SAASALE vs TrustMRR: Which marketplace is right for buying or selling a SaaS business in 2026

SAASALE and TrustMRR are the two SaaS marketplaces that share the same core philosophy: revenue is verified directly through payment provider APIs rather than uploaded documents. They were built around the same insight — that buyers should not have to trust seller-supplied numbers — and they share several architectural patterns including 50/50 split commissions, Escrow.com integration, and client-side legal document generation. The differences come down to how far each platform extends the verification model and what it stacks on top.

TL;DR

SAASALE is a SaaS acquisition marketplace operated by Stakyo, LLC (Delaware, USA). It supports 17 payment providers for revenue verification, attaches an AI Deal Score to every listing, includes a pre-tracked catalog of 495 projects from SaaS Radar at launch, and offers free Buyer Alerts. Listings cost $49 one-time (free for pre-tracked projects) and commission is 3.7–5.6% split 50/50 between buyer and seller.

TrustMRR is a SaaS marketplace built by Marc Lou (creator of ShipFast). It supports 8 payment providers for verification, has more than 1,000 verified startups in its catalog with around 142 on sale at any time, and uses a three-tier listing model ($29 / $199 / $499). Commission is 3.7–5.6% split 50/50 between buyer and seller. Buyer Alerts are a paid feature at $199/year. There is no automated scoring layer.

Pick SAASALE if you want broader provider support (Chargebee, Recurly, Maxio, Adapty, PayPal, SumUp and others not on TrustMRR), an AI Deal Score for fast filtering, free buyer alerts, optional AI Reports, and a starting catalog with verified depth.

Pick TrustMRR if you want a longer-established marketplace with an active community, the original verified-revenue ecosystem, and you are comfortable with the three-tier listing model and paid alerts.

The two platforms agree on most of the model and differ on two things: the breadth of provider verification and whether listings are scored algorithmically. The rest of this comparison breaks down where each choice matters.

At a glance

What is SAASALE?

SAASALE is a marketplace for buying and selling SaaS companies, operated by Stakyo, LLC, a Delaware-registered limited liability company. The platform launched in 2026 with three differentiators that build on the verified-revenue marketplace model: a broader provider integration set, an AI scoring layer in every listing, and a pre-tracked catalog so the marketplace did not start empty.

Verification covers 17 payment providers — Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Polar, RevenueCat, DodoPayment, Superwall, Creem, Chargebee, Recurly, Maxio, Adapty, Apphud, Qonversion, Glassfy, PayPal, and SumUp. Sellers connect a read-only API key, and the platform pulls revenue history, active subscription count, and MRR directly from the source. Verified metrics are stored in the provider's native currency (€, £, $, etc.) and displayed without conversion, so a project earning in euros shows euro figures.

Every listing carries an AI Deal Score combining 65% verified data with 35% AI agent analysis across six weighted metrics: PMF (active subscribers, 27%), Freshness (revenue retention proxy, 20%), Volume (last 30 days revenue, 18%), GEO Leverage (LLM recommendation potential, 14%), Saturation (niche competition density, 11%), and Replaceability (how easily ChatGPT can replace the product, 10%). The score recalculates automatically when the seller adjusts the price.

The 495 pre-tracked projects in the catalog were imported from SaaS Radar, the underlying analytics system that has been monitoring publicly verified SaaS revenue since 2024. Founders of pre-tracked projects can claim ownership through payment provider verification (a one-time read-only key) and either list for sale (free for pre-tracked) or set the project to stealth.

Beyond the catalog and scoring, SAASALE offers AI Reports — paid PDF deep analyses ranging from $29 to $249, available to both buyers and sellers — and a public API (free at 100 req/day, Pro at $49/month). Closing runs through Escrow.com with a buyer-controlled receive trigger so the 30-day inspection timer only starts after the buyer confirms asset receipt.

What is TrustMRR?

TrustMRR is a SaaS marketplace built by Marc Lou, the developer behind ShipFast and other indie products. The platform pioneered the verified-revenue marketplace model — connect your payment provider, the platform pulls verified numbers, buyers see real metrics rather than seller-claimed figures. It is built on Next.js, hosted on Vercel, and uses MongoDB Atlas as its primary database.

