--- title: "Free red-flag checker for small online-business listings" url: https://firstpassmemo.com/checker/ updated: 2026-10-18 publisher: FirstPass Memo (hello@firstpassmemo.com) --- Free tool # Red-flag checker for business-for-sale listings The FirstPass Memo red-flag checker is a free tool that reads a business-for-sale listing and returns the payback in months, the asking multiple against comparable listings, and the top three red flags, each with a question to send the seller. Paste a listing you are looking at to start. Nothing you paste leaves your browser. The check runs on this page. The listing text is never sent to us or anyone else, and the page loads no third-party scripts. Free, no account. After the check you can unlock the full report (every flag with its seller question) with one email field. Already talking to a seller? Get a full memo: $79, pay after delivery. Want the rules on paper? 33-rule checklist (PDF) (https://firstpassmemo.com/get/33-rule-checklist.pdf). The checker needs JavaScript, which runs only on this page. You can still ask for a full memo with the form further down. Next step ## Get a full memo on this listing The checker runs all 33 published rules on what you paste and shows the top three flags. A full memo checks the listing against your own criteria (price, payback, hours, deal-breakers), ranks every flag with the field it came from, shows how payback moves if profit is lower, and gives you a ranked list of seller questions and the numbers that would change the call. A memo is $79 (human quick reviews cost $199–$390). Pay after delivery: we send the memo first, then a payment link. This form sends only your email and the two optional choices beside it. It does not send the listing text, and we do not store it. We reply by email to confirm the listing, and the memo arrives within 24 hours, Monday to Friday, once we have the listing details we need. How it works ## Simple rules you can check ### Payback and multiple Payback is the asking price divided by monthly profit. If no profit is given, the checker uses annual profit divided by 12, then last month's profit, then MRR as an upper bound, and says which one it used. The multiple is the asking price divided by a year of that profit. The benchmark is the middle half (25th to 75th percentile) of Empire Flippers asking multiples by category, from the Empire Flippers public Marketplace API on 6 October 2026: 173 listings for sale, all categories. These are asking prices, not sale prices. Categories with fewer than 8 listings, such as SaaS (6), are marked as a small sample and are too few to judge a price. This is a different dataset from our monthly listing benchmarks (https://firstpassmemo.com/data/) (WebsitesForSaleOnline listings, Empire Flippers excluded), so the two sets of figures should not be compared or combined. ### The flags 33 rules taken from our memo pipeline, ranked high, medium or low. They cover missing profit figures, profit above revenue or margins over 90%, a weak last month or a stated decline, a short averaging window, ARR and MRR that disagree, churn above 5% a month, few customers or one large customer, organic search above 50% or one channel above 60% of traffic, Amazon, Google and other platform dependence, search-growth claims the traffic does not support, under 12 months of history, owner hours above 10 a week or not stated, "passive" claims next to staff, and figures with no connected data source. Each rule has its own page, with a worked example, under red flags explained (https://firstpassmemo.com/flags/). The checker reads only what you give it. It cannot see the seller's accounts and does not verify anything. A listing with no flags here can still have serious problems. FAQ ## Questions about the checker ### Does the checker send the listing I paste anywhere? No. The checker runs in your browser. The page's security policy stops its script from making network requests, and the text box is not part of any form. The only thing that sends data is the optional memo request form, which sends your email and, if you choose, a price band and a category. ### How is payback calculated? Payback is the asking price divided by monthly profit. The checker uses average monthly profit if the listing gives it, then annual profit divided by 12, then last month's profit, then MRR as an upper bound, and it tells you which one it used. A payback of 24 months is the same as an asking multiple of 2.0 times annual profit. ### Where do the benchmark ranges come from? From the asking multiples of businesses listed for sale on the Empire Flippers public Marketplace API on 6 October 2026: 173 listings across all categories. The range shown is the middle half (25th to 75th percentile) for the category you pick. These are asking prices, not sale prices, and categories with fewer than 8 listings are marked as a small sample. It is a separate dataset from our monthly listing benchmarks on the data page, which use WebsitesForSaleOnline listings and exclude Empire Flippers. ### If the checker finds no red flags, is the business safe to buy? No. The checker reads only the text and numbers you give it. It cannot see the seller's accounts and does not verify anything, so a listing with no flags can still have serious problems. Use the flags to decide which questions to ask and which listings deserve a full review. ### Which listings does it work with, and what does it cost? Any listing text you can copy, from Flippa, Empire Flippers, Acquire.com, Motion Invest, broker sites or a seller's own post. It is free, with no account and no sign-up. ### Can I link someone straight to a result? Yes. Put the numbers in the page address and the check runs as soon as the page opens, for example https://firstpassmemo.com/checker/?ask=150000&profit=3200&hours=8&type=saas (https://firstpassmemo.com/checker/?ask=150000&profit=3200&hours=8&type=saas&via=faq). You can use ask (asking price), profit and revenue (per month), age (months, or 3y for three years), hours (owner hours a week), churn (monthly churn, %), top (largest customer's share of revenue, %), customers, sources (for example Organic 70%, Direct 30%) and type (saas, newsletter, content, affiliate, fba, ecommerce, dropshipping, youtube, digital or agency). Only those numbers and words go in the link, never listing text. ## Not advice Informational screening only. The checker is an automated first-pass review of the text and numbers you enter. It is not investment, financial, legal, tax, accounting or valuation advice, and it is not an audit, verification or appraisal. Results depend on information published by the seller or marketplace, which has not been independently verified and may be incomplete, out of date or wrong. Flags are prompts for questions, not findings of wrongdoing, and the absence of a flag is not a sign that a business is sound. Do your own due diligence and talk to qualified advisers before you make any offer. Read the buyer guides (https://firstpassmemo.com/guides/) or see sample memos from public listings (https://firstpassmemo.com/#what-you-get). --- FirstPass Memo is informational screening, not investment, legal, tax, accounting or valuation advice, and not an audit. Seller figures are not independently verified. HTML version: https://firstpassmemo.com/checker/