Where to buy and sell websites: Flippa, Empire Flippers, Motion Invest and more

The short version: four ways to buy or sell a website

Websites change hands every day, from $500 hobby blogs to eight-figure software companies. Where you list one decides who sees it, what you pay and how much help you get.

There are four models. Pick the model first, then the platform.

• Open marketplace. Anyone can list, anyone can browse. You pay a listing fee and a success fee, and you run the sale yourself. Flippa is the big one.
• Curated marketplace. The platform checks each listing before it goes live, but buyer and seller still deal with each other. Acquire.com and Investors Club work this way.
• Broker. A firm vets your numbers, sets the price, finds the buyer and runs the handover for a bigger commission. Empire Flippers, Motion Invest, FE International and Quiet Light.
• Direct sale to a buyer. A company buys your site itself, faster and with no commission, but for less money. Motion Invest is one of the few that does this openly.

The platforms side by side

Flippa: the open marketplace

Flippa is where most first-time sellers start. Anyone can list a website, app, online business or domain, and there is no published minimum size. Flippa also runs a broker service for businesses valued from $100,000 to $50 million and up.

Seller fees. According to Flippa’s pricing page, listings under a $10,000 asking price cost $29 (60 days), $49 (3 months) or $199 (6 months). At $10,000 and up, listings cost $49, $399 or $599 for 6 months. An NDA add-on costs $199 and is included on the higher plans.

The success fee is the part to read twice. Flippa’s sell page says success fees “start from 5%”, and in another place “starting at 3%”. The full schedule is not on the pricing page. The terms of service say the fee is still owed if you finish the deal off Flippa with a buyer you met there.

Refunds. You get the listing fee back if no qualified buyer contacts you within 30 days, or if you pull the listing within 7 days of it going live.

For buyers. Browsing is free. Premium costs $49 a month or $490 a year and shows new listings 21 days before everyone else. Payment runs through Escrow.com (from 1.2%) or FlippaPay (from 1%). Escrow means a third party holds the money until the site is handed over.

Right for: sellers with small sites who are happy to answer buyer questions and handle the transfer themselves. Flippa’s own buyer guide says the handover help comes mostly from the seller.

Empire Flippers: the vetted broker

Empire Flippers checks every business before listing it, sets the price with you, finds the buyer and runs the handover. It says it has sold 2,678 businesses.

Who can sell. According to Empire Flippers’ sell page, you need at least $24,000 a year in net profit and 12 months of history. Affiliate and AdSense sites need 12 months on the same domain.

Seller fees. No listing fee, so you pay nothing if it doesn’t sell. The commission is a flat $10,000 on sales up to $66,666, then 15% up to $700,000, 8% on the part between $700,000 and $5 million, and 2.5% above that. On a $100,000 sale, that is $15,000.

You agree to 2 months of exclusivity. Empire Flippers publishes an average of 130 days to sell, and sellers are usually paid 1 to 3 weeks after the sale. Migration is included.

For buyers. You no longer pay a deposit to look. You verify your ID and proof of funds, and that opens listings up to 1.5 times the amount you verified. The money comes in at the offer: a non-refundable down payment of 10% or $9,900, whichever is more. Other buyers then get 24 hours to beat your offer by at least 10%. Empire Flippers holds the funds during the handover, and sales are final.

Right for: owners of profitable sites who want someone else to run the sale and can wait a few months.

Motion Invest: content sites, and it buys them itself

Motion Invest focuses on content sites: blogs and review sites that earn from affiliate links or display ads. It runs a marketplace and also makes “Direct Buy” offers, where it buys the site itself.

Who can sell. According to its help center, it takes English content sites with about 80% or more organic search traffic, mostly from the US, earning at least $20 a month on average. It does not take ecommerce, SaaS or guest-post sites.

Two ways to sell.

• Marketplace: no listing fee, a 15% to 20% commission depending on the size of the site, and only 30 days of exclusivity. You get a higher price.
• Direct Buy: no fees and faster payment, but Motion Invest says the price comes at “a much lower multiple”, and these offers are rarer.

For buyers. A non-refundable $1,000 deposit reserves a site. You wire the rest (card or PayPal adds 5%). During the move, Motion Invest swaps your affiliate links on the top 20 pages, at $3 for each extra page. You get 2 days to check everything works, then the seller is paid. The whole transfer usually takes 7 to 10 days.

One caution: Motion Invest’s main site would not load for our research tools, so these details come from its help center, whose articles are not dated. Investors Club, a competitor, publishes a different commission scale for Motion Invest that we could not confirm. Check the current terms before you list.

Right for: owners of small and mid-size affiliate or ad sites, especially if speed matters more than price.

Acquire.com: software and startups

Acquire.com is a curated marketplace aimed at SaaS, apps and online businesses. You run the sale yourself, but listings are reviewed first. It does not take brick-and-mortar, franchise or MLM businesses.

Seller fees. According to Acquire.com’s seller pricing:

• Under $250,000: $25 a month plus 8% at closing
• $250,000 to $1 million: $50 a month plus 7%
• $1 million and up: $100 a month plus 6%

Escrow through Escrow.com is free, and there is no closing fee if it doesn’t sell.

For buyers. Browsing is free, but you need a paid plan to message founders: $390 a year for businesses up to $250,000 in yearly revenue, or $780 a year for any size.

