Pinppa Review: The Best Place to Buy a Small Website?

Flippa has gained its reputation as the place you go when you don't want to take out a mortgage to buy a web property or when you don't go out for a business with at least 4 zeros.

Flippa allows you to buy and sell web properties.In this Flippa review, we'll take a look at buying and selling on Flippa.We will assess whether Flippa is a viable marketplace (it is), how widespread scams are (quite common), and how to buy or sell a real and valuable web property.

We will talk before selling since it is a shorter section.If you'd like to know about buying on Flippa, click Buy on Flippa in the table of contents below 🙂

FLIP PRO

Flippa is used by millions of buyers and sellers.Here are some things that are good:

CAN BUY OR SELL AT ANY PRICE RANGE

Flippa meets the needs of the market by allowing small and medium-sized business owners to buy and sell on their platform.As much as I love Empire Flippers, FEInternational, and Quiet Light Brokerage, you're not getting any time of day on those platforms unless you like the 5-figure rating.

Flippa allows anyone to list any site for sale.You can buy any site for sale. 

I appreciate the way anyone can use Flippa.Whatever your budget, whatever your asset size.You can buy or sell on Flippa.

A corollary of this is that you can sell just about anything on Pinball.Websites, domain names, apps, FBA companies, SaaS, and more are accepted.

VERY EASY TO NAVIGATE AND USE

Another thing I like about Flippa is that it's super easy to get around. 

From the seller's perspective, it takes no more than 5-10 minutes to list a site for sale.For buyers, there is a huge number of filtering options.

I think the homepage is intuitive and helps you get where you're going.

Flippa scores best for ease of use, filtering, and navigation.

LARGE SITES WITH A LOW MULTIPLE

Another "pro" of Flippa is that there are actually some good deals to be found there, you just have to do some digging.As I will share in the "cons" section, you will definitely have to go through many sites before you find rough diamonds… But there are good sites there.

As a result, sometimes you can find great sites at a really low price.Again, this is not always the case, but if you go hunting for them, business shows up from time to time.

Real sites, with real earnings, at an exceptional price.However, you have to be very careful, because not everything listed is always accurate.

FLIPPA CONS

Flippa is great, but it's not perfect.To be honest, the platform has a long way to go before it gets  to the perfect one.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS AND SCAMS

Are you the kind of person who gets excited when you see an email from a Nigerian prince?If this is calling you, then Flippa might be the place for you.Buy at your leisure.(Actually, there are also many great sites on Flippa… you just have to cut the weeds first).

Overall, beware: Flippa has a history of scammer ads.

There really is a possibility that an ad you're watching was created with the intention of scamming you.While this will give you a valuable life experience to not believe everything you see, it will cost you in the range of 4+ figures to buy a website with fewer features than your average Turkey.

Do not buy a turkey. Beware of scams.

Many of these issues could be resolved if Flippa did a more thorough check on the sites listed.In some cases traffic and revenue are checked automatically (program-attic connections), but in other cases it is based solely on the word of the seller. 

As a result, sites that sell for very low multiples of their monthly "profit" are everywhere.And just because you see bidders doesn't mean it's a legitimate and valuable web property.

This is the problem Spencer is trying to solve with Motion Invest.They verify all websites so you can be sure you're buying a site with verified revenue.

Later in the review, I talk about some ways to avoid pinball scams.

FLIPPA REVIEW

Depending on where you look, Flippa is well received or very little received on the Internet.

Reviews on Trustpilot have brought Flippa to 4/5 solid stars.People say things like, "I'm very satisfied with the service… " or "Highly positive review… " or "I really enjoyed my experience with Flippa… "

But then you go to the reviews on SiteJabber and the average consensus puts Flippa at about 1.3/5.Among the insults regarding the mothers of customer service agents, you can imagine the other things being said here.

So which one is true?Is Flippa a 4/5 or a 1.3/5?

There are two parts of Flippa that we will see: buying and selling.Let's start by looking at the sale of a web property on Flippa.

SELLING ON FLIPPA

Flippa is a marketplace for 4 types of web properties: starter sites, established sites, apps, and domains.You can sell one of them on Flippa, and the process is quite similar for everyone.

(We'll talk about why Flippa distinguishes between starting sites and those established in the Purchases on Flippa section , so read on.)

It's easy to start selling on Flippa.On the homepage, you'll see a big button that says "Start Selling":

When you click the button, Flippa will ask you what kind of web property you're thinking of selling.Here you can distinguish between established sites, starting sites, apps, and domain names.

I chose "Established sites" for our example. 

Flippa will then guide you in creating your card.They will ask you several basic questions about your business:

What is the business name?