Verification on TrustMRR covers 8 payment providers: Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Paddle, RevenueCat, DodoPayment, Superwall, and Creem. Sellers connect a read-only API key, and the platform syncs aggregate metrics — total revenue, MRR, last 30 days, customer count, active subscriptions — roughly once per hour. Personal customer data is not collected.

The catalog has grown to more than 1,000 verified startups, with around 142 actively on sale at any given time. TrustMRR reports approximately $1.4B in cumulative verified revenue across the platform and 50M+ transactions processed through its integrations. Public materials show the platform itself was earning roughly $22,500 MRR as of April 2026.

Listings use a three-tier model: a $29 base tier for visibility, $199 for additional features, and $499 for premium placement. Commission on closed deals is 3.7–5.6% of the sale price, split 50/50 between buyer and seller — the same structure both platforms use.

TrustMRR offers paid Buyer Alerts ($199/year), a Telegram bot for new listing notifications (@trust_mrr_bot), and AI-generated Startup Insights that auto-populate value proposition, target audience, problem solved, and pricing model based on the project's website. Closing runs through Escrow.com, with KYC handled by Stripe Identity.

Pricing breakdown

SAASALE pricing

For sellers:

• Listing fee: $49 one-time. Free if your project was already in the pre-tracked SaaS Radar catalog at launch.
• Closing commission: 3.7–5.6% of the sale price, split 50/50 between buyer and seller (effective seller share roughly 1.85–2.8%).
• Escrow: handled through Escrow.com; standard transaction fees apply.
• AI Reports (optional): $29, $99, $149, or $249 packages.

For buyers:

• Browsing the catalog: free, no subscription required.
• Buyer Alerts: free.
• API access: free at 100 requests/day, $49/month for the Pro tier.
• AI Reports: same packages as for sellers.
• Closing commission: same 50/50 split as the seller side.

TrustMRR pricing

For sellers:

• Listing fee: tiered — $29 base, $199 mid-tier, $499 premium (one-time per listing). Listing for free is possible at the database level (project tracked but not actively marketed).
• Closing commission: 3.7–5.6% of the sale price, split 50/50 between buyer and seller (same as SAASALE).
• Escrow: handled through Escrow.com.

For buyers:

• Browsing the catalog: free for basic listing visibility.
• Buyer Alerts: $199/year.
• Telegram bot for notifications: free.
• API access: standard rate-limited access (20 req/min per key).
• Closing commission: same 50/50 split as the seller side.

Side-by-side cost comparison

Take a $50,000 SaaS deal on each platform.

On SAASALE, assuming the project was not pre-tracked:

• Seller listing fee: $49
• Total commission at 5%: $2,500, split 50/50 → seller pays $1,250, buyer pays $1,250
• Escrow.com fees: roughly $400–$700
• Net to seller (before Escrow.com fees): $48,701

On TrustMRR, assuming a mid-tier listing:

• Seller listing fee: $199
• Total commission at 5%: $2,500, split 50/50 → seller pays $1,250, buyer pays $1,250
• Escrow.com fees: roughly $400–$700
• Net to seller (before Escrow.com fees): $48,551

For a buyer on this deal, the platforms are equivalent at closing. The main pricing difference shows up on the buyer side over time: SAASALE provides Buyer Alerts and base API access free, while TrustMRR charges $199/year for Buyer Alerts. On the seller side, SAASALE's $49 flat fee is below TrustMRR's $29 base tier only if you are willing to skip TrustMRR's higher visibility tiers.

Revenue verification: how each platform proves the numbers

Both platforms verify revenue through direct payment provider integrations — this is the shared philosophy that makes them more trustworthy than document-based marketplaces. The difference is breadth.

