While there are many online business brokers and marketplaces for buying or selling websites, some take a generalized approach and others specialize. Investors Club and Motion Invest (read our review) both strengths and specific details that make them appropriate for certain buyers and sellers.
This article covers the essential details that influence which marketplace, Investors Club or Motion Invest, is right for you.
Investors Club vs. Motion Invest Summary
While Investors Club and Motion Invest serve similar markets, their differences are important for buyers and sellers who know what they’re looking for and want to save time.
- Types of websites: Motion Invest focuses exclusively on content websites, while Investors Club lists a variety of online business models.
- Starter sites: Many of the sites listed at Motion Invest are considered “starter sites” — sites with limited history and minimal profit. Investors Club lists only established sites with at least 12 months of history and earning at least $30/month.
- Fees: Motion Invest’s success fee ranges from 5-20%, depending on the price. Investors Club doesn’t charge listing fees or success fees. It’s possible to sell a business for free through Investors Club.
- Auction listings: Motion Invest uses a Dutch auction approach (more details below) while Investors Club does not.
Investors Club Overview
Investors Club is a curated marketplace for buying and selling online businesses. At the time this article was written, Investors Club’s listings range from $10,000 to more than $1 million, with many priced below $100,000. Quality sites in this price range are often hard for buyers to find. Many brokers ignore sites below $100,000, while most of the listings at marketplaces like Flippa are less than $10,000. As a result, Investors Club is the best Flippa alternative to find websites for sale between $10,000 – $100,000.
The biggest way Investors Club stands out from other marketplaces is by allowing free selling with no listing fees and no success fees. Investors Club offers a few marketing packages as optional upgrades, but it’s possible for sellers to pay no fees at all for selling on this platform. With other marketplaces and brokers charging 5-20% success fees, this makes a huge difference for sellers.
Motion Invest Overview
Motion Invest was launched in 2019 and stands out from other marketplaces by focusing only on content-based websites like blogs and niche sites. While you won’t find e-commerce and other business models at Motion Invest, this marketplace is a solid choice for buying and selling content sites.
Like Investors Club, Motion Invest lists websites that most brokers ignore. Its listings range from less than $1,000 to more than $100,000, although most fall somewhere between $1,000 – $30,000.
The Motion Invest team manually verifies the traffic and revenue of each website before listing it for sale. Only the sites that pass verification are listed.
One of the unique details of Motion Invest is the listing of starter websites in addition to established sites. Starter sites are typically priced $800 – $1,000. These sites have existing content but little traffic and income. Motion Invest doesn’t list the multiple for these sites because the price is based primarily on the existing content rather than revenue.
The inclusion of starter sites in the marketplace can be a pro or a con, depending on your outlook. Buyers who want established sites already making money may not appreciate the starter sites that add clutter to the marketplace.
Head-to-Head Comparison
Now, let’s look at how these two platforms compare in several key areas.
Types of Websites Listed
Motion Invest lists only content websites, while Investors Club lists online businesses of all kinds. Both of these marketplaces are solid choices for buyers wanting to buy a blog or affiliate website. Motion Invest, in particular, lists many Amazon affiliate websites.
The inclusion of e-commerce businesses, SaaS, and other business models is one of the most significant differences between Investors Club and Motion Invest.
Typical Price Range
Although both of these marketplaces include listings below $100,000, they have some key differences. Many of the sites for sale at Motion Invest earn very little and are priced below $10,000. Note that, even though Motion Invest lists a required income of $20 per month, some listings have lower income (these are typically displayed as “starter sites” on their marketplace).
Motion Invest also lists established websites priced above $100,000, but relatively few. In general, Motion Invest is best for sites priced in the $800 – $30,000 range. Higher-priced sites can be listed in the marketplace, but Motion Invest has fewer buyers for them.
At Investors Club, current listings range from $10,000 to more than $1 million. Many listings are between $10,000 and $100,000, but unlike Motion Invest, starter sites are not sold at all. Businesses must earn at least $30/month for 12 months to be listed with Investors Club.
