How to sell a website: prep, where to list and the fees on a $50,000 sale (2026)

Get the site ready before you list

Buyers pay for profit they can verify and a site they can move. Every hour you spend here shows up in the price.

1. Clean books for 12 months. Empire Flippers wants at least 12 months of revenue history, and Investors Club wants a year of verifiable revenue and traffic. Build a month-by-month profit and loss from real statements.
2. Separate the site from everything else. Move its hosting, domain, email and income accounts off anything shared with your other sites. Motion Invest turns down sites whose earnings can’t be separated.
3. Cut costs you don’t need. The price is a multiple of profit, so $1,200 a year of unused tools can cost you $2,040 to $6,000 at Empire Flippers’ 1.7x to 5x range.
4. Fix what a buyer will find. Broken links, outdated plugins, slow pages, a missing SSL certificate.
5. Write down the routine. Hours per week, who writes, which tools you pay for and when each renews.
6. Don’t redesign or move hosts mid-sale. Do big changes before you list, so the numbers buyers see are the numbers they get.

Also check how the site will move. Self-hosted WordPress scores 10/10 on our exit scores and goes to any host as files and a database; a Wix site scores 3/10 and changes owners inside Wix. Read moving your website so you can promise a realistic handover.

Which venue for which site

Fees compared on a $50,000 sale

Here is what each venue would take on the same $50,000 sale, from each company’s own pricing pages. Where a venue charges monthly, we assume 3 months listed.

Notes on the math:

• Flippa: 10% x $50,000 = $5,000. The pricing page shows two prices for some packages (Standard $49 or $129, Ultimate $599 or $699), so the range runs $29 to $699.
• Motion Invest: its commission table lists $20,000 to $50,000 at 15% and $50,000 to $100,000 at 10%, so exactly $50,000 sits on the line. Ask which applies.
• Investors Club DIY has no escrow. If you add Escrow.com and pay all of it, its standard fee on $50,000 is 2.4%, or $1,200, leaving $48,800.
• FE International: its seller pricing page lists 5% below $250k but also mentions self-serve listings, so this may be a self-serve tier rather than its full advisory service.
• Quiet Light doesn’t publish its fee, and a Motion Invest Direct Buy has no fee but an unpublished, lower price.

Escrow is extra on Flippa (Escrow.com “from 1.2%” or FlippaPay “from 1%”, split as you agree with the buyer) and on an Investors Club DIY sale. Empire Flippers and Motion Invest hold the money themselves, and Acquire.com pays for Escrow.com.

The lowest fee isn’t always the most money. Empire Flippers costs the most here, but it vets the site, brings buyers who have shown proof of funds and runs the migration. At $50,000, that service costs $4,301 to $4,971 more than selling on Flippa yourself, before Flippa’s escrow fee.

At other sale prices

• $10,000: Flippa $1,029 to $1,699; Motion Invest 20%, or $2,000; Acquire.com $800 plus $75 over 3 months. Empire Flippers’ flat $10,000 would take the whole price, and a site that small wouldn’t meet its $24,000 profit minimum anyway.
• $100,000: Flippa $10,029 to $10,699; Empire Flippers 15%, or $15,000; Motion Invest $10,000 at 10% or $7,000 at 7% (again on a band line); Acquire.com $8,000 plus $75.

Lock-in and timelines

• Flippa: since its Terms were updated October 22, 2026, a site priced at $25,000 or more must be sold only through Flippa while listed and for 90 days after removal (180 days above $100,000). A $50,000 listing qualifies.
• Empire Flippers: 2 months exclusive, an average of 130 days to sale, then 3 to 8 weeks of migration.
• Motion Invest: says the average time from listing to sale is 12 days; its help center mentions 30 days of exclusivity for marketplace listings.
• Acquire.com: no fixed exclusivity, but a letter of intent includes a removable no-shop clause, and the closing fee is owed even off-platform.
• Investors Club DIY: no exclusivity; average time to sale “over 100 days”.

If you try one venue first, exclusivity decides how soon you can try the next. Plan the order before you list. For a content site, one sensible order is to ask for a Motion Invest offer first, since its due diligence takes 3 to 7 days, and only then decide whether a longer Flippa or Empire Flippers listing is worth the wait. Read each agreement before you sign: an exclusivity clause in the contract beats anything on a sales page.

Writing the listing

On a broker, the broker writes it. On Flippa, Investors Club or Acquire.com, you do, and the listing is your first test of trust.

• Lead with 12 months of profit, month by month, and say how you calculated it.
• Name every income source and traffic source, with rough shares.
• Say what is included and what isn’t: domain, content, email list, social accounts, tools.
• State the hours per week and what a new owner would have to do.
• Be plain about weak spots. A buyer will find a traffic dip anyway; finding it in your listing builds trust.

Investors Club, for example, says it rejects listings for poor spelling and grammar, unhelpful descriptions and unreasonable prices.

How the sale itself works

1. Submit or list the site, with your 12-month numbers.
2. Answer buyer questions and give read-only access to analytics and income dashboards.
3. Agree a price and sign a purchase agreement that lists every asset handed over.
4. The buyer pays into escrow or the broker’s held funds.
5. You (or the broker) transfer the site, the domain and accounts. See how to transfer a domain.
6. The buyer confirms, the money is released, and the fee comes out.

After the money arrives

• Cancel or hand over every subscription the site used, so you don’t keep paying for the buyer’s tools.
• Remove your payment cards from hosting, domain and app accounts that now belong to the buyer.
• Give the support you promised, for the time you promised, and no more unless it is paid.
• Keep the purchase agreement, your Form 8594 numbers and the escrow records with your tax files.

Taxes in general terms

This section is general information, not tax advice. Talk to an accountant before you sign, because the purchase agreement shapes the tax result.

The IRS page on the sale of a business says that “each asset is treated as being sold separately for determining the treatment of gain or loss.” Capital assets give capital gain or loss, depreciable business property held over a year gives section 1231 gain or loss, and “The sale of inventory results in ordinary income or loss.” A method called the residual method sets how much of the price is for goodwill and other intangibles.

When a group of assets that makes up a business is sold, and goodwill could attach, the Form 8594 instructions say “Both the seller and purchaser” file Form 8594, the Asset Acquisition Statement, with their income tax return for the year of the sale. Late or incorrect filing without reasonable cause can bring penalties. The form sorts the price into seven classes, from cash (Class I) through inventory (Class IV), section 197 intangibles such as a covenant not to compete (Class VI) and goodwill (Class VII). Buyer and seller should agree the split in the contract so their forms match.

For assets held more than one year, gains are long-term. The IRS shows 2025 long-term rates of 0% up to $48,350 of taxable income for single filers ($96,700 married filing jointly), 15% for most income above that, and 20% at the top. State taxes can apply too.

What to do next

1. Put a number on the site with our website valuation guide.
2. Read the venue page for your pick: Flippa, Empire Flippers or the full buy and sell websites hub.
3. Book an hour with an accountant before you accept an offer.