SAASALE supports 17 providers: Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Polar, RevenueCat, DodoPayment, Superwall, Creem, Chargebee, Recurly, Maxio, Adapty, Apphud, Qonversion, Glassfy, PayPal, and SumUp. The added 9 over TrustMRR include subscription billing platforms popular in B2B SaaS (Chargebee, Recurly, Maxio), mobile app monetization tools (Adapty, Apphud, Qonversion, Glassfy), and broader processors (PayPal, SumUp). Verified metrics are stored in the provider's native currency.

TrustMRR supports 8 providers: Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Paddle, RevenueCat, DodoPayment, Superwall, and Creem. All metrics are normalized and displayed in USD.

Practical implication: a SaaS running on Chargebee, an iOS app monetized through Adapty, or a European business processing through PayPal can verify natively on SAASALE. On TrustMRR, the same project would need to either route revenue through one of the 8 supported providers or list without native verification. For projects already on the supported 8 providers (most early-stage indie SaaS uses Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, or Paddle), the platforms are equivalent on verification depth.

Both platforms refresh metrics on a sync cadence (TrustMRR roughly hourly, SAASALE on a similar cron schedule), and both store historical snapshots so buyers can verify whether the numbers have been stable.

Deal scoring and decision tools

This is the largest functional difference between the platforms.

SAASALE's AI Deal Score is a 0–10 score on every listing combining six weighted metrics, calculated automatically when a project is verified or its price changes:

• PMF (27%) — active subscriber count from verified payment data, scaled to a 0–10 bucket
• Freshness (20%) — last-30-days revenue divided by total revenue, used as a retention proxy
• Volume (18%) — absolute size of last-30-days revenue
• GEO Leverage (14%) — AI agent assessment of whether the product fits LLM-driven recommendation queries
• Saturation (11%) — AI agent count of identical competitors in the niche
• Replaceability (10%) — AI agent assessment of whether ChatGPT or similar can replace the product

Pre-filters automatically classify zero-revenue and zombie projects (subscribers but no recent revenue) as PASS without spending AI tokens. The score is visible in every project card on the catalog page, so buyers can sort and filter by it.

In addition, SAASALE displays a DataForSEO trust badge on the SEO Analysis block of each project, signaling that organic traffic and keyword data come from a verified third-party source rather than a self-reported number.

TrustMRR does not offer an automated scoring layer. Instead, it provides AI-generated Startup Insights that auto-populate value proposition, target audience, problem solved, and pricing model based on the project's website. These are descriptive rather than evaluative — they help buyers understand what a project does, but they do not rank or score it.

Both platforms calculate a revenue multiple automatically (asking price divided by annualized last-30-days revenue) and display it in listings as a quick valuation reference.

If you are a buy-side acquirer evaluating dozens or hundreds of candidates, SAASALE's score is meant to be an algorithmic first-pass filter. If you are a buyer who prefers to read project descriptions and evaluate manually, TrustMRR's Startup Insights serve a similar function as a starting point for your own analysis.

Catalog size and AI reports

TrustMRR has the larger established catalog. More than 1,000 verified startups are in its database, with around 142 actively on sale, and the platform has been operating long enough to develop an active buyer community and recurring listing flow. For sellers, this maturity means more eyeballs on a listing.

SAASALE launched in 2026 with 495 pre-tracked projects from SaaS Radar — projects that had been monitored for verified revenue since 2024 and were imported into the catalog at launch. New sellers can claim pre-tracked projects through provider verification or list new ones. The catalog is open: anonymous browsing surfaces verified numbers immediately, with no NDA wall.

On the report side, SAASALE offers paid AI Reports — full PDF deep analyses generated by an AI agent (Deal Analyst v2) using the verified data, public information, and reasoning across six metrics. Pricing is $29 (basic), $99 (standard), $149 (extended), or $249 (premium). Reports include scorecard, financial health analysis, market position, risk assessment, and a verdict on a five-point scale. TrustMRR does not offer a comparable AI report product.

Buyer experience

On SAASALE, the catalog at /acquire is open. You can filter by category, asking price, deal score, traffic, or revenue, and see verified financials on every card before clicking through. There is no buyer subscription wall. Buyer Alerts (saved searches with notifications) are free. When you find a project, you send an offer, which can be moderated by AI before reaching the seller, and the deal moves through a structured flow: offer → negotiate → LOI → due diligence → APA → escrow → closed. NDA, LOI, and APA documents are generated client-side in your browser.