Motion Invest is a more appropriate choice if you’re looking for a starter site priced below $10,000. Many of these sites have very little existing traffic or revenue, so you’re starting almost from scratch.
Investors Club and Motion Invest are both solid choices for listings priced $10,000 – $30,000. Investors Club is more appropriate than Motion Invest for listings priced above $30,000, due to better selection and more buyers looking for sites in this range.
At the time of writing this article, this is what typical price range looks like:
| Price Range | Motion Invest | Investors Club |
| Micro (less than $10k) | 57.1% | 2.3% |
| Small ($10k – $100k) | 38.1% | 63.6% |
| Medium ($100k – $1 million) | 4.8% | 27.3% |
| Large (over $1 million) | 0% | 6.8% |
Quality and Quantity of Listings
Both Investors Club and Motion Invest are active marketplaces, but neither has thousands of listings. The main difference between Investors Club and Motion Invest in terms of quality and quantity involves the starter sites that are prevalent at Motion Invest. Motion Invest typically has slightly more active listings than Investors Club. However, Investors Club typically has more established sites for sale.
The starter sites at Motion Invest also fall short in terms of quality, because they haven’t proven the ability to generate significant revenue yet. They provide a slight shortcut for buyers (compared to building from scratch), but don’t offer the same immediate income as an established website.
Seller Fees
Neither Motion Invest nor Investors Club charges a listing fee — sellers only pay a fee if their site sells. However, one of the major differences between these two platforms relates to success fees.
Motion Invest uses a tiered success fee, so the percentage varies depending on the selling price.
- Under $20,000: 20%
- $20,000 – $50,000: 15%
- $50,000 – $100,000: 10%
- $100,000 – $500,000: 7%
- Over $500,000: 5%
Investors Club doesn’t charge a success fee, which means sellers keep all of the proceeds.
The table below shows the success fee of each marketplace for sales at particular price points.
| Selling Price | Motion Invest Success Fee | Investors Club Success Fee |
| $10,000 | $2,000 | $0 |
| $40,000 | $6,000 | $0 |
| $90,000 | $9,000 | $0 |
| $475,000 | $33,250 | $0 |
| $600,000 | $30,000 | $0 |
Buyer Fees
Motion Invest doesn’t charge any fees to buyers. Potential buyers can create a free account and place offers or buy a site for its list price.
Investors Club offers an optional premium membership for buyers. The premium membership provides:
- Instant access to listings (5 days before free members)
- View the business’s name and URL
- Unlimited access to due diligence reports
- Financials like profit & loss statements
- Traffic details
Investors Club premium membership costs $59 per month or $390 per year. Buyers who don’t want the premium membership can still use a free account to view listings and even purchase websites.
Auction
Another difference between Motion Invest and Investors Club relates to the way prices are handled. Motion Invest uses a Dutch auction approach. New listings are priced high, and the asking price is slightly reduced every two days until the site sells or reaches the reserve price (the lowest price it will sell for). The price decreases are calculated to reach the reserve 30 days after listing.
With the Dutch auction approach, sites that sell quickly will go for the highest prices, relative to the reserve. Buyers can wait for the price to drop, but they may miss out on the site if someone else buys it first.
Investors Club listings do not use a Dutch auction. Listings have an asking price and buyers can contact sellers with an offer. Sellers can reduce their asking price at any time if they choose.
Verification and Vetting
Investors Club and Motion Invest both perform some level of verification for each listing. Motion Invest verifies the traffic and revenue of each site submitted. They ask for Google Analytics access to verify traffic, and screenshots or videos of dashboards as proof of income. The site isn’t listed for sale if their team cannot verify these details.
Related reading: Motion Invest vs. Flippa
Investors Club team members manually approve each listing and anything that looks suspicious is flagged for follow up or rejected. Investors Club doesn’t manually verify revenue and sellers can decide if they want to provide Google Analytics access for traffic graphs to be included in the listing.
