You opened your editor on a Sunday. By Thursday you had working auth, a real database, and something you'd actually pay for. Then life happened, and the project has been sitting in a tab ever since. This is about the part nobody tells you: getting paid for it is harder than building it.
Not because your project is bad. Because the exit is broken. The obvious places to list it were each built for someone who isn't you — a domain flipper, a venture-backed SaaS, a bargain hunter — and by the time you read their fine print, a surprising slice of your sale price has quietly evaporated. So I sat down and actually read the pricing pages. Here's the honest version, one marketplace at a time.
The 30-second versionAll four, side by side
If you only have a minute, here's the whole comparison in one table. The rest of the article is the why behind each row.
| Marketplace | What the seller pays | Buyer access | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vertos | Free to list + flat 5% on sale | Free & open | Early-stage & AI projects |
| Flippa | $29–$699 listing (non-refundable) + up to 10% | Free (optional $49/mo Premium) | High volume, all sizes |
| Acquire.com | 8% (deals <$250k) + $25/mo listing | $390–$780/yr to message | $200k+ SaaS with real MRR |
| Little Exits | Seller fee not published | $249/yr (or $9.99/7-day) | Tiny starter projects |
Figures are each platform's headline 2026 rates; payment protection and processing are extra everywhere but Vertos. Details and sources below.
Marketplace 01Flippa
The giant. Great if you're selling a $2M content site. Rough if you're selling a Chrome extension.
Flippa has been around since 2009 and it's enormous — tens of thousands of live listings at any moment. That's the pitch and the problem. Your legit little AI app shows up in the same feed as parked domains and sites with, let's say, creatively reported traffic. Buyers know this, so they show up skeptical and they lowball on reflex. On a smaller project, you spend as much energy proving you're not a scam as you do selling.
Then there's the tab. You pay to list — before you've earned a dollar — and it's non-refundable whether you sell or not, anywhere from $29 to $699 depending on how much visibility you buy. Then Flippa takes a success fee on top, and their pricing page puts that at up to a flat 10%. Payment protection and processing ride along as extra percentages on top of that. Each layer is defensible on its own; stacked, they add up fast.
Here's the quiet unfairness of a fixed listing fee: it's a rounding error on a $500k sale and a real tax on a $3k one. Buy a $199 listing to sell a $3,000 project and you've handed over ~7% before the success fee even starts — the smaller your project, the more the fixed costs bite. If you've got a big, clean, revenue-heavy asset and the patience for a noisy marketplace, Flippa can absolutely move it. For a $6k side project, you're paying premium-marketplace prices to stand in a very crowded room.
Marketplace 02Acquire.com
Formerly MicroAcquire. Polished, serious — and it's climbed a long way upmarket.
Acquire.com is a genuinely nice product. But the "micro" is doing less work than it used to. When it was MicroAcquire it was the indie hacker's watering hole; today the room is full of buyers hunting six- and seven-figure SaaS with real MRR, and the fee structure has grown up to match. On their own seller-pricing page, a deal under $250k carries an 8% closing fee and a $25/month listing fee for as long as you're listed. (It steps down to 7% and 6% as the deals get bigger — the discounts are aimed squarely at the larger sellers.)
There's also a softer cost that never shows up as a number: if your project has little or no monthly revenue, it simply doesn't get much priority. The whole machine is tuned for recurring-revenue businesses, so a pre-revenue or "almost there" project can sit quietly while the MRR listings get the attention.
The part that stings the most for an early-stage project is on the buyer's side. To message founders and see the private details, buyers pay a subscription — $390/year for the mid tier, $780/year for the top one. That paywall is great for filtering tire-kickers on a $500k deal. On your $10k project, it just means the indie operator who'd have loved your code never pays to walk through the door.
None of this makes Acquire bad — for a $300k SaaS with clean books and a founder who wants a vetted, serious process, it's excellent, and the buyer paywall is a feature. It's just not built for the weekend project you're trying to hand off for a few thousand dollars.
Marketplace 03Little Exits
Formerly Tiny Acquisitions. The friendliest room in the building — with a turnstile at the door.
I like Little Exits. It has real indie-hacker energy, it's genuinely built for small projects, and the community is warm in a way the big platforms aren't. Credit where it's due.
Here's the catch, and it's a real one: on Little Exits, the buyer pays to reach you. Full access — the analytics, direct messaging, the ability to actually make an offer — sits behind a $249/year membership, or a $9.99 one-time "Sneak Peek" for a week. So the person who stumbles onto your listing, likes it, and wants to send one message… hits a paywall first. Plenty of them just close the tab.