Where is it based?

What sector is it in? 

And so on.Then you will move on to the more advanced questions.

If you know a lot about buying or selling web properties, you will be quite prepared.Explain your sources of income, talk about how you make money, possible weaknesses, opportunities for the new owner, staff size, and so on.

It's pretty simple stuff, but be prepared to spend time on this.Everything you put here will help potential buyers and allow you to sell your business faster for a higher profit.

Then you get into the core of boredom.Flippa doesn't check any of their business listings, but requires you to provide "documentation."

I put that word in quotes because your documentation can be pretty much anything.

And I mean anything .

There are 2 ways to check your income: you can link Flippa to QuickBooks or you can fill out the information yourself.No fact-checking, no verification required.

* facepalm *

Flippa requires you to upload a profit and loss (P&L) statement.But again, this can be anything.I just uploaded the last screenshot I took.You can upload a photo of a purple squirrel or a P&L with doctrine that, like any good Instagram template, has been touched by a good amount of Photoshop.

Be aware that buyers can see this P&L, so you can't sell a site that only offers uploaded images of purple squirrels like P&L.But if you're a buyer, keep in mind that there's no verification process.

After you add your earnings, Flippa asks you to connect to Google Analytics.(This is a good way to check traffic, so I think Flippa did well.)

Then you list the company resources.This includes social media accounts, hosting, email accounts, and anything else included in the business.Your physical inventory would go here.

And then we are at the last step where we select our sales details.Flippa recommends a sale price and allows you to choose to sell through an auction or fixed price list.

Fixed price quotation in general is for more expensive companies.

Now it's time to select how we want the site to sell.

I understand that sellers pay brokers' commissions on a traditional brokerage.Often it is a fixed commission followed by a percentage of the total sale.Flippa has 2 options to sell your site: assisted selling and broker management.

Assisted selling is one where you get an account manager.Broker management is where you get a dedicated broker who finds a buyer for your site.Managing the broker requires a minimum sale price of $250,000.

But here's what's strange: the "flat rate" is a monthly subscription service.

Flippa has low membership fees, so $15/month makes it super simple to decide whether or not to sell your site.Of course, you can stop your monthly subscription as soon as your site sells.  

After selecting Assisted or Managed, you can choose to increase your listing.You pay the entry fee, increase if you wish, and your property is ready to sell.

PINBALL PRICE

In addition to Flippa's $15/month fee, they also take a successful commission.As you sell larger web properties, the price goes down:

Most sellers will pay the 10% success rate.

10% plus $15 per month is a low price to pay for selling your site.

As much as I love Empire Flippers, (check out Spencer's interview with founders Joe and Justin), their success commissions start at a flat fee of $297 and then a 15% success commission.Empire Flippers' lowest success fee is still 8%, which is quite large compared to Flippa.

One alternative worth mentioning is an activity Spencer has started calling Motion Invest.The Motion Invest team actually buys sites and then only sells sites they own.If you sell your site to Motion Invest, they don't hire brokerage fees.

Even if your site is quite small, the savings could be several hundred or thousands of dollars. You can click here to see what Motion Invest would buy your site for.

Now that we've looked at selling on Flippa, let's take a look at what a buyer should look like. 

BUY ON FLIPPA

Math works: buying is often better than building.The failure rate is lower, you're buying an immediate return on investment, and you have an established audience that you can monetize.

But Flippa doesn't have the best reputation for the quality of the sites it listed, so you may need to dig to find a good one.

Low-quality sites are undoubtedly the result of Flippa's "verification policy 0" that we reviewed above.Anyone can list anything on Flippa and maybe inflate their numbers.

Here's what Aaron told Trustpilot about his recent purchase of Flippa:

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I'd like to start by saying that it's not entirely Flippa's fault.Aaron saw a site "earn $600/m" and thought he could buy it for $1,000.

Buying a site for less than 2x monthly earnings is probably too good to be true.Unfortunately, for Aaron, that wasn't true.

But this highlights Flippa's big flaw: no agreement has been verified.You need to do your due diligence.And there's a lot of shit you'll have to sift through to find the real gems.

When you want to buy something from Flippa, you can do it directly from the home page.Search the header for all types of activities you are looking for or use the search bar:

One thing I like about Flippa is that they offer tons of filtering options on the left sidebar.I specified that I wanted a content website (a blog or review site) that earned at least $50 per month but less than $500 per month.

Now it's time to start sifting through the results.

There is a very important note to remember here that will make your buying process much easier:

Websites sell for 20x-36x their average monthly profit on a typical brokerage. 

This fact alone can help you eliminate some of the scammier sites.

