For buyers of small online businesses

The first pass before you pay for diligence.

Send us a listing you are considering. Within 24 hours you get a short, plain-English memo: payback, the asking multiple against comparable listings, red flags with their source, and the questions worth asking the seller. Independent and paid for by buyers only.

  • 2–3 pages, about 10 minutes to read
  • $79–149 per memo after the beta
  • No marketplace, broker or seller money

What you get

One memo, the same structure every time

Each memo reads only what the seller published or what you paste, checks it for internal consistency, and compares it with your own buying criteria.

  • Snapshot. Asking price, multiple of annual profit, payback in months, revenue, margin, age and traffic mix.
  • Fit against your criteria. Maximum price, maximum payback, owner hours and deal-breakers you set.
  • Price against comparables. Where the asking multiple sits against a benchmark of comparable listed businesses.
  • Red flags, ranked. High, medium and low, each tied to the listing field it came from.
  • Questions for the seller. A ranked list you can send as-is, plus the numbers that would change the call.
  • A screen result. ADVANCE, WATCH or PASS against your criteria. It is a screen, not a recommendation to buy.

Sample memos from public listings

These were generated on 6 October 2026 from information the sellers or marketplaces published. Figures are seller-reported, unverified and may have changed since. Not advice.

How it works

Paste a listing link, get a memo within 24 hours

  1. Send the listing

    Paste the link. For marketplaces whose terms do not allow automated reading, paste the listing text you can see instead.

  2. Set your criteria

    Optional: your maximum price, maximum payback, the hours you can give it, and any deal-breakers.

  3. Read the memo

    Within 24 hours you receive the memo as a web page and a PDF. Every flag shows the field it came from.

  4. Decide what is next

    Send the seller questions, pass, or buy full diligence on the listing that earned it.

Pricing

Screen several listings for the price of one review

A first-pass memo and a human diligence review are different products. A human review works from source documents such as the P&L, payment-processor and analytics access. A first-pass memo reads only the listing. It helps you decide which listing deserves a full review, and what to ask first.

How a first-pass memo compares on price
OptionPriceWhat it works from
FirstPass Memo, Standard$99 (free during the beta; $79 for waitlist members at launch)The public listing or the text you paste, plus your criteria
FirstPass Memo, Plus$149As Standard, plus one set of exports you upload and one re-run after the seller answers
Human red-flag reviewFrom about $9501Seller documents and account access, reviewed by a person
Marketplace verification and assessmentFrom about $1,5002Seller documents and account access, reviewed by a person

Paid memos are not on sale yet. Prices exclude any applicable sales tax or VAT.

  1. FlipAudit Red Flag Report, listed at $950 for deals of $1k–50k on flipaudit.com/services, October 2026. Back
  2. Flippa Verification & Assessment, listed from $1,500 in the Flippa Help Center, October 2026. Back

Who it is for

Buyers with a short list and limited time

Part-time buyers

You have $10k–150k, a day job, and a few listings open in tabs. You want to know which one is worth a call with the seller.

Repeat buyers

You screen many listings a month and want the same checks and the same format on every one, against criteria you set once.

Not for

Sellers who want a readiness report, deals that need verification or a legal opinion, or anyone looking for a valuation. We do not offer those.

Free beta

10 free memos for buyers with a live listing

We are offering 10 free Standard memos to buyers who are actively considering a listing priced between $10k and $150k. In return we ask for a 5-question feedback form after you read it, and permission to keep an anonymized record of whether the flags turned out to matter. We select applicants weekly and reply to everyone.

Apply for a free beta memo

Agreements

We use your answers only to run the beta. See the privacy note below.

Join the waitlist

Not looking at a listing right now? Leave your email and we will write once paid memos open. Waitlist members get the first memo for $79 during the first 30 days.

One email when paid memos open, and occasional updates. Unsubscribe any time.

FAQ

Questions buyers ask

Is this financial, investment or legal advice?

No. A memo is informational screening. It is not investment, financial, legal, tax, accounting or valuation advice, and it is not an audit or verification. ADVANCE, WATCH and PASS describe how a listing compares with the criteria shown in the memo. They are not recommendations to buy, sell or bid. Before you make an offer, do your own diligence and talk to qualified advisers.

Are you independent? Who pays you?

Only buyers pay us. We take no money from marketplaces, brokers or sellers, we do not join marketplace referral or affiliate programs, and our links to listings carry no referral codes. Marketplace names are used only to say where a listing appeared; we are not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.

Where does the data come from?

From the public listing you send us, or the listing text you paste, plus anything you choose to upload. Benchmarks come from published asking multiples of comparable listed businesses. We do not use information behind a login, unlock or NDA, and we do not crawl or monitor marketplaces. Where a marketplace's terms do not allow automated reading, we work only from text you paste.

Do you verify the seller's numbers?

No. We check whether the published numbers are consistent with each other and with comparable listings, and we tell you what to ask for. Verifying revenue, profit and traffic requires source documents and account access, which is the job of a full diligence review.

Which marketplaces do you cover?

Any listing you can see. That includes Empire Flippers, Flippa, Acquire.com, Motion Invest and broker listings. For some marketplaces you paste the listing text rather than a link.

Can I paste information I received under an NDA?

Not during the beta. Please send public listing information only. Many marketplace NDAs limit confidential information to evaluating the purchase yourself, so check yours before sharing anything with a third party.

How fast is it, and what if the memo is wrong?

Beta memos arrive within 24 hours of acceptance, Monday to Friday. Every flag cites the field it came from, so you can check it. If you think a flag is wrong, tell us in the feedback form; we track false flags and publish corrections.

Who is behind FirstPass Memo?

FirstPass Memo is a small independent service. Memos are produced by our software and checked against a fixed quality checklist. We keep the service separate from any marketplace, broker or seller, and we are reachable at the email address below.