Source deals

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.

Our take: Set up free saved searches here on day one — it is the deepest on-market pool of SBA-size deals and costs buyers nothing — but treat listed financials as unverified marketing, expect competition on anything clean, and plan to supplement it once you target above ~$1M SDE.

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.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

Aggregates on-market business-for-sale listings from thousands of brokerages and marketplaces into one deduplicated feed with saved searches and alerts.

Our take: The default on-market aggregator for a reason — start free, upgrade when alert speed starts costing you deals.

Freemium · 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.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

A visual kanban sales CRM that searchers commonly adapt for acquisition pipelines — columns become your stages (sourced → contacted → NDA → CIM → LOI → diligence), with reminders and email sync keeping weekly outreach honest.

Our take: Any kanban CRM works — this is the common default. The weekly discipline matters far more than the tool.

Subscription · Per-seat subscription across several tiers with a free trial; Pipedrive's pricing page blocked automated verification, so treat specifics as directional (entry tiers have typically run ~$15–25/seat/mo billed annually as of mid-2026) — confirm current rates at pipedrive.com/pricing.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

A membership-based online community for the search fund / ETA world where searchers, investors, SBA lenders, brokers, and service providers network, post deals, and ask questions. Membership also bundles licensed research — 15,000+ IBISWorld industry reports, ~50,000 transaction financials/multiples — plus monthly company-contact credits for proprietary outreach and an events/internship board.

Our take: Join it — it's the town square of the search world and effectively free if you post monthly, but treat it as a network plus research library, not a deal pipeline, and filter the service-provider noise accordingly.

Subscription · From searchfunder.com homepage (fetched 2026-07-10), verbatim tiers: Monthly $79/month; Annual $19/month (prepaid annually, ~$228/year); Lifetime $432 one-time. Unusual offsets, per the vendor's own FAQ: each post or comment earns at least 30 days of free access (bankable up to 12 months); accounts maintained 4+ continuous years get permanent free access; referrals give both parties a permanent 33% discount, and 3 successful referrals earn indefinite free access. No dedicated /pricing page — pricing appears on the homepage; registration is required before seeing member content.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

Free email newsletter from Helen Guo that curates roughly five on- and off-market small businesses for sale per issue, several issues a week, each with short screening commentary. Paid add-ons: an SMB Deal Hunter+ membership that unlocks seller/broker contact info plus a weekly mastermind call and Slack group, and a call-gated "Pro" buy-side coaching program for first-time buyers.

Our take: Subscribe to the free letter as cheap deal-flow calibration — just know 200k others see the same deals, and treat the call-gated ~$12k Pro pitch with the same diligence you'd apply to a deal.

Freemium · Newsletter is free. SMB Deal Hunter+ (vendor upgrade page at app.smbdealhunter.xyz/upgrade): $99/month, or $990/year ("$82.50 / month (billed annually)", "Save $198 per year! Cancel anytime."); annual plan adds one personalized deal review by Helen Guo per quarter (claimed "$2000 value"). Caveat: that upgrade page carries a 2023 footer and may be a legacy offer. Pro program (pro.smbdealhunter.xyz): pricing not published — revealed only via an on-page video and a qualification call; page restricts it to first-time buyers with $50K+ liquid capital and promises to keep working 1:1 for free if you don't acquire in 6–12 months.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

Online marketplace for buying and selling profitable internet businesses — SaaS, ecommerce, agencies, newsletters, and content sites (expanded beyond SaaS-only in 2025). Buyers browse listings free and pay an annual membership to unlock financials and message sellers; the platform bundles LOI/APA document builders and free escrow through closing.

Our take: At $390–$780/yr it's easily justified deal flow if your thesis includes online businesses, but treat it as a supplement: most inventory sits below the size and SBA-financeability profile a $500k–$5M searcher actually needs.

Freemium · Buyer side (from acquire.com/pricing and help.acquire.com, July 2026): Basic is free (browse public listings only — no financials, no founder contact); Premium is $390/year billed annually, limited to startups up to $250k TTM revenue; Platinum is $780/year billed annually with access to listings of all sizes. Full refund within 7 days of initial paid plan; no pro-rated refunds after. Seller side (from acquire.com/seller-pricing): monthly listing fee plus success fee tiered by asking price — under $250k: $25/mo + 8% closing fee; $250k–$1M: $50/mo + 7%; over $1M: $100/mo + 6%; closing fee due only at a successful sale. "Guided by Acquire" advisory is included free for SaaS with $100k+ TTM revenue.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

A private deal network where sell-side M&A advisors and brokers list lower-middle-market companies (roughly $2.5M–$250M revenue, $250K–$25M EBITDA) and approved buyers get algorithm-matched deal flow, with 10,000+ deals going to market annually. Buyer access is free; Axial charges buyers a tiered success fee at closing on any deal first sourced through the platform.

Our take: Since access is now free, joining costs nothing and the broker relationships alone can justify it — but treat the 5/4/3/2/1 success fee ($50K on a $1M deal, $150K on $5M) as a hard toll that makes Axial best for searchers pursuing $1M+ EBITDA advisor-listed deals, not the classic sub-$1M SDE self-funded search.

