Broker Match
All 8 brokers
MidStreet
BrokeragePublishes the actual numbers, which makes every other quote on this shelf readable by comparison.
The only broker here that publishes a ladder: Double Lehman, 10% of the first $1M then 8%, 6%, 4% and 2% above $5M, paid at close with no large retainer.
Synergy Business Brokers
BrokerageThe only firm here that names a person in each state it claims, which is what makes its geography checkable.
Says it charges nothing unless it sells the business, so no retainer and no listing fee, but publishes no rate.
Publishes a practice page for each industry it works, which is a read on how that trade gets priced.
Morgan & Westfield
BrokerageGives away more than it sells: a twelve-step buying guide, a knowledge base and a book-length seller handbook.
Describes the model rather than the money: bought a la carte, no long-term contract, cancel any time, with a fees page explaining why the rate differs by business. No dollar figure appears.
Raincatcher
BrokerageOpenly published listings, which is how a buyer meets a sell-side firm before there is anything to sign.
A success-fee model with rates and minimums unpublished. Figures circulate elsewhere and none of them is primary-sourced, so none is repeated here.
Peterson Acquisitions
Office networkThe only entry here running an intake track for buyers, so a searcher can be a client rather than a name on a list.
No sell-side fee, rate or retainer published anywhere. Its buyer-facing coaching and courses are paid, which is a different relationship from free content.
The Firm Advisors
BrokeragePublishes the sale step by step, from the confidentiality agreement to the contingent offer, which is buyer intelligence as much as seller marketing.
Publishes its whole process and a complimentary valuation, and no fee of any kind.
National Pool Route Sales
BrokerageThe one specialist on the shelf, and the clearest illustration of why trade focus is worth publishing.
Free for a buyer to browse and be matched; the brokerage fee and who pays it are not published. Its FAQ prices the routes themselves at 10 to 12 times monthly recurring billing, which is what a route costs and not what the broker charges.
Pool service routes only, sold by the route rather than as whole companies.
IBBA
Trade associationWhere to find a credentialed broker in a market no firm on this shelf names, plus a quarterly read on what Main Street deals actually close at.
Charges the reader nothing and the seller nothing: brokers pay it. The member directory and the survey highlights are public.
What a Broker Publishes About Its Fee
A broker works for the seller and is paid by the seller, so its fee is the first cost that comes out of the proceeds and it sets the floor under what an owner can accept. That makes it a buyer's business too. Of the 8 firms reviewed here, 1 publishes an actual schedule, 2 publish the structure without a number, and 4 publish nothing at all.
Publishes a schedule
The actual percentages are on its own site, so a seller's quote can be checked against them.
Publishes the structure
It says when a fee is owed and on what basis, but names no number, so the amount takes a call.
Publishes nothing
Neither the rate nor the structure appears on its own site.
Charges no seller fee
It represents no seller, so there is no sell-side fee to publish.
What the Where Control Does
It sorts rather than cuts, and that is deliberate. Every regional firm on this shelf names some states on its own site and then says it works others as well, so none of them has told anyone that a given state is outside its reach. Picking a state lifts the firms that named it and leaves the rest below under their own heading, rather than hiding them on a claim they never made. A firm that does publish a closed list would drop out, and none currently does.
Two of these firms publish a trade they specialize in and the rest publish none, so trade is shown on the card where a firm states one rather than offered as a filter that would return almost nothing.
How a Buyer Uses a Seller's Broker
Get on the buyer list where you are hunting, read what the firm publishes about its process, and remember whose side it is on. Every entry here represents sellers, which means on a live deal its duty runs the other way. The reviews carry that caveat one by one, along with what each firm does not publish.
Deals reach you through more than brokers. How to find a business to buy covers the other lanes, and Pipeline Tracker records which lane each deal actually came from.