Originally published on ExitBid — the full version has the complete comparison table and platform-by-platform breakdowns.
SideProjectors is the craigslist of side-project sales. That's not an insult — it's free, it's been running for 14+ years, and listing takes five minutes.
But after watching how deals actually close (and stall) there, I think most sellers pick it for the wrong reason. Free listing doesn't matter if the listing sits for six months. So I went through every marketplace in the micro-acquisition space and verified their fees, escrow, and pre-revenue policies — by reading their live pricing pages this July, not by copying 2024 listicles.
The problem with the bulletin-board model
SideProjectors gives you a listing page and... that's it:
- No escrow or transaction support. You and the buyer arrange payment yourselves.
- No verification of revenue or traffic claims. There's a light review, but nobody audits numbers.
- No price discovery. One buyer messages you, you negotiate one-on-one. You'll never know if someone else would have paid 2x.
- Small buyer pool compared to dedicated marketplaces.
For a $1–3K project none of this matters much. Above that, it starts to hurt.
What I found checking every alternative (July 2026)
| Platform | Seller cost | Escrow | Pre-revenue OK? | Price discovery |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SideProjectors | Free, 0% | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ 1-on-1 |
| IndieMaker | 3% pre-rev / 6.5% revenue | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Microns | 6–10% commission | ✅ | ❌ rejects pre-revenue | ❌ |
| Tiny Acquisitions | 9.5% platform fee* | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Flippa | $49–$499 listing + 5–10% | ✅ (~3.25%) | ✅ (gets buried) | ✅ auctions exist |
| ExitBid | $199 flat, 0% | Optional (Escrow.com) | ✅ | ✅ 5-day auction |
*Tiny Acquisitions numbers are from their newsletter — their site wouldn't load when I checked; verify before listing.
The surprise for me: Microns doesn't take pre-revenue projects at all ("at least 5 months old with paying customers") — and several "best marketplaces" posts still describe it as free for sellers. It isn't; sellers pay 6–10% now.
The honest matrix
- Sub-$2K project, no rush, zero budget → SideProjectors is genuinely fine. Free is free.
- Pre-revenue but real (users, waitlist, working product) → you want price discovery, because neither you nor any single buyer knows what it's worth. That's the case auctions handle structurally — competing bids find the number. (Disclosure: I built ExitBid exactly for this case — $199 flat, 0% commission, 5-day auctions, and yes, it's younger with a smaller buyer pool than Flippa. The full article covers when not to use us too.)
- Profitable, $10K+ → IndieMaker or Microns, both with escrow.
- $100K+ → that's broker territory, different game entirely.
One thing nobody tells you about pricing
Asking prices on bulletin boards tell you nothing — listings sit unsold at aspirational numbers for months. If you're trying to figure out what your project is actually worth, look at sold comps: recent public data points cluster in the $500–$15K range for pre-revenue projects depending on users, domain, and rebuild cost. I broke the methods down (with real 2026 sold prices) in how much a pre-revenue project is worth.
Happy to answer questions about any of the platforms — I keep the fee table updated as they change pricing.
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