The handover is the hard part.
Most small deals stall after the handshake, when nobody is quite sure who moves the domain. This part is run as a checklist, and this page is the checklist.
Five steps, in this order, every time.
Small deals fail because the steps get improvised in a message thread and nobody knows whose turn it is. The first step is deliberately a commitment: an unlock is the buyer saying which asset they are actually pursuing, which is why the owner takes the message seriously and why the thread that follows has no cap on it.
Unlock the listing
Everything about the asset that is not public - the financials, who owns it, and the ability to message them - opens with one unlock. It stays open permanently, so there is nothing to renew and nothing that expires mid-negotiation. The unlock is only used up if the owner replies; no reply inside 72 hours and it goes back to your allowance.
New owner unlocks · nothing spent until the owner repliesMake an offer
Structured question and answer on the asset record rather than an open-ended thread. The owner sees a number and a set of terms, not a conversation that has to be reconstructed later. The offer sits inside the unlocked record, so there is nothing further to pay and no limit on how long the two of you take.
New owner opens · owner respondsAgree terms
One upfront amount. What is included, what is not, and any period the owner will stay reachable for questions, from a fortnight to ninety days. A sales agreement is generated, and Escrow.com identity-checks both parties before money moves.
Both · agreement generated · both verified by Escrow.comWork the checklist
Domain, repository, hosting, billing, analytics, customer data, accounts. Ticked off in order, both sides watching the same list.
Both · owner leads each itemInspect and close
The new owner has an inspection period to accept or reject before funds are released. A rejection opens Escrow.com's return and refund process with the money still held. On acceptance, funds are disbursed and the asset record is marked transferred.
New owner inspects · Escrow.com releasesWhat actually changes hands.
The preparation list. Anything that does not apply to an asset is marked as such rather than quietly skipped.
Inside a deal, the handover is tracked as four items: access credentials, domain and DNS, billing and third-party accounts, and the data, codebase or content itself. The owner marks each one done and the new owner confirms it.
The longer list below sits underneath those four. It is what to have ready and what to ask for, written out in full so that neither side discovers a missing piece at close. It is a preparation document, not a set of boxes the platform ticks.
Domain and DNS
- Unlock the domain and release the auth codeOwner
- Transfer to the new owner's registrarBoth
- Move DNS records, or repoint themNew owner
- Transfer or reissue SSL certificatesNew owner
- Move email routing for any address on the domainBoth
Code and repository
- Transfer repository ownership, with history intactOwner
- Hand over environment variables and secretsOwner
- Move CI, deploy keys and build pipelinesBoth
- List any private packages or licences the build depends onOwner
- Confirm the new owner can build and deploy unaidedNew owner
Hosting and infrastructure
- Transfer or recreate hosting accountsBoth
- Move databases, with a restore tested before closeBoth
- Transfer file and object storageOwner
- Move any third-party service the product callsOwner
- Confirm every monthly cost is now billed to the new ownerNew owner
Billing and payments
- Move the payment processor account, or migrate customers to a new oneBoth
- Agree how in-flight subscriptions and refunds are handledBoth
- Transfer or cancel any app-store or marketplace seller accountOwner
- Confirm the first payout lands with the new ownerNew owner
Customers and data
- Export and hand over the customer listOwner
- Transfer the support inbox and any open ticketsBoth
- Notify customers of the change of ownerBoth
- Confirm the new owner's privacy policy and data terms are in placeNew owner
- Owner deletes their remaining copies of customer dataOwner
Accounts and brand
- Analytics, error tracking and any monitoringOwner
- Social accounts and any community the product runsOwner
- Logo files, brand assets and design sourcesOwner
- Documentation, runbooks and anything only in the owner's headOwner
- Trademarks or registrations, where any existBoth
Escrow.com holds your funds, not us.
Your money sits with Escrow.com for the whole transaction. It never passes through Indiemaker, and we cannot release it, hold it back, or touch it at any point.
Escrow releases after the inspection period, once the new owner accepts. If a deal falls apart before that, the funds are with Escrow.com under their terms and their protections, not ours. One upfront amount, in US dollars. We do not support earn-outs, instalments or deferred payments, because they need enforcement we are not in a position to provide.
| Item | Who pays | When |
|---|---|---|
| Listing an asset | Free | Not applicable |
| Browsing, filtering, comparing | Free, no account needed | Not applicable |
| Promoted placement | Owner, optional | $99 for 30 days of placement and a Promoted badge. One payment, not refundable once it starts. Does not change the success fee. |
| Escrow.com fee | New owner, at cost. It does not come to us | At funding |
| Indiemaker success fee | Owner. 6% of the agreed price, or 3% with Seller Pro. Taken from the proceeds, not added to what the new owner pays | On a completed transfer |
Settle these before money moves.
Six questions, all cheap to answer now and expensive to discover later. Every one is written onto the record.
Can the payment processor actually be transferred?
Some move between owners. Some require the new owner to open their own and migrate every subscription, which means every customer re-authorising a payment, and losing a share of them. Ask before agreeing a multiple based on that revenue, because the answer changes what the revenue is worth.
What exactly is included?
The design files, the social account, the community, the mailing list, the domain the marketing site sits on. List them. Anything not on the list is not in the deal, and saying so now costs a sentence.
How long does the owner stay reachable?
Two weeks of answering questions is normal and worth writing down. Open-ended availability is not a commitment either of you can hold. Name a period and an expected response time.
What does the new owner actually pay?
The agreed price, plus Escrow.com's own fee at cost. Nothing is added on top by us. Our success fee comes out of the owner's proceeds, and the rate is fixed when the sale is created and never recalculated afterwards.
What happens to money in flight?
Subscriptions that renew mid-transfer, refunds owed to customers, a payout already on its way to the previous owner. Decide who these belong to before the first one lands.
What happens if a checklist item cannot be completed?
An app-store account that turns out to be non-transferable, or a service tied to a company rather than a person. Agree now whether that reduces the price, delays close, or ends the deal, rather than negotiating it while the money is already in escrow.
What usually goes wrong.
None of these are exotic. They are the same four things, over and over, and all of them are cheaper to ask about than to discover.
The payment processor will not move
Some processors transfer an account between owners. Some require the new owner to open their own and migrate every subscription, which means every customer re-authorising a payment, which means losing some of them. Ask which one applies before you agree a multiple based on that revenue.
Something critical is in a personal account
A domain on a personal registrar login, an API key tied to somebody's own developer account, a mailing list on a plan in their name. Individually trivial, collectively the reason a transfer takes three weeks. The checklist is designed to surface these in step three rather than after close.
The owner disappears halfway through
Reply history is on every asset record for exactly this reason. An owner who has never answered a message is a risk you can see before you make an offer, and it costs nothing to check.
Nobody agreed what "included" meant
The design files, the community, the social account, the six months of the owner answering questions. All assumed by one side and not the other. Step two exists to write these down while it is still cheap to disagree.
What we check, and what we do not.
This page is the process. The other half is what Indiemaker stands behind before a listing ever reaches you, and what we leave to you to verify. That is worth reading before you make an offer.