Flippa review: Is it the best place to sell websites online?

Flippa is a site that allows you to sell websites online. It was launched by Matt Mickiewicz and Mark Harbottle in 2009. Flippa is the top website of its niche. As of today, the company has about 1.8 million active listings and it has made total sales of $200+ million.

What sites does Flippa accept?

Flippa allows users to sell new as well as established sites. For the buyers, it provides filters to shortlist sites by their traffic, revenue, category, etc.

How does Flippa work?

Users can browse the site without registration but to sell sites, or participate in the auctions, post comments, send messages, you must register an account. To activate the Flippa account, the users must verify their phone number and bank account with the debit card.

Flippa listings

Flippa enables users to launch two types of listing – classified, and auction. Each listing requires you to verify the ownership of your site by placing an HTML tag in the head section.

Auction listings last for “N” days. The user must specify the number of days the listing should last. While creating a listing, the user will be asked to set a description, tagline, the reserve and buy it now price. Reserve price is the minimum amount you’ll accept for the site. Buy it now price is the price set by the user. It is like the MRP on products. The difference between Reserve and BIN price is that the Buy It Now bids may end the auction before its ETA. When an auction is live, people interested in the listing will place bids.

Once the bid is placed, you cannot change the reserve price or change the descriptions. Auctions might be featured on Flippa’s three important pages – Most Active, Ending Soon and Reserve Met. The fees for the auction is $19 for starter sites and $29 for established portals.

Classified listings remain on the site for a year by default. They cost $9. While creating it, you’ll be asked to set the minimum offer amount. Flippa enables you to convert a classified listing into an auction. Users can change the listing end time, description, etc of the Classified Listing. They can also set/change its BIN price.

For both the listings, the user must verify website traffic by linking Google Analytics with Flippa (if the site is getting traffic). If the site is making money, the listing form will ask you to enter the profit/losses the site has made in the last 12 months.

Users can attach screenshots of payments, direct advertisement offers to make more people interested in your site. Flippa provides special packages that are intended to bring more traffic to your listing. The price for the same starts at $9.

The charges for selling a domain name or app on Flippa is $9. The listing process is the same as that of a website.

Payment and charges

Flippa supports two types of payment services – PayPal and Escrow. If you go for Escrow payment, you’ll have to pay 12% of the overall business sale price as a commission to Flippa + $25 for wire transfer. The two amounts will be deducted automatically. For PayPal, the fee is 15%.

Process

The highest bidder at the end of the auction emerges as a winner on Flippa. Once the auction ends, Flippa will unlock a special interface called “SCA” or “Sales Completion Area” in the dashboard through which you can communicate with the seller. The seller can request payment from via SCA.

Is Flippa Trustworthy?

Yes. I got payment from the buyer within a few hours of making a sale. As a buyer, it’s your responsibility to check the site’s statistics, backlinks to make sure the site is not in the danger zone of Google, or facing legal issues. Before placing a bid, make sure you spend some time using tools such as SEMRUSH to see the website’s backlink profile. If you don’t do so, you might suffer a huge loss. Example: A seller was engaged in building unnatural backlinks. He made a good amount of money for him through the website and he lists the site on Flippa. You buy this site for 10000 USD. The seller transfers the ownership and site assets to you. After a few months, Google rolls out a major Algorithm update. The site’s traffic plummets and it is struggling to make money online.

What things you can sell on Flippa?

Android/IOS apps, SaaS applications, eCommerce portals, blogs, domains, etc.

Final thoughts: Flippa is a trustworthy site to sell online businesses, blogs, websites, apps, and domain names. It has a large user base. Hence, the chances of making a sale are very high on Flippa as compared to other similar sites. Flippa keeps your site in front of 1000s of genuine buyers. Its listing fees are cheap and the success fee is decent.