BizBuySell vs BizQuest
Do you need both of the sister marketplaces?
BizBuySell
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.
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"; the full rate card is 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.
- 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
- Minimal listing vetting: users repeatedly compare it to Craigslist, citing 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)
Verified Jul 10, 2026 · Full review →
BizQuest
A long-running business-for-sale marketplace that is now a sister site of BizBuySell under the same corporate owner, with broker listings across main-street categories; inventory overlaps heavily with BizBuySell because brokers commonly cross-list on both.
Free · Free for buyers to browse and contact sellers; sellers pay monthly listing fees (bizquest.com, July 2026).
- Free for buyers with standard saved-search alerts
- Same corporate infrastructure as BizBuySell, so listing quality and categories are familiar
- Occasional non-cross-listed inventory justifies the five minutes to set up alerts
- Inventory substantially duplicates BizBuySell, so expect mostly repeat listings
- Industry commentary estimates heavy buyer-pool overlap between the two sites, limiting any edge
- No meaningful features beyond search and alerts
Verified Jul 12, 2026 · Full review →
Our take
Choose BizBuySell as the primary: it has the volume, the traffic, and the alerts, and it is where most brokers post first.
Add BizQuest as a free secondary alert rather than an alternative; the inventory mostly duplicates, and the occasional exclusive listing is the whole payoff.