Kumo vs BizBuySell
Side by Side
| Attribute | Kumo | BizBuySell |
|---|---|---|
| What It Is | Aggregates on-market business-for-sale listings from thousands of brokerages and marketplaces into one deduplicated feed with saved searches and alerts. The Ultimate tier bundles AI deal analysis (DealScreen.ai), SDE normalization, and stress-test scenarios on top of the feed. | 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. |
| Category | Deal Aggregators | Listing Marketplaces |
| Pricing Model | Freemium | Freemium |
| What It Costs | Basic free (no credit card, but listings shown 30+ days old); Pro $89/mo (list $100); Ultimate $149/mo (list $200); Enterprise custom. No commissions or success fees. | 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. |
| Best For | Searchers who want full on-market coverage without checking a dozen marketplaces by hand | 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. |
| Where It Fits | Source & Screen Deals | Source & Screen Deals |
| Our Verdict | The default on-market aggregator for a reason: start free, then upgrade when alert speed starts costing you deals. | Set 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. |
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Our take
Choose Kumo when checking a dozen sites by hand is the actual bottleneck: one deduplicated feed across thousands of brokerages with saved searches and alerts, at $89 a month for Pro and $149 for the tier that adds AI analysis and SDE normalization. Two things to hold. The free tier only shows listings already 30 days old, which is useless on anything competitive, so the real comparison starts at the paid price. And Pro is up from roughly $30 a month before a repricing, so budget from the page rather than from a figure you read in a roundup.
Choose BizBuySell first, because it costs nothing and it is where brokers post: the widest on-market view of $500k to $5M businesses, free search, free saved-search alerts, free inquiries. Starting here costs nothing but time, which is the thing an aggregator sells you back. What you accept is minimal vetting, inflated earnings claims and stale listings you screen out yourself, clean deals drawing dozens of inquiries within days, and inventory that thins fast above roughly $1M of cash flow.