Empire Flippers Review: Is It Legit? (2025)

In 2024, Empire Flippers crossed a massive milestone – closing the year with over $500 million in online business sales.

But is this marketplace actually right for you in 2025?

Whether you’re looking to buy a business or sell, we’re putting Empire Flippers under the microscope to see if it lives up to the hype.

Note: All data and statistics in this review are based on available figures as of January 4th, 2025, according to the company’s “scoreboard” data, which is regularly updated.

What Is Empire Flippers?

Empire Flippers is a curated marketplace for buying and selling established online businesses.

Empire Flippers boasts 325,000 buyers and sellers, 12.5+ billion dollars in verified liquidity, and 2,391 businesses sold as of January 4th, 2025.

Unlike other platforms where anyone can list anything, Empire Flippers has a strict vetting process.

They reject about 90% of businesses that apply.

Their vetting team doesn’t just take sellers’ word for it – they independently verify every number against real analytics and financial data.

They’ve caught and rejected listings where sellers tried to inflate their numbers, protecting buyers from fraud.

Business Types

Empire Flippers lists various business types:

As of March 2024, CEO Andy Allaway stated the following approximate split in a YouTube comment:

“Sure, approx split right now:

59% Amazon FBA/ecommerce (including Shopify)

29% of content sites

The other 12% is a mix of KDP, Merch, agencies/services, SaaS, and other business models”

This ratio changes month-to-month, but it generally stands true that Empire Flippers heavily focuses on ecommerce businesses (mostly Amazon FBA, but increasingly Shopify, too). 

Price Ranges

As of early January, 2025, listings on the marketplace start around $50,000 and go up to $10 million plus.

Typical price ranges include:

$50K-1M: Most common

$1M-5M: Regular availability

$5M+: Occasional listings

Plenty of businesses sell in the high seven-figure range and a few in the eight-figure range.

For example, in late 2024, a Shopify store selling spiritual jewelry and subscription boxes sold for $12 million through Empire Flippers. The deal closed with 75% cash upfront and the rest paid over 2 years.

Business Multiples

Let’s look at real numbers.

As of January 4th, 2025:

• $1M premium businesses sell at 39.4x
• Premium businesses go for an average multiple of 33.4x trailing 12 months
• Typical businesses sell at 30.1x

Actual multiples may vary depending on other factors.

For example, a distressed business that is experiencing recent problems like revenue loss may sell for a low multiplier of 13x.

The business model also plays an important role.

For example, on average, SaaS businesses will sell at higher multiples than ecommerce, and ecommerce will sell at higher multiples than services.

But it’s really on a case-by-case basis, dependent on the business.

The key difference between Empire Flippers and competitors like Flippa and Acquire.com is that Empire Flippers handles everything from buyers and sellers, from verification to negotiations and business transfers.

And it varies from brokers in the sense that you have that reach of a marketplace and an easy to use platform to manage everything.

Consider it a hybrid between a marketplace and a business broker.

Okay, so, yes – Empire Flippers is legit! But it’s not right for everyone.

Buying Process

If you’re browsing businesses on the marketplace, you’ll see that you get a glimpse into the business details, like monthly revenue, and website traffic.

But you won’t see every detail, of course to keep the seller’s sensitive details private.

You’ll need to complete two steps before ‘unlocking a business’:

1. Verifying ID
2. Providing proof of funds

Empire Flippers verifies everything.

You get access to:

• Google Analytics
• Profit proof
• Seller calls

For listings below $300,000, you can talk directly to a seller within the platform.

For listings above $300,000, unlocking a business will start an email thread with a business advisor that will answer your questions.

After verifying ID and providing proof of funds, and you’ve done due diligence, you can submit an offer for a listing.

You can either:

• Offer the full amount
• Offer less than full amount, in which case the offer will be circulated to other buyers

If there’s a ‘buy now’ button, you can buy a business instantly.

You can also place a 10% (minimum $9,900) non-refundable down payment to hold the listing while the remaining funds are wired.

What’s unique is their migration team handles the entire business transfer process – we’re talking Amazon FBA transfers, hosting changes, everything.

While other brokers leave you to figure this out yourself after the sale, Empire Flippers won’t release the payment to the seller until they’ve confirmed everything is working properly for the buyer.

While as a buyer, you don’t pay direct fees, watch out for these hidden costs, like international wire fees, potentially using something like Wise that has low fees. They even accept cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Empire Flippers has a detailed guide that outlines their buying process step-by-step which is handy. The website makes the process pretty intuitive and clear.

Selling Essentials

Selling? Here’s what you need to know.