On TrustMRR, the catalog is similarly open — you can browse verified startups for free. To get notified about new listings matching your criteria, you can subscribe to Buyer Alerts ($199/year) or join the @trust_mrr_bot Telegram channel for free notifications. The deal flow is also a multi-step process with built-in LOI/APA signing and Escrow.com integration. AI-generated Startup Insights help buyers quickly understand a project's positioning.

Both platforms support saved projects, comparison views, and stealth-mode listings (where the project is anonymized — you see verified revenue but not the company name until the seller approves your request).

Seller experience

On SAASALE, listing starts with verifying revenue through one of the 17 supported providers. Generate a read-only API key, paste it into the seller form, and the platform pulls your verified numbers and currency. Set an asking price, write a description (with an optional AI-generated draft), choose categories, and pay the $49 listing fee — unless your project was pre-tracked from SaaS Radar (free). The AI Deal Score is computed automatically. You can list as stealth, in which case the project is excluded from the public catalog, sitemap, and structured data.

On TrustMRR, listing also starts with payment provider verification (one of 8). You then choose a tier — $29 base, $199 mid, or $499 premium — which affects visibility and feature access on your listing. AI Startup Insights are auto-generated from your website URL and populate value proposition, audience, and pricing fields. You can also list in stealth mode where everything except revenue and MRR is hidden until you approve a buyer request.

Both platforms support a primary plus secondary payment provider per listing for sellers who use multiple processors.

Escrow and closing process

Both platforms use Escrow.com for the actual transfer of money and KYC. The mechanics are the same on both: buyer funds escrow, seller transfers assets, buyer confirms receipt, escrow releases funds. NDA, LOI, and APA documents are generated client-side in the browser on both platforms — a privacy-by-design choice neither platform deviates from.

The differences:

SAASALE uses a buyer-controlled receive trigger. The 30-day inspection timer starts only after the buyer marks the assets as received in the platform — useful when asset transfer takes weeks (Apple Developer accounts, App Store listings, custom-domain DNS migrations). The buyer chooses when to start the clock, which removes auto-release pressure during prolonged transfers. KYC is handled through Escrow.com.

TrustMRR uses Escrow.com's standard inspection mechanics. KYC is handled through Stripe Identity (a different vendor, but functionally similar — verifying buyer/seller identity before money moves).

Both platforms support installment-style structured deals only to the extent Escrow.com itself supports them — which is limited. Earnouts and complex multi-stage payments are typically handled outside the platform after closing.

Which platform should you choose?

A few practical heuristics:

Choose SAASALE if:

• Your SaaS is on a payment provider beyond TrustMRR's 8 (Chargebee, Recurly, Maxio, Adapty, Apphud, Qonversion, Glassfy, PayPal, or SumUp).
• You want an AI Deal Score to filter listings algorithmically as a buyer.
• You want free Buyer Alerts.
• You want native currency display for verified revenue (euros, pounds, etc., not converted to USD).
• You want optional paid AI Reports for deeper analysis.
• You are listing a project that was pre-tracked from SaaS Radar (free listing).

Choose TrustMRR if:

• Your project is on Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Paddle, RevenueCat, DodoPayment, Superwall, or Creem (the 8 it supports — verification quality is equivalent on these).
• You want access to a longer-established buyer community and the original verified-revenue marketplace ecosystem.
• You prefer the three-tier listing model and are willing to pay $199 for Buyer Alerts to get notifications.
• You actively use Telegram and want listing notifications through @trust_mrr_bot.

Use both if:

• You are a serious buyer or acquirer running a buy-side process. Listing your search criteria across both platforms maximizes deal flow. The platforms have heavily overlapping but not identical inventories — projects that verify on both list on both, but projects on SAASALE-specific providers (Chargebee, Adapty, etc.) only appear on SAASALE.

FAQ

Last updated April 2026. Pricing and feature details may change — check both saasale.com and trustmrr.com for current terms.