Business-for-sale websites have a funny problem: they’re often easier to judge than the businesses on them. A marketplace can look polished, show confident revenue figures, and place a £1 million manufacturer next to a £50,000 online shop. None of that tells you whether the numbers are true.
That question stayed with me while I looked through World Businesses for Sale. It’s a decent place to find opportunities. But a business being listed there doesn’t mean anyone has checked it, and that should shape how you use the site.
What it is
World Businesses for Sale is a UK-based marketplace that puts business sellers in front of prospective buyers. It describes itself as international and says its team has over 50 years of combined experience. Listings range from cafés and local service firms to e-commerce sites, manufacturers and seven-figure acquisitions, from the UK, Europe, North America, the Middle East and beyond.
Browsing is free for buyers. Sellers have two quite different routes.
The cheap one is pay-as-you-go, with packages advertised at around £49, £75 and £99 and no sales commission. Depending on the tier, you get listing preparation, extra marketing and access to what the site calls vetted buyers.
The assisted route works more like a traditional broker:
| Plan | Upfront fee | Commission on sale |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | £395 | 3% |
| Standard | £749 | 2% |
| Premium | £1,500 | 1% |
These add buyer filtering, introductions and seller support. According to the current terms, commission is due when the platform introduces the eventual buyer, including some sales that complete within 90 days after you end the agreement.
I like the range. Someone who only wants exposure can spend very little, and someone who wants hand-holding can pay for it.
The listings are better than I expected
I looked at listings across several categories. A London coffee shop gave its turnover, net profit, asking price, reason for sale and the transition support on offer. A Romanian online marketplace showed €350,000 revenue, €240,000 net profit and an asking price of €1.77 million. The manufacturing listings I opened included staff numbers, property details and headline financials.
That’s a big step up from classified-style ads that amount to “profitable business, huge potential, serious buyers only.” When you’re screening, you want to know quickly what it earns, what the owner wants, how much it depends on the owner, what you’d actually be buying, and why they’re selling. Many listings here at least try to answer.
But a listing is still the seller talking
One online marketplace on the site advertised about $15,800 a month in revenue and $14,600 in net profit, with an asking price around $79,000. That’s a margin north of 90%. It’s certainly worth a closer look, but it’s the seller’s claim, and the page doesn’t prove it.
To its credit, the site says as much in its own buying guide: a marketplace helps buyers and sellers find each other, but it doesn’t confirm that a listing is accurate or replace legal, tax and financial due diligence. The “vetted” or “pre-qualified” buyers mentioned on some seller plans are a separate matter. Screening buyers is not the same as auditing a seller’s figures.
So if a listing says a business makes £400,000 a year, I’d want bank statements, tax filings, accounting records, a customer breakdown and contracts. I’d also want some evidence the income will survive a change of owner. The site gets you into the conversation. The investigating is on you.
For buyers
Since it costs nothing to browse, there’s little reason not to. The mix is the appeal: cafés, workshops, wholesalers, service companies, online businesses and property-backed firms, many outside the usual US-focused acquisition circuit. I’d add it to a regular search routine rather than rely on it alone.
For sellers
The £49 to £99 no-commission listings are a low-risk way to test another channel, especially if you’re happy to handle buyer conversations and due diligence yourself. The platform will also write the listing for you, which helps owners who aren’t sure how to present their financials. It claims a network of more than 10,000 potential buyers, but that’s the company’s own figure and I couldn’t verify it.
The assisted plans deserve more thought. £1,500 plus 1% of a large sale is real money. The terms say fees are generally non-refundable, commission agreements run for six, nine or twelve months depending on the plan, and the 90-day commission tail applies to buyers the platform introduced. None of that is unusual, but read it before you sign.
One thing could be clearer. “No commission” and “keep 100% of the sale price” apply to specific pay-as-you-go products, not to everything the site sells, and the site also promotes assisted plans, broker plans, Swift Sales and advisory services. You can easily read one page promising no commission and another showing a percentage. Both are true for different services. If you list a business, save a copy of the plan description and terms as they stood the day you paid.
What I couldn’t find
I looked for independent reviews and found very little. There’s no meaningful Trustpilot or Google history. Yell showed no customer ratings when I checked. ScamAdviser rates the site as likely legitimate, with a valid SSL certificate and other good technical signs, but notes it found no reviews on popular review sites and a fairly low web ranking.
Reddit has only a few mentions. One commenter called it a clean, straightforward marketplace, less bloated than larger rivals, though newer and worth watching. Another described the inventory as a random mix of local and online businesses and suggested judging each listing by how much real detail the seller gives. Those threads had almost no engagement, so treat them as anecdotes.
None of this points to a problem. A lack of bad reviews just isn’t the same as a strong reputation. There simply isn’t much public evidence either way yet.
I’d also like more transparency about who runs it. The legal page gives a UK contact address, but I didn’t find a company name, Companies House number or named directors on the pages I read. Another reviewer reported the same difficulty. That doesn’t suggest anything improper, since sole traders and partnerships aren’t on Companies House and limited companies can trade under other names. Still, for a platform handling deals worth hundreds of thousands or millions, a clear legal entity and named people would be reassuring, and easy to add.
Some small details also feel more like online retail than M&A. A few listing pages show phrases like “Subscription Sold” and “Taxes included,” which look odd beside a €1 million company sale. It’s a lean marketplace, not an institutional deal platform. If you expect data rooms and audited metrics, it will feel basic. If you just want a straightforward place to find leads, the simplicity is a plus.
Pros and cons
What I liked
- Free to browse
- Wide international mix of businesses
- Many listings include useful headline financials
- Inexpensive, no-commission seller options
- Confidential listings and NDAs supported
- Professional listing preparation available
What to watch
- Very little independent review history
- Listings aren’t financially verified
- Several pricing models under one brand can confuse
- Assisted plans combine an upfront fee and a commission, and fees are generally non-refundable
- Little public information about the operating company
- Audience-size claims are self-reported
Would I use it?
As a buyer, yes. It’s free, the range is interesting, and finding one good business can justify scrolling past plenty of mediocre ones. I’d just treat every listing as the start of my homework.
As a seller, probably, but I’d start small with a cheap listing. Before paying £395 to £1,500 for an assisted plan, I’d ask how many active buyers there are for my sector and country, how those buyers are qualified, what marketing I’d actually get, what happens to leads if I leave, and exactly when commission becomes payable. Then I’d compare the answers with at least one established marketplace and one good broker.
World Businesses for Sale sits somewhere between a classifieds site and a traditional broker, and that’s what makes it interesting. It can introduce you to the right seller. It can’t turn a seller’s claims into audited facts, make a weak business strong, or stand in for your accountant and solicitor.
So I’d use it. I just wouldn’t mistake finding a business there for a reason to buy it.