Where can I find software businesses for sale between $50,000 and $150,000?

Where does inventory in this band actually sit?

Inventory between $50,000 and $150,000 sits mostly on listing platforms, because the band is too small for the advisory firms that handle seven-figure software businesses and too large for the cheap end where hobby assets change hands. That leaves a gap that founder-facing platforms fill. As at 14 September 2026, Indiemaker carried 155 businesses listed at $50,000 or above, representing $20.3m of combined asking value, of which 112 sat between $50,000 and $150,000.

Those 112 break down as 88 between $50,000 and $100,000 and 24 between $100,000 and $150,000. A further 121 sat between $25,000 and $50,000 for buyers working below the band. The asset mix above $25,000 skews towards SaaS and small two-sided platforms rather than content.

What are the four routes, and how do they compare?

The four routes differ most in how much work falls on you before you have a real conversation. The table below compares them on the things that cost a buyer time and money.

Nothing on that table is a verdict on anybody's honesty. It describes where the work sits. On a curated platform the screening, the moderation and the transfer scaffolding have already been built, so your effort goes into diligence on a specific business rather than into finding out whether a business exists at all.

Why does the curated route usually win at this size?

Curated platforms win at $50,000 to $150,000 because the three things that make a sourcing route expensive are already handled: finding real sellers, pricing against comparables, and getting the assets moved. A pre-screened seller has already been through an identity and listing check before you speak to them, which removes the first and most expensive class of wasted week. Comparable listings in the same band let you price an offer against reality rather than against the seller's ambition. A structured transfer with escrow means the money and the assets move in a defined order, with a checklist rather than an improvised email thread.

Cold self-sourcing does work, and serious buyers use it. It costs you an outreach programme, a response rate in the low single digits, and a counterparty who has not decided to exit and may never decide. When it lands you occasionally get a better price, because there is no competing interest. Price that discount against several months of your own time before deciding it is cheap.

How do you filter a listing platform properly?

Filter by trailing history first, not by price, because history is what makes a multiple meaningful. Set a minimum of twelve months of trading and ignore anything under six months regardless of how good the monthly figure looks. Then filter by category and stack, then by price band, and only then read the copy.

A workable shortlist is five to ten businesses, not fifty. For each one, note four things before you make contact:

• Trailing twelve-month revenue and the stated profit, and whether the two are consistent
• Where customers come from, and whether that channel belongs to the seller personally
• What the seller says they do each week, which is your first read on owner dependency
• The asking price as a multiple of stated annual profit, so you know how far the seller is from convention

A listing asking 6× annual profit is not necessarily a bad business. It is a conversation that starts a long way from where it needs to finish, and you should decide whether you want that conversation before you have it.

What about approaching founders directly?

Direct approaches work best when you have a specific thesis rather than a general appetite. Buyers who succeed at it pick a narrow category, build a list of forty to sixty products, and write to each founder with something that proves they used the product. A generic "are you open to a conversation about an exit" email into a cold inbox converts badly and deserves to.

The mechanics after the first reply are entirely yours to build. No listing template, no comparable prices, no moderation, no standard escrow arrangement, no pre-agreed asset list. That is fine if you have done several deals and have your own documents. It is a poor first acquisition.

What should you avoid?

Avoid any route where you cannot confirm who you are dealing with before money is discussed. At six figures, the counterparty's identity is the first thing to establish and the hardest to fix retrospectively. Anonymous listings, sellers who will only communicate through one channel and sellers who resist escrow are not bargains waiting to be found.

Also avoid the trap of shopping only on price. The cheapest listing in the band is usually cheap because revenue is falling, the code is unmaintainable, or one customer is most of the business. The $120,000 listing with clean retention and documented operations is frequently the better purchase, and the arithmetic on that is worth doing before the filter is set.

Related: how-to-acquire-a-micro-saas, red-flags-in-a-six-figure-listing, where-to-list-a-business-worth-50k-to-150k