Our business model

Buyers pay nothing. The winning seller pays us.

If you ever suspect we make money from a worse price, the deposit stops meaning anything. So there is exactly one way money reaches us today: a success fee from the seller who wins the auction, charged only after the deal closes.

The success fee

Charged to the winning seller

3% to 6%

A share of the order value, paid once, by the seller who wins the auction, only when the deal closes. Nothing is charged to bid, nothing is charged to list, and nothing is charged to any buyer at any point.

Why a seller is glad to pay it

Winning a pool books dozens of orders in one zip code with no marketing spend. A heating contractor normally spends $300 to $600 in ads and sales time to win a single customer. A 4% fee on a $9,600 job is $384, and it arrives as one discount group of work on one route.

One discount group, worked through

Sixty furnace replacements at a group price of $9,600.

Buyers in the discount group

Group price each

Set by the lowest qualified bid

$9,600

Order value

$576,000

Success fee at 4%

Paid by the winning seller

$23,040

Our costs on the discount group

Card fees on deposits, coordinator hours, email

$3,000 to $5,000

Contribution

$18,000 to $20,000

Ten closed discount groups a month in one metro is a real company. A hundred a month across five metros is a large one.

What comes later

Both of these are additions, not changes to the price a group pays.

Seller tools, year two

Early sight of discount groups filling in their zips, data on what prices win auctions in their category, records that sync with their own system, and a preferred spot for standing offers. Roughly $200 to $500 a month per seller, which turns lumpy fee income into steady income.

Related services, year two or three

A furnace buyer often wants financing, an extended warranty or a maintenance plan. Referral fees on those are normal in the trade and worth one to three percent of the order. We will only do it with the fee stated plainly on the page, and it will never touch the group price.

The one we refuse

We do not earn anything on your deposit

Sixty deposits at $250 is $15,000 sitting still for a month, and someone always suggests putting it in an interest account. We do not. Deposits sit in escrow with a licensed partner and stay untouched, so we can say we never touch your deposit and mean it. That sentence is worth more than the interest.

The full list of things we will not do

When money starts

First fee

First closed discount group

Nothing before that

Pilot discount groups

3 to 4

Run by hand, treated as marketing

Buyer cost

Now and later

The first few discount groups exist to prove the model to the next hundred buyers and the next ten sellers. We count them as spending, not income.

Browse open discount groups Seller fees in detail