Under $25,000 with real, TrustMRR-verified MRR. Small enough that a first acquisition doesn't bankrupt you if it goes sideways — big enough that the operating experience actually teaches you something.
The best first acquisition is one where you can afford to be wrong. Sub-$25k SaaS lets you learn customer support, churn triage, price experimentation, and processor migration on a business small enough that any mistake is recoverable. Once you've operated for 6–12 months, the second deal gets much easier — and cheaper to underwrite.
Every listing card shows asking price, TrustMRR-verified MRR, seller-reported margin, calculated ROI, payback months, and a benchmark badge vs. peer listings. You reach the seller directly. We don't broker the deal, hold escrow, or write your APA — but the numbers on the card are real, which is where 90% of first-time buyers get burned.
Create beautiful invoices, quotes and proposals for your clients, manage your projects and tasks, and keep your entire business organized in one place.
The #1 AI platform for beating prediction markets. Analyze Polymarket, Kalshi & more with AI, copy top traders, track whales, and make smarter bets in seconds.
The best prediction of matches for the World Cup
$5,000–$25,000 asking price with $200–$1,500 MRR. That's a solo-founder side project the seller doesn't want to maintain anymore, 20–200 customers, one product surface, and 3–8 hours a week of operational load. Small enough that a mistake costs you months of savings, not years — big enough to produce a real learning loop.
Budget 10–20% on top: $500–$2,000 for a lawyer to draft the APA (asset purchase agreement), $200–$400 for Escrow.com fees on deals over $5,000, transfer costs (domain push, DNS), and a 90-day operating buffer for tooling, support, and one or two contractor hours if you don't want to touch the code yet.
It helps but isn't required. No-code SaaS built on Bubble, Softr, or Webflow can be operated without engineering. For code-based SaaS, budget $500–$1,500 a month for a part-time contractor, or plan to spend 30–50 hours learning the stack. Filter for mainstream frameworks (Next.js, Rails, Django) to make hiring easier later.
Buying too small. A $3,000 SaaS with $80 MRR nets maybe $50/month after your time — you'll lose interest before you've learned anything. $10,000–$25,000 with $500+ MRR is the range where the numbers are big enough to matter and the seller has usually built enough infrastructure that you can spend your first three months operating instead of firefighting.
The MRR you see on Startup Index is pulled live from Stripe, Paddle, or RevenueCat via TrustMRR — it's the same number the seller's processor shows today. For extra confidence, ask the seller to screen-share their Stripe dashboard on a 15-minute call. That single call kills 80% of bad deals.
Five checks: TrustMRR number matches Stripe screen-share; the last 12 months of hosting and tooling invoices; the codebase compiles and deploys on a fresh laptop; churn was under 8% monthly for the last 3 months; and the seller's own operating time was under 15 hours/week (or you're comfortable paying a contractor to cover it).
For deals under $5,000, direct wire with a signed APA is standard — Escrow.com's fee makes it uneconomical below that. For $5,000–$25,000, Escrow.com holds funds until domain, code, and Stripe transfer completes; releases in 3–7 days. Startup Index doesn't run escrow; you set it up directly with Escrow.com or your closing attorney.
Most sellers offer 30–60 days of transition support in the APA — bug fixes, DNS help, customer-support handoff. Get this in writing before signing. Also plan for the code to break: budget 20 hours in the first two weeks for infrastructure changes (new API keys, database credentials, domain reroutes) that always break something.
Two to four weeks is typical at this ticket size. Week 1: initial call + numbers verification. Week 2: APA + escrow setup + transfer plan. Week 3: transfer executes, escrow releases. Week 4: transition support, customer emails, first payment cycle in your account. Faster is possible for sub-$10k deals with no lawyer involved (not recommended for first-time buyers).
Operate for 6–12 months before buying anything else. First acquisitions are about learning how a SaaS actually runs — customer support, refund handling, churn triage, price experimentation. Buyers who stack a second deal before learning the first usually end up over-leveraged and unable to serve either. The math works better if the first one is solid before adding a second.