If you sell successfully with Empire Flippers, you’ll pay a commission on the final sale.

Empire Flippers uses a blended commission structure where rates decrease as deal size increases:

• 15% for amounts up to $700K
• 8% for amounts between $700K-$5M
• 2.5% for amounts above $5M

These rates stack on each portion of the total sale price.

They actually have a helpful commission calculator, so you can enter the potential sale price and get an estimate for commission.

For example:

A business sold for $1 million will have an effective commission of 12.9%, so $129,000.

A $10 larger million business will have an effective commission of 5.47% or $547,000.

While let’s say you have a smaller website selling for $50,000, the commission would be 15% (the maximum effective commission), so $7,500. 

$10 million – the effective would be 5.74%, so $574,000

While this might seem like a lot, it’s pretty standard, and considering all the help with selling, migration, the network of buyers, safety, etc., it’s really a good deal.

And consider the fact that if you were selling for $1 million, you might pay $109,000 in commission.

But imagine if you could only sell for $700k million solo, plus you have to manage it all yourself.

The commission is worth it just for the peace of mind.

Valuations

When it comes to valuations, they typically are based on 20-60x monthly profit, varying by business type and stability.

Empire Flippers has a helpful valuation calculator you can use to get a quick free estimate of what your business could potentially sell for.

You:

1. Choose your business type

2. Enter basic information like how many hours you work on the business, when you started the business, average monthly revenue, profit, and other details

3. Get a free estimate of what your business might sell for

Obviously, a more thorough preliminary and final valuation will be developed for you (again for free), but this should give you an approximate ballpark estimate.

Vetting Process

The vetting process takes a few weeks on average.

The length of the vetting process depends on the complexity of the business and business model.

For example:

• A small content affiliate site could be submitted, vetted and listed within a week
• A complex product ecommerce business could take up to four weeks

Generally, it’s recommended to estimate about three to four weeks.

There are two ways to get started with Empire Flippers:

1. Directly submit it on Empire Flippers
2. Set up a call with a business analyst to perform an initial assessment

You’ll need:

• 12+ months profit history
• Clean financials
• Verified traffic (if applicable) and revenue

You’ll need to provide detailed accounts of these details and other things requested, but those are an overview of the main things.

They also create professional P&L reports for sellers who’ve never made one before.

Their vetting team helps structure your financials to make your business more attractive to buyers – something most marketplaces won’t do.

Note: Every online business must earn $2,000 or more in net profit over a 12-month average.

After the Sale

Their migration team handles the heavy lifting:

• Domain transfers
• Account changes
• Supplier introductions

They also manage escrow and verify everything before releasing payment.

Realistic timeline? The average sale duration is 109 days.

But unique or high-priced businesses can take longer.

A 1 million dollar business could sell within weeks, or could take months.

While a $50k site could sell in days, or months.

The length really depends on multiple factors, including the business type, size, model, season etc.

The Truth About Empire Flippers

Let’s get brutally honest about pros and cons.

The good. Empire Flippers has:

• Serious, verified buyers
• Thorough validation process
• Professional support team
• Secure escrow service and full-service help with migration
• Full transparency – they publish quarterly reports showing real marketplace data and sales figures

The not-so-good:

• Potentially higher fees than some competitors for sellers
• Strict listing requirements
• Can be slow for unique businesses
• 2 month exclusivity period

Now, these aren’t necessarily negative, it just depends on what you value.

Who’s Empire Flippers NOT Good For

If you’re looking to sell or buy a website/business well under $50,000, for example in the $1,000-$20,000 range, Empire Flippers isn’t the best place.

For very small deals or DIY approaches, look elsewhere like Flippa; for SaaS, Acquire.com might be better.

And anything offline, you’re best off with a private broker, or another listing website like BizBuySell.

Very large businesses e.g. over $200 million, while potentially possible to sell on Empire Flippers, might be best suited for a brokerage with a track record of multiple deals of that size.

The Bottom Line

So yes, Empire Flippers is legit, and a great place to buy or sell.

If you want a curated marketplace with full support and don’t mind paying for it, Empire Flippers is great.

To get started:

As a buyer:

• Browse marketplace
• Complete ID verification
• Prepare proof of funds

If you’re selling:

• Use the valuation calculator
• Book business analyst call
• Gather 12 months of financials/records

From personal experience looking to sell with the team, the Empire Flippers team was extremely professional and helpful on the call. 🙂

They genuinely seemed to care, and you can tell they know what they’re doing. So from personal experience, I’m very happy recommending them. As with plenty of other positive reviews online.

But, as with everything, do your own research and due diligence.