months.
- He writes the outreach messages to buyers, and when I asked him to handle a tricky reply about seller financing, he drafted the response and set the expectation with the buyer for me.
- When I asked to pause the listing while I explored an offer that came from outside the platform, he arranged it, and told me plainly where I stood on the exclusivity clause rather than letting me find out later.
- He pushes back. When I suggested dropping the price, he told me not to yet, because no buyer had objected to it, and the problem was volume rather than pricing. He was right.
The results as of today, taken from my own seller dashboard:
| Metric | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| Signed NDAs | 42, all accepted |
| Watchers | 46 |
| Page views | 840 |
| Active discussions | 43 |
Forty two buyers signing an NDA on a service business in the low six figures is real deal flow, and it arrived without me writing a single outreach message. That is what the fee is for.
The honest caveat: the business has not sold yet. Volume of interest is not the same as a closed deal, and I have said elsewhere in this review that a lot of NDAs with no offers is a normal and frustrating stage. I will update this section when it closes, or when it does not.
None of that changes the criticism in this review. The fee disclosure is still scattered across four pages that point at each other, the Manager Agreement I signed still refers to a “Pricing Schedule” that is not attached to it, and nothing under $50,000 is vetted. Good service from an individual broker and sloppy platform disclosure are perfectly capable of coexisting, and here they do.
What Flippa is genuinely good at
Having spent this long on the problems, the balance matters.
Nothing else in this market gets you listed for $29. Nothing else accepts pre-revenue and unprofitable assets. Empire Flippers would reject the overwhelming majority of what sells on Flippa, and a broker would not return the call.
The speed is real. A published median of 15 days to close under $50,000 is faster than any curated alternative, and it is a direct consequence of the open model. Their 2025 data reports transaction value up 36% year on year, six and seven figure deals up 30%, and 400,000+ weekly active buyers.
At the top end they run a genuine advisory arm: 15 in-house M&A advisors with CM&AA accreditation plus a network of over 200 third party brokers, supporting $100k to $50m+ businesses. Their largest publicised deal is a $35 million portfolio of 36 apps. The VIP programme for businesses over $10 million exists, though its price is not published either.
Pros and cons
- Cheapest entry anywhere: $29 gets a real listing in front of a large buyer pool
- Success fees are genuinely tiered and drop with deal size, from 10% down to 5% above $50M
- Accepts unprofitable, pre-revenue and tiny assets that every curated marketplace rejects
- Fastest published median close in the market at the small end, 15 days under $50,000
- FlippaPay holds funds in a regulatory trust account with a two-step buyer release
- Genuine M&A advisory tier with accredited advisors for larger deals
- From my own live listing: the $799 broker tier produced 42 signed NDAs without me writing a single outreach message
- Listing fees are refundable if no qualified buyer makes contact within 30 days
- Fee disclosure is scattered: the rates sit behind a slider, the Terms point to a Success Fee Page that 404s, and the sell page still advertises “from 3%”, which matches no published tier
- Nothing under $50,000 is vetted by Flippa, and vetting above that is disclaimed in the Terms
- A ten person integrity team against 20,000+ assets a year, both their own figures
- BBB rating of F with two of three complaints unanswered
- The dispute process ends the moment funds are released, with international arbitration as the fallback
- Documented cases of complainants having their accounts removed
Should you use Flippa?
| If you are | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Selling a small site, app or store under $50,000 | Yes. Nothing else is close on cost or speed, and the curated marketplaces would reject you anyway. |
| Selling something not yet profitable | Yes. Flippa is one of the only places that will take it. |
| Selling a profitable business worth $100,000 or more | Consider the alternatives. At 10% up to $499,900 Flippa is cheaper than Empire Flippers, but a curated marketplace gets you a more serious buyer pool. Weigh the fee saving against that. |
| Buying under $50,000 | Assume nothing is verified. Get platform access yourself, check traffic quality, and do not release funds until you are certain. |
| Buying above $50,000 | Better, but the Terms still disclaim the accuracy of the vetting. Verify independently. |
| Selling an offline business | No. Wrong marketplace entirely. |
The single most useful piece of advice I can give a Flippa buyer is about timing, not diligence: the dispute process dies the moment you release funds. Everything you intend to check, check before that click. There is no chargeback culture here and no platform arbitration afterwards.
If you are above the Flippa band
Above $100k, run the numbers against a curated marketplace
Flippa takes 10% up to $499,900. Empire Flippers takes 15% but blends it down above $700,000 and vets 91% of applicants out. On a $400,000 sale that is $40,000 against $60,000, and the difference in buyer quality is the thing you are actually buying.