Here are some of the best lists I got for my research.I highlighted the earnings per month, the Buy It Now price, and then marked them as a scam or not:Let's look at these:

• ilmi.com.pk: This site earns $234 per month and costs $1,500.This represents a huge return on investment of 187% per year!That site sells with a multiple of 6x.SWINDLE
• WebHostingBlog.com: This site earns $182 per month and sells for $12,500 at the Buy It Now price.It is quite high – a multiple of about 70x.But it seems that the auction price may be slightly lower.I bet this is a legitimate deal.
• eviralnow.com: This website earns $483 per month, and you can buy it with a simple payment of $1,000.You would also earn all your money and more in just 3 months.I bet this landlord has a sobbing history about his son or says he's "working on another project."Do you want to say it with me?SWINDLE

If it's too good to be true, it's probably not true.And just because you see a lot of auction bids doesn't mean an ad is valuable.It could just mean that there are plenty of muggles in the world who want the easy way. 

Don't be one of them.

You can say that the only possible website with a real value (WebHostingBlog.com) has a pretty high Buy It Now price.It's quite normal.

I bet you could dig in and find a reasonable website with a reasonable Buy It Now (BIN) price.But buyers are motivated to set the BIN up and let the auction move towards that number.I wouldn't be afraid to look at sites with a high BIN for a few more details.

So let's take a look at WebHostingBlog.com and see if it's a profitable business.

HOW TO BUY A GOOD DEAL ON FLIPPA

Flippa includes some information that may be useful to you.They pull reports from Google Analytics and show it on the sales page.You can also see earnings over the past 12 months and the seller's response to questions we reviewed during the sales process. 

Here's a snippet of what it will look like:

I can't stress this enough: If you're a serious buyer, you should request read-only access to Google Analytics.If the seller says no, I would probably leave.If any of the numbers don't match, it's a big red flag.

There are so many ads on Flippa that you shouldn't be afraid to say no. Be liberal with your scraps and narrow the field as much as possible.It is better to be safe than sorry when we talk about purchases of figures above 4 digits.

You don't want to end up with a domain name, a starter site, and $0 in earnings because of getting scammed.

Request read-only access and verify all Google Analytics numbers you see.Not worth the risk.

One thing that scares me here is the massive jump in traffic from June to July.In June, this site had 33 unique visitors.July, to 19,526 unique visitors.

This kind of growth is unheard of.

And to make matters worse, it doesn't come from a traffic source that we can verify.A huge part of the traffic of this site is direct traffic:

The huge portion of direct and reference traffic makes me nervous.It doesn't come from search engines, not social media… So where does it come from?

At this point, my guess would be that the owner here is buying traffic to increase his numbers.I would leave this site and keep looking.

But I'll give you a few more reasons why I wouldn't acquire this site.Let's take a look at the site itself:

2 ads above the fold on the home page?Lousy.The site was last updated in August and the content is pretty smelly. 

And then this is stupid, but it raises a red flag for me: posts don't have relevant featured images.

The more I look at the site, the more I feel like it's been mixed together.Featured images, front-page ads, subtle content.These are not good signs.

I don't like what I see here.

And to put the nail in the coffin, let's do a little more research: I want to put this bad guy in Ahrefs (check out my review of Ahrefs).Here I am looking for backlinks.What is the site's backlink history?

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What we find is a little… strange.

The site received a ton of backlinks overnight… And then he lost more than half of them.I don't know what that means, but I don't know of any link building that can bring so many backlinks so quickly.And some links fall over time, but this site lost about 60% of their links in a year.

Maybe PBN?Maybe building spam links?I don't know, but I don't like it.

And when you look at referring domains, many of them are just weird.Misspellings, websites in multiple different languages.It doesn't seem like a natural link to me, but it could be a PBN.

I would avoid this site.

Here are the steps I would take to do my due diligence and make sure I don't buy a turkey:

• Filter all results that are too good to be true
• Check and verify all traffic sources.Request read-only access to Google Analytics.Be on the lookout for large amounts of unverifiable direct traffic (or social traffic when there are no social media profiles associated with the activity).In general, don't trust traffic that you can't verify.
• Spend time looking at the site.Trust your instincts.If you feel "off" or "weird", then leave it.There are tons of other options
• Check the site's backlink profile.Look for steep slopes or slopes as they may be negative signs.If you consider many of the backlink sites as a "risky click", then it should start throwing some red flags

HOW TO AVOID PINBALL SCAMS

The more I look at Flippa, the more amazed I am: there are tons of blatant scams on the site that sell like hot cakes.People bid and buy these sites in droves.It's even worse than when I bought a (legitimate) Flippa company a few years ago.