Confidentiality
Most sellers prefer to have their website’s name and URL hidden. Both Investors Club and Moton Invest hide these details from the public at no cost to the seller. However, Investors Club provides greater protection for sellers.
Visitors logged into a free account at Motion Invest can see the name and URL of the sites for sale. So while these details are hidden from the public, anyone can quickly create a free account to get full access.
Investors Club not only hides the website name and URL from the public, but also from buyers with free accounts. Buyers must have a premium membership to see the name and URL of each business listed. This helps to protect sellers from competitors or others seeking information without serious intent to buy.
At Investors Club, buyers with free accounts can contact the seller to ask for confidential information (like the business name and URL), and sellers can decide what they are willing to provide.
Escrow
Motion Invest provides free escrow services for every transaction. They act as the escrow agent, rather than integrating with a third party like Escrow.com.
Investors Club doesn’t offer escrow services for free listings, but they do offer managed listings (with a success fee) for sellers who want perks like escrow services.
Migration Assistance
Motion Invest offers free migration or transfer assistance for each transaction. Investors Club doesn’t provide this service.
Investors Club Pros and Cons
Investors Club Pros
- No selling fees: Investors Club is a unique marketplace that doesn’t change listing fees or success fees. Sellers can keep all of the proceeds from their sales.
- Multiple business models: While Motion Invest only lists content websites, Investors Club also lists all types of online businesses.
- Only established websites: Investors Club’s marketplace isn’t cluttered with starter sites.
- Better selection above $30,000: Most of Motion Invest’s listings are below $30,000. Investors Club is a better option above this amount.
- Confidentiality: Investors Club provides better confidentiality for sellers than Motion Invest.
Investors Club Cons
- No escrow or migration assistance: Motion Invests provides escrow services and migration assistance for each transaction. As a free marketplace, Investors Club does not.
- No manual income verification: Motion Invest team members manually verify the revenue of each business submitted to be listed. Investors Club doesn’t manually verify revenue.
Motion Invest Pros and Cons
Motion Invest Pros
- Focus on content websites: Motion Invest’s focus on content websites has helped it to differentiate itself from other marketplaces.
- No minimum revenue requirements: Bloggers and site owners can list on Motion Invest even if the site only earns a small amount.
- Better selection below $10,000: Motion Invest lists many sites for sale below $10,000.
- Escrow services and migration assistance: In exchange for the success fee, Motion Invest provides some additional services for each transaction.
Motion Invest Cons
- Lots of starter sites: Many of the listings are starter sites with very little traffic or revenue.
- Limited selection above $30,000: Most of the listings are priced below $30,000. There are few established sites with higher earnings.
- Very limited confidentiality: Anyone can create a free account and see the names and URLs of each listing.
- Higher fees: The success fees go as high as 20%, while Investors Club doesn’t charge listing fees or success fees.
Investors Club vs. Motion Invest: Final Verdict
Motion Invest and Investors Club are similar in some ways. Both are curated marketplaces that have specific standards. And both welcome listings below $100,000, which some other marketplaces ignore.
Either of these marketplaces is appropriate for buying or selling a blog or content website, whether you’re an experienced buyer or seller, or if this is your first-time.
Despite the similarities of these marketplaces, there are a few important differences. First, Investors Club is the better option for other online business models (Motion Invest doesn’t list them).
Second, Investors Club is a better option for sites (content or e-commerce) priced above $30,000. Most of Motion Invest’s listings have low earnings and low valuations.
Third, Investors Club charges no fees to sellers, so it’s possible to sell an online business for free.
If you have a website you want to sell, complete our submit your listing. If you want to buy a site, create your account here.
Online Business Builder & Content Strategist
Marc has been building websites and online businesses since 2007. He’s built successful businesses in several industries, including web/graphic design, photography, travel, and personal finance. Marc is the founder of Flip My Site, where he writes about buying and selling websites.
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