Read the Empire Flippers review
Selling an offline company doing $1M to $40M in revenue? That is a different route again.
Questions to settle before you list or bid
- Sellers: confirm your success fee in writing. The published tier is 10% up to $499,900, but your signed Manager Agreement refers to a “Pricing Schedule” rather than stating a rate, so get the number on paper.
- Sellers: is there an exclusivity period, and what happens if it does not sell?
- Buyers: is this listing “Vetted by Flippa” or only “Data Verified”? Below $50,000 it is neither.
- Buyers: can I get direct read access to analytics and payment platforms, not screenshots?
- Buyers: what exactly am I confirming when I click release, and what recourse remains afterwards? (None through Flippa.)
Related reading
- How to sell a business in 2026, the full process from preparation to closing
- Earned Exits review, the mid-market broker route for offline companies
- How much do business brokers charge, real 2026 fees from eight companies compared
- How much can you sell your business for, the multiples buyers are paying in 2026
- Selling a business in Tennessee, an example of how state rules change the net
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Flippa legit or a scam?
Flippa is a legitimate marketplace founded in 2009, spun out of SitePoint, with an $11 million Series A from OneVentures in 2021 and offices in Melbourne, Austin and Amsterdam. It is not a scam. However it holds an F rating with the Better Business Bureau, is not BBB accredited, and has three complaints on file of which two went unanswered. I could find no lawsuit, class action or regulatory enforcement action against the company.
How much does Flippa charge to sell?
Flippa charges a tiered success fee of 10% on asking prices up to $499,900, 9% from $500,000 to $999,900, 8% from $1M to $4.9M, 7% from $5M to $9.9M, 6% from $10M to $49.9M and 5% above $50M. On top of that, businesses under $100,000 pay a self-service listing package of $29 to $199, and businesses at $100,000 and above pay an upfront brokerage fee of $799 to $1,499 for a six month term. The rates are published on flippa.com/pricing but only appear once you move the asking price slider, and the Terms of Service still point to a Success Fee Page that returns a 404.
Does Flippa verify listings?
Only partly, and only above a threshold. Vetted by Flippa applies exclusively to listings of $50,000 and above, where Flippa checks revenue, primary expenses and traffic. Everything below $50,000 receives no Flippa vetting. The separate Data Verified badge means only that a third-party platform has been connected to the listing, not that anyone has audited the figures. The Terms of Service also disclaim any warranty as to the accuracy and completeness of the vetting.
Is it safe to buy a website on Flippa?
It can be, with your own diligence. FlippaPay holds funds in a regulatory trust account until the buyer approves release, and Escrow.com is available as an alternative. The critical limitation is that Flippa will not process a dispute once funds have been released, so all verification must happen before that point. Below $50,000 nothing is vetted by Flippa, so get direct read access to analytics and payment platforms rather than accepting screenshots.
How long does it take to sell on Flippa?
Flippa publishes median close times by size band: 15 days for assets under $50,000, 49 days for $50,000 to $250,000, and 73 days above $250,000. Those are among the fastest in the market and are a direct consequence of the open, self-serve model. Larger advisory-led deals take substantially longer, with named 2025 deals closing in 69, 186 and 286 days.
Flippa vs Empire Flippers: which is better?
They serve different sellers. Flippa is open, costs $29 to $199 to list below $100,000 plus a 10% success fee, accepts unprofitable and pre-revenue assets, and closes fastest at the small end. Empire Flippers rejects 91% of applicants, requires $2,000 a month in net profit, and charges 15% falling to 8% with a $10,000 minimum commission. Below roughly $70,000 Flippa is substantially cheaper because of that minimum commission. Above $100,000 the curated route usually produces a more serious buyer pool.
What happens if a Flippa deal goes wrong?
A dispute can be raised 48 hours after an auction ends or an offer is accepted, and the other party has 72 hours to respond. Flippa reviews and may resolve in either party favour or without fault. Crucially, Flippa will not process a dispute once payment has been made or funds released from escrow, unless both parties agree to unwind. After that point Flippa directs users to independent legal advice or arbitration, referencing the ICDR for cross-border matters, and 85% of Flippa transactions are cross-border.
Who owns Flippa?
Flippa was founded in June 2009 by Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz, spun out of their company SitePoint. It ran bootstrapped until September 2021, when it raised an $11 million Series A led by OneVentures. Blake Hutchison has been CEO since September 2018. Flippa has acquired Domain Holdings Group in 2015, Alts Cafe in 2022 and BitsForDigits in 2023.
Amine is an entrepreneur, investor and financial writer that covers the US economy, inflation, alternative investments, cryptocurrencies and more. He has been involved in the space for over a decade.