This issue wouldn't be a big deal if Flippa took the time to check the business listings that go up on the site.(That's why Spencer opened a marketplace for small verified sites on Motion Invest where all sites are legit and verified.)

And a professional tip before I start avoiding scams: I'm lucky enough to find legitimate sites when I put in site earnings between $1 and $500 per month.I don't know what this range is that works well, but I've seen quite a few sites that looked legitimate.

Here are some principles to avoid scams on Flippa:

DON'T BELIEVE SOMETHING TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

The number one rule that will save you a lot of hassle is that if something is too good to be true, you can say that it is not true. 

A quick way to make this judgment is to divide the BIN price by the average monthly income.If you get a number below 25, I'd say go ahead and go through that site.

Here's an example:

This is quite obvious, but it makes me understand.The Buy It Now price is $11,450.Profit per month is $5,590.If this doesn't scream scam, I don't know what it does. 

I would be wary of anything where the BIN price is less than 25 times the monthly profit.

GET NERVOUS ABOUT UNVERIFIABLE TRAFFIC

I like that my websites have organic traffic.Social is a good second option, but organic is my favorite.I like these two because I can check where the traffic is coming from.

I can check organic traffic and paid traffic using Google Analytics and Ahrefs to check rankings.I can check social traffic by looking at Google Analytics and then checking social channels.

But direct traffic?There aren't many people who go directly to a website by typing the URL.(And yes, I know direct traffic can be other things. But it should not be and it is impossible to verify it).

I can't do anything with direct traffic.It cannot be verified.The only exception to this would be email marketing.If the site claims to have a large email list, I'd like a detailed video showing the list and verifying that it's for the site listed.

Organic, social or paid traffic is fine.Direct traffic makes me nervous.

AVOID "WEIRD" SITES

I always recommend taking a dip in the site you're looking to buy.You want to verify that all top-level links in headers and footers are functional.Check how good the posts are, the layout of the site.

If something seems "strange" and you have a strange feeling, I say trust your instincts.Scammers thrive on creating things that at first glance look beautiful but ugly inside.A few levels of depth is where you'll find the ugliest beasts on the site, so be willing to trust yourself if you see something you don't like.

One "strange" thing for me with the site we saw before was that the featured images had no relation to the posts themselves.One post would be about hosting options and would have photos of otters.

They are everything to some otters who hold hands.But this is not relevant to the post itself.Only small things like that can launch a red flag, so keep your eyes peeled.

WHO IS PINPPA BETTER FOR?

Flippa has many scams, but it fills its niche.If you're buying a site and have six figures to spend, I'd recommend starting at Empire Flippers and heading to Quiet Light Brokerage if you're still looking for higher prices.

But if you're not buying or selling for some pretty high numbers, where does it leave you?

I think Flippa is good at selling your site.You have to pay for a successful subscription and commission structure, and you'll need to remember to cancel the $15 per month subscription.But Flippa has buyers; a lot of buyers.

Sellers will have to prepare to face tire kickers.Anyone can message you on Flippa.Anyone can comment on your site's listing and trash you or raise invalid concerns (this happens a lot on Flippa).You will be asked to verify and guide people through the same metrics again and again.

You could pay less, but you will have to work harder.Selling your site will be more laborious than other more expensive brokers.(Unfortunately, high-end brokers aren't really interested in talking to you unless your site is making a few thousand dollars a month or more.)

And I struggle to recommend Flippa to buyers.There are too many scams on the platform to feel comfortable saying you should use it.Buying on Flippa will take forever.You will always filter the results and get verification.So there is still a good chance that a mannequin will buy the site from under you.

If my mom wanted to buy a site on Flippa, I would tell her to do 1 of 2 things:

1. Save your money for a broker like Empire Flippers or FEInternational
2. Or go to MotionInvest where they sell cheap sites that have already been verified

Flippa does not pass the "mom test" and for this reason, I do not feel comfortable recommending it to other buyers.

BUILD YOUR EMPIRE WEBSITE

Flippa is a great place to sell your businesses, but I wouldn't recommend buying on Flippa unless you have a lot of experience.You'll need to filter lists (there are tons of them), verify all sorts of things, and have a great understanding of what it takes to succeed in internet marketing.

If your site is large or you have a budget of 5+ figures, I recommend Empire Flippers.

If you wish to sell your site without brokerage fees or buy a site that has verified earnings, traffic, and a healthy backlink profile, then I would recommend MotionInvest.MotionInvest is a Spencer company (shameless thorn) but verifies all the sites that sell on the platform and are willing to buy sites that generate income.

While you can find good deals if you're an advanced buyer, I have a hard time recommending Flippa in general.