Right for: software founders, and buyers looking for SaaS rather than content sites.

The others worth knowing

Investors Club

A curated marketplace for content sites from under $1,000 to over $10 million. A DIY listing is free, with no commission and no exclusivity, but no escrow either. Full service costs 5% to 20% and includes escrow and migration help. Sellers need at least $30 a month in revenue over the last 12 months and one year of history.

FE International

A full-service M&A advisor focused on businesses with $1 million to $100 million or more in revenue. It reports a 94.1% success rate and a typical 2 to 6 month timeline. Its seller pricing page lists success-only fees of 5% under $250,000, 4% up to $1 million and 3% above. That page also mentions self-serve listings, so ask which service those rates cover.

Quiet Light

A broker for ecommerce, SaaS, content and agency businesses. It does not publish its commission or a minimum size. It offers a 90-day agreement you can end anytime and says 85% of its listings sell within 90 days.

Selling just the domain

If you only want to sell the domain name, not the site, use a domain marketplace. Sedo charges sellers 10% to 20% depending on how it sells. Afternic charges 25% to 30% on Buy It Now sales, or 15% to 20% if your domain points to GoDaddy’s servers.

What a website is worth

Most small sites sell for a multiple of their profit. The tricky part is that brokers quote it two ways.

• Monthly multiple: average monthly net profit times a number like 25 or 30. Empire Flippers and most content-site brokers use this.
• Yearly multiple: yearly profit times a number like 2 to 5. Software and larger businesses usually use this.

A 30 times monthly multiple is the same as 2.5 times yearly. Always check which one a listing means.

What the brokers publish:

• Empire Flippers, 2025 sales: deals under $300,000 averaged 22.4 times monthly profit, $300,000 to $1 million averaged 26.7 times, and over $1 million averaged 35.1 times. By quality, typical listings averaged 27.8 times and distressed ones 13.7 times.
• FE International: websites generally sell for 3 to 10 times yearly net income. Content and lead-generation sites sit below average, software above.
• Acquire.com: the median SaaS sale was 3.9 times yearly profit in both 2024 and 2025.

What pushes a price up: steady or rising traffic, income from several sources, a long history, low owner time and a site that moves easily. What pulls it down: one traffic source (often Google), one income source (often Amazon), recent drops and anything that can’t be handed over.

Why the platform the site is built on matters

This is the part most sale guides skip. A buyer is not only buying traffic and income. They are buying something they must move into their own accounts.

A site on self-hosted WordPress moves as files and a database to any host. A buyer can check it and move it with standard tools. A site locked inside a builder usually has to change owners inside that builder’s account, on that builder’s terms. That shrinks the pool of buyers and makes the handover harder.

Our exit scores rate 17 platforms on how much of a site can leave. If you are building something you might sell one day, start on a platform that scores high. If you are buying, check the score before you make an offer.

Before you buy: a checklist

1. Proof of income. Ask for screen-shared access to the affiliate, ad and payment dashboards, not screenshots.
2. Proof of traffic. Look at Google Analytics and Search Console for at least 12 months. Look for sudden drops after Google updates.
3. Where traffic comes from. One source is a risk. Check that rankings don’t rely on a few pages.
4. Costs. Hosting, writers, tools, plugins and email. Profit is income minus all of them.
5. What is included. The domain, content, email list, social accounts, supplier and affiliate accounts, and any software licenses.
6. How it moves. Which platform, which host, and who does the migration.
7. How you pay. Never wire money straight to a stranger. Use the marketplace’s escrow or the broker’s held funds.

Before you sell: a checklist

1. Clean books for 12 months. Most brokers want at least a year of income and expenses, month by month.
2. Separate accounts. Move the site’s hosting, domain and email off any account you share with other sites, so it can be handed over cleanly.
3. Write down the routine. How often you publish, who writes, what tools you pay for, how many hours it takes you.
4. Fix what a buyer will find. Broken links, expired plugins, slow pages, missing SSL.
5. Pick the model. Fast and simple: a direct offer. Small and hands-on: an open marketplace. Profitable and hands-off: a broker.
6. Don’t change things mid-sale. Big redesigns or a move to a new host during a sale make buyers nervous. Do them before you list.

Which one should you use?

• A small blog or site under a few thousand dollars: Flippa or a free Investors Club listing.
• A content or affiliate site earning a few hundred to a few thousand a month: Motion Invest, or Empire Flippers once you pass $24,000 a year in profit.
• You want it gone fast and accept a lower price: ask Motion Invest for a Direct Buy offer.
• SaaS or an app: Acquire.com, or FE International for larger businesses.
• Ecommerce or a business doing seven figures: a broker such as Empire Flippers, FE International or Quiet Light.
• Just the domain: Sedo or Afternic.

If you are thinking about building a site to sell later, start with how to choose a website builder, and read moving your website for what a handover looks like.

Sources

Flippa: pricing, sell, terms. Empire Flippers: sell, seller FAQ, buying process. Motion Invest: direct buy vs marketplace, accepted sites. Acquire.com: seller pricing, multiples report. Investors Club: seller FAQ. FE International: seller pricing, valuation guide. Quiet Light: sell. Sedo: price list. Afternic: sell domains.