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AI Data Payout

Updated October 2026

Selling a SaaS on Acquire.com or Flippa: the code and ticket history

Independent and sourced. We feature companies that pay us a referral fee. Our scores and reviews don't change for it. How we earn

You are listing your SaaS, and the buyer will pay for recurring revenue and a product that keeps running. AI companies now pay to license a copy of something else you have: the history of how it was built, commits linked to reviews, bugs linked to fixes and support tickets linked to the change that closed them. Buyers take codebases, tickets and messages, and software is often first on their industry lists.1,2

Match my companyWhat is it worth?

The exit market

What small software sells for on marketplaces

Flippa reports 14 sales in its AI Apps & Tools category in the first half of 2026 at an average of $535,714. Acquire.com and Flippa list whole businesses, and neither, in our check, says anything about licensing the code history or the workspace separately, so nobody in the listing process will raise it for you.3,4

Size matters less for software than for most fields. Several buyers name software or technology first among their industries, and some state no headcount minimum, though most want 20 to 30 or more people. The quiz asks your size and stack and introduces you to the buyers that take a SaaS like yours.5,6,7,8

What small software sells for on marketplaces
FactValue and source
AI apps sold on Flippa, first half of 2026

14 sales in the AI Apps & Tools category at an average of $535,714

[3] Flippa, Digital M&A Insights H1 2026 · company's own claim ·

Who Grepped takes

No headcount minimum stated; its form lists industries from accounting, construction and legal to logistics, manufacturing and software

[5] Grepped business page · company's own claim ·

Industries Polyshares names

Software, logistics, manufacturing, professional services, healthcare administration, financial services, retail, hospitality, construction and more

[2] Polyshares website · company's own claim ·

What is licensable

Repos, reviews and support

Buyers name GitHub, Jira, Confluence, Slack, Zendesk and Google Drive among the sources they take. SimpleClosure says 47% of its deals now include code or data. Published small deals give a feel for the range: a closed crypto startup got about $25,000 for its code base, and Cielo24 sold 13 years of Slack, Jira and email for what was reported as hundreds of thousands of dollars.1,9,10,11,12

Size the repo honestly. SimpleClosure says roughly 37% of raw code disappeared once third-party, generated and duplicate code was removed. Forked libraries and bundled packages are third-party code, and data buyers strip them out of the count.13

Still running

You do not have to shut down to license

SimpleClosure says its marketplace is open to companies that are not closing: "You don't have to be shutting down". Grepped starts with a form of about 10 minutes, then read-only access to the repos and tools you approve, with the originals deleted after processing. That makes a license something a founder can explore before listing, not only after a failed sale.14,15,16

Customer data is the line to watch. Your customers' records sit in your database under their terms, and SimpleClosure excludes sensitive employee and health records. Expect a buyer to want code, tickets and internal discussion, not production data, and leave out any system you are unsure of.17

FAQ

Questions, answered with sources

  • Yes. Most buyers take operating companies with real history, and SimpleClosure says sellers need not be shutting down.6,14

  • One closed crypto startup got about $25,000 for its code base. For operating companies, published ranges mostly run $100K to $2M, as the buyers' own claims.11,18,19

  • SimpleClosure says roughly 37% of raw code disappeared after removing third-party, generated and duplicate code.13

  • Flippa reports 14 AI Apps & Tools sales in H1 2026 at an average of $535,714, for whole businesses.3

  • It is the most common system SimpleClosure sees, in 95% of workspaces, and Cielo24's Slack, Jira and email sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.20,12

  • MIT Technology Review reports 47% of SimpleClosure deals now include code or data.10

  • Every business is different, so this one is best talked through with the buyer you're working with. Their team goes over it with you before anything is signed.

  • Every business is different, so this one is best talked through with the buyer you're working with. Their team goes over it with you before anything is signed.

Before you sign

Questions to talk through with your buyer

Every business is different, so these are best talked through with the buyer you're working with. Their team goes over them with you before anything is signed.

Questions for this kind of business

  • If an acquirer buys the SaaS after we license the code history, what does it receive?
  • Who owns this data: the company, an estate, or someone else?
  • Do customer, vendor or platform contracts, NDAs or API terms restrict this?
  • How does a license affect a sale of the business: reps and warranties, change of control, earnouts, exclusivity?

Questions for any buyer

  • Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
  • Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
  • Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
  • How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
  • What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
  • Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
  • Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?

How this page was made

Figures come from the published sources listed below, and what a buyer says about itself is its own claim. Anything marked as our estimate is ours, not a buyer quote. Drafted with AI help from our research, then checked against each source. Updated October 2026.

We feature companies that pay us a referral fee. Our scores and reviews don't change for it. See how we earn and how we rank. This site does not give legal, tax or financial advice.

Sources (20)

  1. 1.Grepped website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  2. 2.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  3. 3.Flippa, Digital M&A Insights H1 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  4. 4.Our check of broker and marketplace sites. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  5. 5.Grepped business page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  6. 6.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  7. 7.micro1 Enterprise Data Partnership page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  8. 8.micro1 company referral page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  9. 9.Mode company data site. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  10. 10.MIT Technology Review, published 13 Oct 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  11. 11.MIT Technology Review, published 13 Oct 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  12. 12.AI Weekly, summarising Forbes (16 Apr 2026). Accessed 14 Oct 2026.
  13. 13.SimpleClosure, What Your Assets Are Worth, published 3 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  14. 14.SimpleClosure, What Your Assets Are Worth, published 3 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  15. 15.Grepped business page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  16. 16.Grepped security page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  17. 17.SimpleClosure press release (Business Wire), published 3 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  18. 18.micro1 company referral page. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  19. 19.Polyshares website. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.
  20. 20.SimpleClosure, What Your Assets Are Worth, published 3 Sep 2026. Accessed 14 Oct 2026. Company's own claim.