Success fee · Per axial.net's buying-investing page (July 2026): "$0 access fee," "no upfront costs, subscriptions, or commitments" for buyers. Success fee due only on deals initially sourced on Axial, per-transaction at close on a Lehman scale: 5% of the first $1M of transaction value, 4% of the next $1M, 3% of the next $1M, 2% of the next $1M, 1% above $4M (vendor example: $200K on a $10M deal; works out to $50K on a $1M deal, $150K on $5M). Debt deals: 1% of committed capital. Repeat closers earn Success Fee Credits (5-year life) against future fees; deals with documented prior two-way contact are exempt. Free for qualified sell-side advisory firms. Note: old forum posts citing "$1k funding / $100 per deal" reflect an obsolete pricing model.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

A paid, application-vetted membership program for business buyers founded by "Buy Then Build" author Walker Deibel, combining a structured onboarding curriculum, daily advisor office hours, live deal reviews, 80+ templates, 500+ broker mailing lists, and a private Slack community. Since a March 2026 "Acquisition Lab 2.0" rebrand it also houses a capital arm (dedicated fund plus an EIR program with $500k–$1M pre-committed capital) and separate paid post-close operations services.

Our take: The most credible brand-name accelerator for committed self-funded SBA searchers — the daily advisor access and live deal reviews are what you're really buying — but at $12,500 one-time with no financing, self-directed learners should start with the $20 book and free communities and join only if they want paid accountability and deal feedback.

One-time · $12,500 USD one-time for lifetime access (vendor pricing page, July 2026). No discounts or financing ("We don't have flexibility on pricing"; fee may be lender-reimbursable at closing); 30-day money-back window, non-refundable after, and refunds can be denied if a member "fully downloads materials, accesses substantial program content, or attempts to retain proprietary resources." Admission requires an application and a vetting call with a Membership Committee member. Separate paid add-ons at member-discounted rates: "Search Assistant" (during-search deal sourcing) and post-close "Operator Services" (finance/hiring back office, contact for pricing); basic Search Entity setup (~$600 value) is included with membership. Note: third-party reviews still cite $8,500–$10,000 — outdated; the fee has been raised repeatedly ($8,500 → $10,000 → $12,500).

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

Deal-flow platform for lower-middle-market M&A that combines a vetted marketplace of broker listings, private submissions, and pre-CIM teasers with a paid off-market origination service (OmniSource) and buyer-broker matching. Buyers apply for membership; both sides are screened before getting access.

Our take: A legitimate, still-active deal-flow aggregator that has drifted upmarket and behind a sales process - worth a demo if you're financing-ready and want off-market origination bundled with marketplace access, but self-funded searchers wanting transparent pricing and self-serve browsing should start elsewhere.

Custom pricing · Pricing not published. As of Jul 2026, biznexus.com/pricing lists tiered memberships with zero dollar figures: acquirers get Entry-Level (marketplace + community), Mid-Level (adds pipeline automation templates), and Partner-Level (concierge sourcing, OmniSource access, plus "performance-based success fees"); advisors get a Free tier up through Partner-Level. All numbers are demo-gated, the OmniSource FAQ says only "fees are plan-specific, with a success-based component," and the vendor warns packages and pricing "routinely" change. Third-party guides historically described the marketplace as a small monthly fee, but no current figure appears on any vendor page.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

Searchable database of 20M+ private companies with revenue/employee estimates, website-keyword search, and 10M+ verified executive contacts, used to build off-market target lists and run outreach with CRM integrations. Owned by Datasite since June 2025, which is merging competitor Sourcescrub's data into the platform.

Our take: The best off-market company data for thesis-driven sourcing if someone else is paying its ~$20k+ sales-quoted contracts, but most self-funded searchers under $5M get better ROI from a cheap DIY stack — Grata's estimates and contacts are weakest at exactly Main Street size.

Custom pricing · Pricing not published. grata.com/pricing shows three demo-gated tiers with no dollar figures: Growth (aimed at family offices and independent sponsors), Scale (buy/sell-side advisors, mid-market PE, corp dev), and Alpha (investment banks and mega funds), plus API and data-warehouse add-ons; all sales-quoted subscription contracts via "Book a demo" / "Talk to a specialist" — contract term length is not stated on the site. The only numbers on Grata's own site are on its referral page, whose worked examples use $20,000 and $30,000 contract values — a signal of typical deal size. No free trial or self-serve option.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →

A private-company database and deal-sourcing platform that indexes 17M+ companies from 290,000+ sources (conference rosters, industry lists, awards, associations) with contact data, list building, custom scoring, and CRM sync. Built for PE firms, investment banks, and corporate-development teams to find and track off-market targets.

Our take: A PE-grade sourcing database now being absorbed into Grata after Datasite's August 2025 acquisition — funded searchers with tech theses may still extract value via group discounts, but self-funded searchers buying sub-$2M EBITDA Main Street businesses should skip it: the price, the coverage, and now the product roadmap all point elsewhere.

Custom pricing · Pricing not published. The vendor's own pricing page (sourcescrub.com/sourcescrub-pricing) lists three quote-only tiers — Essentials (1 score/5 rules), Plus (1 score/15 rules, 250 tracked companies), Professional (1 score/unlimited rules, 1,000 tracked companies) — each behind a "Request pricing" form, plus quote-based CRM integrations and a Data Connect API. No dollar amounts, billing period, seat counts, or free trial are disclosed anywhere on the vendor site.

Verified Jul 10, 2026Full review →