Where to list your SaaS or app for sale: how to pick the right place
George · 5 min read
The short answer: the right place to list your app depends on its size and on how much help you want. Brokers and big marketplaces suit larger businesses and take a share of the sale. For a small SaaS, web app or mobile app, a marketplace made for indie apps is often the better fit: cheap to list, no commission, and you talk to buyers yourself. Whatever you pick, a listing with checked ownership and real revenue numbers is what gets serious buyers to write to you.
Most solo founders have at least one app that works but no longer gets their time. It has users, maybe a little revenue, and it deserves someone who will keep building it. The hard part is not deciding to sell. It is finding where to put it so the right person sees it.
The kinds of places you can sell
- Brokers. A broker values your business, finds buyers and runs the deal. It is the most hands-off way to sell, and it usually costs a percentage of the price. Brokers tend to take on businesses with steady, larger revenue.
- Large marketplaces. Open to almost anything, with many buyers and many listings. Small apps can be easy to miss among bigger ones, and fees and commissions vary a lot from one to another, so read them before you list.
- Marketplaces for indie apps. Made for small SaaS, side projects and mobile apps. Listing is cheap or free, and you deal with buyers directly.
- Your own audience. A post on X, in your newsletter or in a community you are part of. Free, and the people who already know your app are often the best buyers. It only works if enough of them see it.
- Asking directly. Someone who runs a similar product, or a tool your users also use, may want yours. One honest message can be all it takes.
Many founders do more than one: a listing on a marketplace, plus a post to their own audience pointing to it.
What to compare before you list
- What it costs. A fee to list, a monthly fee, a commission on the sale, or a mix. On a small sale, a percentage can be most of what a buyer pays.
- Who it is made for. Look at the apps already listed. If they are all far bigger or far smaller than yours, buyers there are looking for something else.
- How revenue is shown. Screenshots are easy to fake, and buyers know it. A place that reads numbers from your payment provider gives your listing more weight.
- How ownership is checked. Buyers trust a place more when it checks that each seller owns what they list.
- Whether you can stay private. Some founders do not want users or competitors to see the app is for sale. Check whether you can hide the name until you choose to share it.
- How buyers reach you. Some places run every message through them, others put you in touch directly. Decide which you prefer.
- What happens at the sale. Few marketplaces hold the money. Know whether you will use an escrow service and who arranges it.
How to write a listing buyers trust
- Say why you are selling. One or two honest sentences. Buyers always ask, and a clear answer up front saves you both time.
- Show the numbers you can back up. Monthly revenue, revenue over the last month, subscribers, and how they have moved. If there is no revenue yet, say so and show users or traffic instead.
- List what comes with it. Code, domain, the app in the store, users and customers, social accounts, brand and design, content. Buyers compare listings by what is included.
- Show it working. Screenshots of the real product and a short video do more than any description.
- Price it, or say you are open to offers. Either is fine. A price gets you fewer but more serious messages.
Where ShipDesk fits
ShipDesk.dev started as a weekly launch board for solo founders, and now has a place to sell apps too. It is made for small, real apps: SaaS, web apps, and iOS, Android and Mac apps.
- Free for 15 days, or $4.99 until it sells. One payment, no subscription, and no commission on the sale.
- Ownership is checked. You add a short code to your site or your store listing, and a person looks at every listing before it goes up.
- Revenue from your provider. Connect a read-only key from Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Paddle, Dodo Payments, Creem, Gumroad or RevenueCat, and buyers see your MRR, revenue and subscribers, read once a day. Numbers from a test key are marked as test data.
- Keep the name private if you like. Buyers see the kind of app, its line and its numbers. The name, link and logo show only to buyers you accept.
- You talk to buyers yourself. Interested buyers write you a note, and contact details are shared only when you accept.
- Listed from your launch. If your app launched on ShipDesk, its name, description, icon and screenshots come over by themselves.
It is new, so the list of apps is short today. That also means an app listed now does not have to compete with hundreds of others for attention. Buyers can browse every app for sale by kind, price, MRR or subscribers, and our guide to buying an app safely covers escrow and moving the domain, the store app, the payments and the code.
Pick one and list it
The best place is the one where buyers for an app like yours already look, at a cost that makes sense for its price. If your app is small and real, start with a listing that shows checked revenue, then share it with your own audience.