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BizBuySell

Listing marketplaces

The largest US online business-for-sale marketplace (CoStar-owned, ~65,000 listings a year, mostly main-street and lower-middle-market), where buyers search listings and contact sellers or brokers for free. It also publishes sold-business comps, paid valuation reports, and free quarterly Insight Reports on transaction volume and multiples.

Pricing
Freemium — Free for buyers: registration, search, saved-search alerts, and inquiries cost nothing. Optional buyer membership "BizBuySell Edge" (buyer badge, listing popularity stats, benchmarks, up to 4 valuation reports/year) advertised "as low as $20/month" — full rate card only shown at signup. Seller listings (6-month term): Basic $74.95/mo, Showcase $99.95/mo, Diamond $199.95/mo; 3-month terms cost more per month, 12-month less; listings auto-renew month-to-month after the term; no commission or success fee (per vendor FAQ, July 2026 — up from $65.95/$89.95 in Sept 2025). Standalone valuation report $179.95, included free with any listing. Broker multi-listing subscriptions (BrokerWorks) are monthly memberships with early-termination fees; rates not published.
Best for
Self-funded searchers who want the widest on-market view of $500k–$5M main-street businesses — for building saved-search deal flow, calibrating asking multiples, and meeting active brokers. Not for searchers wanting curated or verified deal flow, or those targeting businesses above roughly $1M SDE, where inventory thins out fast.
Last verified
Jul 10, 2026 — pricing and status checked against primary sources
Roadmap stages
5. Source deals6. Screen & value

Pros

  • Deepest on-market inventory in the US (~65,000 listings/year per vendor fact sheet); most SBA-size main-street deals touch it at some point
  • Completely free for buyers — search, saved-search email alerts, and unlimited seller/broker inquiries with no success fee
  • Real deals do surface: an Acquiring Minds guest (Apr 2025) found an $800k-SDE manufacturer at ~2x by widening BizBuySell filters
  • Useful free market data for screening: quarterly Insight Reports, sold-comps database, and industry valuation multiples
  • Doubles as a broker directory — inquiring on listings is a practical way to get on lower-middle-market brokers' lists

Cons

  • Minimal listing vetting: users repeatedly compare it to Craigslist — inflated SDE, stale or duplicate listings, and occasional outright fake listings (Trustpilot, Oct 2025)
  • Good listings get swarmed — clean, fairly priced businesses draw dozens of inquiries within days, so slow movers mostly see picked-over inventory
  • Thin above ~$1M SDE/cash flow; searchers targeting larger deals consistently report outgrowing it (Searchfunder threads)
  • Broker responsiveness is erratic — buyers report ghosting, NDA walls before basic financials, and dead-end contact forms
  • If you later sell through it, seller-side reviews flag auto-renewal billing surprises and unhelpful support (Trustpilot, Sept-Oct 2025)

What searchers say

Mixed and voluminous. Positive: Acquiring Minds podcast (Apr 21, 2025) featured a searcher who found a $10M wood-veneer manufacturer ($800k SDE at ~2x) on BizBuySell; multiple other guests sourced their acquisitions there. Negative: Trustpilot reviews (Sept–Oct 2025) show a U-shaped 1-star/5-star split, with complaints about auto-renewal billing, bot/tire-kicker leads, and listings removed without explanation; r/smallbusiness users (summarized in a May 21, 2026 Investors Club roundup) call it legitimate with massive traffic but "very little listing vetting" — the Craigslist comparison recurs. Searchfunder consensus (threads 2022–2024) treats it as the default on-market starting point but weak above ~$1M cash flow; fresh Searchfunder discussion within the last 12 months is thin.

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Verification sources