Their exact cut on the seller side isn't posted publicly, which is its own quiet tell — it's hard to weigh a fee you can't see until you're in. But the structural thing to understand is bigger than any percentage: a marketplace that charges buyers admission is, by design, a smaller room. Fewer people through the door means fewer offers on your project, which usually means a lower final price. The cost doesn't show up as a line item — it shows up as silence.
Notice the pattern: each one either takes a big cut, or charges your buyers to reach you, or both. Somebody always pays a toll — the only question is who, and how much.
The mathWhat the seller's cut actually looks like
Fine print is easy to skim past, so here's the same thing as a picture. This is the platform's cut of a clean $10,000 sale — shorter bar is better, because it's money that stays in your pocket.
Marketplace 04What an honest exit looks like
So here's the version we built, because we wanted it to exist and it didn't.
On Vertos, listing is free — always, no upfront gamble. When your project sells, we take a flat 5%, and not a cent before. Every deal runs through secure crypto payments: the buyer pays in, the code stays locked, and the two release together the moment the handoff is confirmed. Nobody walks away with both the code and the money. Buyers get in free — no $390-a-year turnstile between your listing and the person who wants it. And because we're built for code, every listing comes with a free automated AI analysis that reads the actual source and shows buyers what's really there — so an honest project gets believed, fast.
We're not the right home for a $2M content empire — Flippa is better at that, honestly, and a broker is better still. But if you shipped something real, moved on, and just want a fair, low-friction way to hand it to the next builder? That's the entire reason we exist.
The verdictSo which one should you use?
Fees aside, the honest answer is "it depends on what you built." Here's the short version, no marketing:
An early-stage app, micro-SaaS, AI project, or side project — pre-revenue or profitable — that you want to hand off cheaply, safely, and fast. Free to list, flat 5%, secure payments, open buyer pool.
A large, established site or content business with real traffic, and you don't mind a crowded, noisy marketplace and the upfront listing fee.
A $200k+ SaaS with genuine recurring revenue and clean books, where a serious, vetted buyer pool is worth the 8% and the paywall that filters them.
A very small starter project, and you value the friendly community and don't mind that buyers pay to reach you.
A real business doing $100k+ a year that you want sold for you — hands-off, at a premium price, for a ~10–15% commission.
Common questionsFrequently asked questions
What is the best marketplace to sell a side project or micro-SaaS?
It depends on what you’re selling and what you value. For the lowest fees and for early-stage or AI projects, Vertos leads — free to list, a flat 5% on sale, and free access for buyers. Flippa suits high-volume listings of all sizes but charges a listing fee plus up to 10%. Acquire.com targets larger $200k+ SaaS and charges sellers 8% plus a monthly fee while making buyers pay to message. Little Exits focuses on small starter projects but puts buyers behind a paywall.
Which marketplace has the lowest fees for sellers?
Vertos. It’s free to list and takes a flat 5% only when a sale closes, so sellers keep 95%, with no listing fees or subscriptions. By comparison, Flippa charges a non-refundable listing fee of $29–$699 plus up to 10% on sale, and Acquire.com charges an 8% closing fee on deals under $250k plus a $25/month listing fee.
Do buyers have to pay to use these marketplaces?
On Vertos and Flippa, buyers browse, message sellers, and make offers for free. Acquire.com and Little Exits charge buyers for access: Acquire’s buyer plans run about $390–$780 per year to contact sellers, and Little Exits puts full access behind a $249/year membership (or a $9.99 one-time peek). Charging buyers admission shrinks the pool of people who can reach your listing.
What are Flippa’s fees in 2026?
On its own pricing page, Flippa charges a non-refundable listing fee of $29–$699 up front, then a success fee of up to 10% when the sale closes, with payment protection and processing added as extra percentages on top. The listing fee is owed whether or not the project sells.
Where is the best place to sell an AI app?
Vertos is purpose-built for AI apps and early-stage projects: free to list, a flat 5% only on sale, secure crypto payments, and a free automated code analysis on every listing so buyers can verify what they’re getting. Flippa and Acquire.com aren’t AI-focused, and Acquire skews toward larger $200k+ SaaS with recurring revenue.
List it free.
Keep 95% of what you earn.
No listing fee. A flat 5% only when it sells. secure crypto payments on every deal.
Thanks for reading this far. Go get paid for the thing you built.
— The Vertos team