Answers
Is Acquire.com legit for buying a SaaS?
Short answer: Acquire.com is a genuine marketplace, mainly for SaaS, that verifies sellers' identity and publishes its own deal data. Listing figures still come from the seller or their connected tools, so request read-only Stripe and analytics access, use escrow, and compare the asking price with Acquire's 3.9x median profit multiple for confirmed SaaS sales.
What does Acquire.com provide to buyers?
Acquire.com is a marketplace for buying and selling startups, mostly SaaS. According to its help pages (read 7 October 2026):
- Buyer plans. Basic is free and shows public listing information only. Premium costs $390 a year and opens chat with founders and private details for startups up to $250,000 of trailing revenue. Platinum costs $780 a year and covers all sizes. Paid plans are not refunded after seven days.
- Seller verification. Sellers verify their identity through Persona, and sellers listing a US company as an entity also verify the business. Verified sellers get a badge.
- Connected metrics. Customer and recurring revenue metrics come from ChartMogul and traffic from Google Analytics when the seller connects them. Acquire itself calculates only trailing and last-month revenue and profit, from a profit and loss statement generated through Codat.
- Seller fees. Sellers pay a monthly listing fee ($25 to $100) and a closing fee of 6% to 8% of the price, depending on the asking price.
What does Acquire.com not check for you?
Identity verification tells you who the seller is, not whether the business earns what the listing says. Profit figures come from the seller's own statements or connected accounting, and the P&L Builder turns an uploaded statement into a summary. Read the figures as the seller's claims until you have seen the source: View Only access to Stripe, the bank statements behind the payouts, and analytics. Our Acquire.com listing red flags guide covers the patterns to look for.
What multiples and timings does Acquire.com publish?
Acquire's Biannual Acquisition Multiples Report (11 February 2026, updated 1 September 2026) gives a median profit multiple of 3.9x for confirmed SaaS sales in both 2024 and 2025, an average in the low-to-mid 4x range, an average of 81 days on market with most deals within 90 days, and average margins of 71% in 2024, stable in 2025. The report says it is based on anonymised, customer-provided information, and that Acquire can verify the details of transactions completed on its platform.
How do I compare a listing with Acquire's median?
Compare on the same basis, and only after paying for your own time. In the composite below, an asking price of $150,000 on $3,200 a month of profit is 3.91 times profit, right at Acquire's median. But the seller works eight hours a week; at $40 an hour, the price is closer to seven times the profit you would keep.
Composite example, run through the true payback calculator
| Asking price | $150,000 |
|---|---|
| Stated monthly profit | $3,200 |
| Owner hours a week | 8 |
| Hourly cost of that time | $40 |
| Payback as listed | 46.9 months |
| Multiple as listed | 3.91× |
| Owner time per month | $1,387 |
| Profit you keep | $1,813 |
| True payback | 82.7 months |
| True annual multiple | 6.89× |
A listing at the median multiple is not a fair price if the profit leaves out the owner's work. The same arithmetic applies on any marketplace.
What should a buyer do on Acquire.com?
- Run the public listing through the red-flag checker before paying for a plan.
- Ask for View Only access to Stripe and match it to the bank, as in how to verify Stripe revenue.
- Get churn from the same export and test it against the price (acceptable churn).
- Pay through escrow, never by direct transfer (how escrow works).
Sources
- Acquire.com, Biannual Acquisition Multiples Report (11 February 2026, updated 1 September 2026), read 7 October 2026
- Acquire.com Help, Refunds, cancellations, and subscriptions (updated 4 March 2026), read 7 October 2026
- Acquire.com Help, How do I verify my business?, read 7 October 2026
- Acquire.com Help, How are Customer, and Web traffic metrics calculated?, read 7 October 2026
- Acquire.com Help, How to use the P&L Builder, read 7 October 2026
Related
- Acquire.com listing red flags
- Flippa vs Empire Flippers vs Acquire.com
- How to verify Stripe revenue
- What churn rate is acceptable?
- How escrow works
- Is Flippa legit for buyers?
- Glossary of listing terms
- More questions buyers ask
Get the SaaS and software seller checklist
Join the FirstPass Memo waitlist and the next page gives you the SaaS and software seller question checklist (web page and PDF) straight away, along with the other free files: seller question checklists for eleven business types, the 72-hour vetting plan and a deal-tracker spreadsheet. Nothing is emailed; you download them on the page.
We will write when paid memos open, and occasionally before. Unsubscribe any time by replying "stop" to hello@firstpassmemo.com. Looking at a live listing priced $10k–150k? Apply for a free beta memo instead; its confirmation page has the same downloads.
Composite examples are invented and labelled. Figures from other sites are quoted with a link and the date we read them; FirstPass figures are asking prices and seller-stated profit, not sale prices. Informational screening only, not investment, legal or tax advice.