The transacting of content businesses has become a significant trend these days. People have made crazy amounts of money doing it. For example, Ramon van Meer sold his blog for $9 Million without knowing how to write, code, or create content. Here you can learn more about his story.

We compare two of the most prominent marketplaces where you can buy and sell niche content sites, Flippa and Empire Flippers, below. 

Who knows? Maybe you can become the next Ramon.

FLIPPA VS. EMPIRE FLIPPERS

A Basic Overview of Flippa and Empire Flippers

Flippa has a larger user base. It has 1.5 million compared to 195,000 on Empire Flippers. Flippa makes around $375 million in sales while Empire Flippers does $280 million to date.

When you want to buy a site on Flippa, you need to do your own due diligence. Conversely, Empire Flippers diligences all platform sites and has an entire team responsible for the website transfer.

What Types of Businesses You Can Buy on Both Marketplaces

On Flippa, you can buy:

• SaaS businesses
• eCommerce websites
• Content sites
• Mobile apps
• Service businesses 

On the other hand, Empire Flippers is more niche, offering you primary eCommerce and content sites. 

What are the Numbers

On Flippa, you can buy sites a lot cheaper compared to Empire Flippers. It’s unlikely that you’ll see a website under a $25,000 valuation on Empire Flippers as they only accept businesses that earn at least $500 per month in profit.

Some important differences between Flippa and Empire Flippers:

• Flippa creates auctions for each site that can turn into bidding wars. They extend the auction for an hour when there’s a bid in the last hour of the auction. That way, they prevent last-second sniping. 
• Empire Flippers offers a set price for listings. You can submit a lower offer. If it’s “pre-accepted,” then it will circulate for another 24 hours if another buyer wants to submit an offer that’s at least 10% higher.

Flippa offers you a lot more search filters because it has more listings. You can search by attributes like price, monthly profit, monthly pageviews, site age, and more.

On Empire Flippers, the average sale time is 48 days. 84% of all listings are successfully sold. 

Key Insight: At Empire Flippers, you’ll pay current market prices, while on Flippa, you can find cheaper deals.

What’s the Commission Structure

In any marketplace, the fees are crucial. They can either make or break the deal. They are taken out of the seller’s proceeds of the sale. Therefore, to cover the loss, prices may naturally rise to compensate for the fees. 

Flippa’s commission structure:

• 10% on sites $50,000 and under.
• 7.5% for $50,001 – $100,000.
• 5% for over $100,000.

Empire Flippers’ commission structure:

• 15% on sites sold for under $700,000.
• 8% for the amount between $700,001 and $4,999,999.
• 2.5% for amount over $5,000,000.

All The Info You Get About the Listings:

Site’s URL

On Flippa, you can see the URL on most listings. However, the sellers can make the URL confidential for an additional $100 fee. To view it, you have to accept an NDA.

Empire Flippers, on the other side, hides the URL of all listings to prevent copycats. To view the URL on Empire Flippers, you’ll have to provide proof of funds. After your funds are verified, you’ll get 10 “unlocks,” which you can use to view the complete information on a listing like:

• The URL
• Google Analytics access
• Earning statements
• The P&L

Based on the verified liquid funds you have, you can unlock a certain amount of listings.

Site’s traffic

The traffic data you get on both marketplaces comes directly from Google Analytics. On Flippa, you can message the seller to access the data. 

Empire Flippers gives you access to Google Analytics data when you unlock a listing.

Revenues and costs

On Flippa, sellers report earnings that are not verified. They share screenshots to show their ad earnings, but they can be faked easily. Flippa can verify Adsense revenue from the Google API if it gets access.

On Empire Flippers, sellers have to provide documentation of earnings verified by the Empire Flippers vetting team. To verify the earnings, they want access to affiliate dashboards like Amazon Associates to pull reports.

Other Information 

On Empire Flippers, you can get an audio interview with the seller. 

Flippa doesn’t offer any due diligence, so it’s up to you to find any issues with a listing. For $1,500, you can buy their due diligence service that includes:

• Verifying traffic.
• Verifying revenue.
• Checking for bot traffic.
• Identifying asset transfer risk.

Empire Flippers, on the other side, vets their sites. They will give you information like verified: 

• Domain ownership.
• Traffic with Google Analytics. 
• Earnings.
• Expenses.
• Seller.

The entire vetting process at Empire Flippers takes between 2-4 weeks.

Key Insight: Both Flippa and Empire Flippers are incentivized to sell, so you must do your research or find an unbiased due diligence service to do it for you.

How to Contact The Seller

On Flippa, you can directly message sellers through the site. You can also leave comments on the listing.

On Empire Flippers, you can message the seller through the site. If your listing is over $100,000, you can schedule a call with the seller.

Where It’s Easier to Get Scammed

A lot of sellers there misrepresent the traffic and earnings they get on Flippa. The marketplace addresses the issue by verifying the identity of the seller. Also, users can report suspicious activity on any listing.

The buying process on Flippa step-by-step:

• You send the money to an escrow account with a wire transfer.
• You get the assets.
• You have seven days to either approve or reject the assets. If you don’t, the funds will be released automatically.

The buying process on Empire Flippers:

• You wire the money to Empire Flippers (they also accept Bitcoin.)
• The migration team starts the transfer of the site.
• You receive the site.
• You have a 14-day inspection period.
• If the site does not earn at least 50% of the revenue in the listing, you can renegotiate the deal or reverse it.

Empire Flippers protects the seller if an earn-out is negotiated by collecting payments from the buyer and sending them to the seller.

They also hold some collateral like the domain name to ensure you as a buyer make the payments.

Empire Flippers will also protect the seller if an earn-out is negotiated by collecting payments from the buyer and passing it to the seller (minus the commission). Empire Flippers will hold some collateral like the domain name to ensure the buyer makes the payments. 

Key Insight: You should be aware of scams on Flippa.

What Type of Post-Sale Support You Get

With Flippa, the buyer and seller are on their own to navigate the process of transferring website ownership. 

Empire Flippers have a dedicated team that will execute the website transfer that requires no assistance from the buyer or seller apart from providing access to hosting accounts. 

On Flippa, sellers don’t have an obligation to offer post-sale support. They are encouraged to do it, but it’s not a given. On Empire Flippers, sellers typically provide 30 days of support via email or Skype. It can vary, but 30 days is the standard.

Summary

If you’re new to buying sites and have more money to spend, you should check out Empire Flippers. They will offer you more protection and higher-quality sites.

If you’re an experienced investor who loves the thrill of finding the best deal, Flippa is the marketplace for you.

Yours Unconventionally,

Codie & Ryan

Co-founder- Unconventional Acquisitions

If you want to learn more about researching, analyzing and buying businesses, check out the articles below

• Is Business Buying Right for You? How to 10X Your Dealflow – Uplevel Your Contacts
• How to 10X Your Dealflow – Uplevel Your Contacts
• Turn Your Skills Into a Cash Substitute 

You can also register for the course here OR if you are serious about buying a small business, join our Mastermind.