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BizBuySell vs MidStreet

Side by Side

BizBuySell and MidStreet, attribute by attribute
AttributeBizBuySellMidStreet
What It IsThe 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.A North Carolina and Southeast lower-middle-market business broker and M&A advisor, 20-plus years and 400-plus closed deals, selling companies in the $1M to $25M revenue range, with a widely-read library explaining how the sell side actually works.
CategoryListing MarketplacesBusiness Brokers & M&A Advisors
Pricing ModelFreemiumSuccess Fee
What It CostsFree 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.Sell-side representation on a Double Lehman success fee (10% of the first $1M, then 8%, 6%, 4%, and 2% above $5M), paid at close with no upfront retainer or listing fee, on a dedicated pricing page that also states the typical 12-month listing term and 24-month tail. Its educational content is free.
Best ForSelf-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.Buyers hunting Southeast lower-middle-market deals, and any searcher who wants to understand the seller's side from a broker that publishes its process
Where It FitsSource & Screen DealsDefine & Test Your Thesis, Source & Screen Deals
Our VerdictSet up free saved searches here on day one: it is the deepest on-market pool of SBA-size deals and costs buyers nothing. Treat listed financials as unverified marketing, expect competition on anything clean, and plan to supplement it once you target above ~$1M SDE.Worth a bookmark for its sell-side education whatever your geography, and a real option for finding or selling a Southeast lower-middle-market business.
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
  • Twenty-plus years and 400-plus closed transactions in the $1M to $25M revenue range, so it knows the lower-middle-market Southeast deal
  • A large, genuinely useful free library of articles and videos on how the sell side prices, packages, and runs a process, which is buyer intelligence too
  • A transparent Double Lehman fee with no big upfront retainer, so its incentives sit with closing
Cons
  • 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)
  • Regional: it works the Carolinas and the Southeast, so a buyer outside that footprint uses it for its content more than its listings
  • It represents sellers, not buyers, so on a live deal its duty is to the other side of the table
  • Deal flow is limited to what it has listed at any moment, a fraction of a national marketplace's

Both rows were read at source: BizBuySell ↗ and MidStreet ↗.

Our take

Choose BizBuySell when you are prepared to run your own sale. A six-month seller listing is $74.95 a month at Basic, $99.95 at Showcase and $199.95 at Diamond, on the largest US business-for-sale marketplace, and that is the whole bill: no commission, no tail, no listing agreement. What it does not buy is a process. Its own row's caution about the buyer side is the seller's problem in a mirror: listings get minimal vetting, so yours sits beside inflated numbers and stale entries, and every inquiry you get is one you have to qualify, chase and negotiate yourself while running the business you are trying to sell.

Choose MidStreet when you want the sale run for you and you can accept what that costs. It publishes the fee, which is rare enough on this shelf to be the reason it is here: a Double Lehman success fee, 10% of the first $1M then 8%, 6%, 4% and 2% above $5M, paid at close with no upfront retainer or listing fee, on a typical 12-month listing term with a 24-month tail. On a $1M sale that is a hundred thousand dollars for buyer screening, positioning, a managed process and somebody else absorbing the twenty conversations that go nowhere. Read the tail clause before you sign, and note the geography: it works the Carolinas and the Southeast, so outside that footprint the choice is a broker in your market and this is the fee schedule to hold theirs against.

Looking wider than these two: alternatives to BizBuySell, each with a line on when it is the better pick.