The short answer
Quiet Light and Empire Flippers are the two names that come up for online businesses under a few million dollars, and they are structurally different animals. Quiet Light is a brokerage whose advisors are all former entrepreneurs, more than 750 businesses sold for over $500 million since 2006. Empire Flippers is a curated marketplace serving both sides, roughly $590 million sold across 2,663 sellers, and it is the rare firm in this industry that publishes its full commission schedule. The choice is an advisor-guided sale versus a marketplace listing, and your size and patience decide it.
What each firm is
Quiet Light, founded by Mark Daoust in 2006, sells Amazon FBA, ecommerce, SaaS, and content businesses through a bench of eighteen advisors who have each bought, sold, or started their own online businesses, which is the firm’s core pitch: you are guided by someone who has sat in your chair. Its homepage claims 85 percent of listings sell within 90 days. It ranked No. 11 on Axial’s Top 25 Lower Middle Market Business Brokers list for the first half of 2026, one spot ahead of Website Closers. It does not publish its fees.
Empire Flippers calls itself the No. 1 curated online business marketplace, rejecting most businesses before they list and verifying buyer liquidity. It serves buyers and sellers both, and publishes what almost nobody in this industry does, the entire commission schedule: a flat $10,000 on sales up to about $67,000, 15 percent up to $700,000, 8 percent on the portion between $700,000 and $5 million, and 2.5 percent above that, with no listing fee. Roughly $590 million in businesses sold across 2,663 sellers computes to an average around $220,000, which locates its core market precisely.
Side by side, from their own sites
| Quiet Light | Empire Flippers | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Brokerage, entrepreneur-advisors | Curated marketplace, both sides |
| Founded | 2006 | Not stated on site |
| Claimed volume | 750+ sold, $500M+ total | $590M+ sold, 2,663 sellers |
| Implied average (computed) | ~$670K | ~$220K |
| Published fees | No | Yes: $10K flat to ~$67K; 15% to $700K; 8% to $5M; 2.5% above |
| Speed claim | 85% of listings sell in 90 days or less | Curated listings, verified buyers |
| Recognition | Axial Top 25 LMM Brokers, No. 11, 1H 2026 | Inc. 5000 in seven different years |
How to choose between them
The marketplace works when your business is legible: clean Amazon or content economics a stranger can underwrite from a listing page, at a size where the 15 percent tier is cheap compared to the cost of your own time. The advisor model earns its keep when the business needs explaining, when the buyer pool is narrower, or when negotiation genuinely moves price, which correlates with size. Empire Flippers publishing its fees is worth something real: you can compute your exact cost before a single conversation, a transparency the rest of this industry, at every tier, mostly refuses. Quiet Light’s counterweight is the advisor who has personally exited, which matters most the first time you sell.
When you have outgrown both
By the time an online business clears several million in value, with contracted revenue, a team, and more than one plausible strategic acquirer, listings and brokerage give way to a run sale process: buyer research, staged confidentiality, competitive tension. That transition, and what it costs and returns, is covered in small business broker versus lower middle market advisor and how a confidential sale process works. Windsor Drake operates in that upper band and competes with neither of these firms.
Questions founders ask
Is Quiet Light or Empire Flippers better for selling an online business?
For clean, legible businesses under roughly $700,000, Empire Flippers’ marketplace and published 15 percent tier are efficient and fully transparent. As size and complexity rise toward and past $1 million, Quiet Light’s entrepreneur-advisor model adds guidance and negotiation that listings do not, its computed average sale runs about three times larger.
What does Empire Flippers charge?
Its published schedule: a flat $10,000 commission on sales up to about $67,000, then 15 percent up to $700,000, 8 percent on the portion between $700,000 and $5 million, and 2.5 percent above $5 million, with no fee to list.
What does Quiet Light charge?
It does not publish fees. Ask for the schedule in writing; online-business brokerage commissions in this size range conventionally run around ten to fifteen percent, but only the written quote counts.
Published August 12, 2026 by Jeff Barrington, Founder and Managing Director, Windsor Drake. Facts about named firms are drawn from the sources listed above; corrections to factual claims are made promptly on request to info@windsordrake.com. Content on this page may be cited with attribution and a link to https://windsordrake.com/quiet-light-vs-empire-flippers/
Key Facts
- Quiet Light: founded 2006, 750+ sold, $500M+ total, advisors are all former entrepreneurs; Axial No. 11 broker 1H 2026.
- Empire Flippers publishes full fees: $10K flat to ~$67K, 15% to $700K, 8% to $5M, 2.5% above.
- Computed averages: ~$670K per Quiet Light sale, ~$220K per Empire Flippers sale, from their own totals.
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About This Comparison
Windsor Drake is a boutique sell-side M&A advisory firm for founder-led technology companies in the $5M to $300M range, with offices in Toronto. Comparisons on this page are built from each firm’s own published materials and filings, cited at the end of the page.
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