One question · from listing to money
How long it takes to sell an app or SaaS business
It depends on where you start the clock: about 81 days from listing to sale, or about eight months from the decision to sell to the money in the bank.
- On the market, SaaS sold on Acquire.com in 202581 days on average
- Decision to money, a $1M to $5M business (FE International)about 8 months
- Narrow sale, data room ready on day one (FE International)4 to 6 months
- Due diligence, prepared or not (FE International)5–7 or 10–12 weeks
- Buyer's window to accept an App Store transfer (Apple)60 days
Why the two numbers differ
They measure different things. Acquire.com's clock runs from the day a listing goes live to the sale, on a marketplace where smaller, lower-revenue businesses tended to close faster. FE International, a broker, starts at the decision to sell and stops when the money arrives, so the preparation before anything is shown to a buyer is inside its figure.
Due diligence is where that preparation shows. FE puts it at five to seven weeks for a seller who is ready and ten to twelve for one who is not.
When the money arrives
Part of the price can arrive after closing. Buyers rarely publish what they paid for a small app, but Mode Mobile raises money from the public under Regulation A, so its SEC filings list the apps it bought, with the price and how it was paid.
What the seller got at closing
Three app deals from Mode Mobile's SEC filing, in thousands of dollars. The solid part is cash at closing; the hatched part is held back, deferred or paid in the buyer's stock.
These are three deals by one buyer, so they show how this buyer pays rather than how the whole market does. In the two smaller ones, 10% of the price was held back for up to a year. In two of the three, part of the price came as Mode Mobile stock, which is hard to sell while the company stays private.
The App Store and Stripe after closing
If the buyer takes the whole company, the developer account and the Stripe account stay where they are. In an asset sale each account moves on its own: Apple's transfer rules take no account of the closing date, and Google Play keeps some things with the seller.
Apple's transfer rules, translated
Lines from Apple's App Store Connect help on moving an app to another account, with what each one does to the calendar.
-
01
The recipient must accept the transfer
within 60 daysof its initiation. While the transfer is pending, you can't edit the app's metadata, pricing, availability or in-app purchases.up to two months with the price and the paywall frozen -
02
The app can't have a version in
Waiting for Review or In Reviewwhen the transfer starts.no transfer while an update sits with Apple -
03
In-app purchase product IDs
can't match product IDsalready used by apps in the recipient's account.a buyer with twelve apps selling 'monthly' can't take yours as it is -
04
Apps that offer auto-renewable subscriptions must use an
app-specific shared secret, shared with the recipient before they accept.what happens to each active subscriber is not in the docs -
05
Apple Arcade appscan't be transferred.no way around this one
The store page can lag by months. Strava announced it was buying Runna on 17 April 2025, and on 2 February 2026 Runna's App Store page still listed the original developer, RunBuddy.
On Stripe, the move is a copy. Stripe can copy customers and their saved payment methods to the buyer's account, usually within 72 hours once both sides approve, but it does not copy subscriptions, so the buyer sets those up again on the new account, in an order that avoids billing anyone twice.
What shortens it
First on FE International's list of what shortens a sale is a data room built before buyers arrive. For an app or a SaaS business that usually means:
- Stripe revenue that matches the bank statements month by month.
- Stripe, App Store Connect, Google Play and the domain registered to the company, not to the founder personally.
- Churn by monthly cohort, ready as a table.
- A clear view of customer concentration. FE notes that one customer above 15% of ARR invites an earnout tied to that account renewing.
Selling off-market
Deals Tonic sells apps and SaaS businesses off-market, from $20K in monthly revenue, to a short list of buyers who already buy at that size. This is the narrow process FE describes, and the data room it depends on is the first thing we build with the founder.
Send us the link and the monthly revenue, and we will come back with a price range, the buyers on our list who fit, and a realistic timeline.
Questions people ask next
How long does it take to sell a SaaS business?
It depends on where the count starts. SaaS businesses sold on Acquire.com in 2025 spent 81 days on the market on average. FE International puts the path from the decision to sell to the money arriving at eight to sixteen months, and around eight for a business worth $1M to $5M.
How long does due diligence take when selling a SaaS business?
FE International puts it at five to seven weeks for a seller who is prepared and ten to twelve weeks for one who is not.
Do you get the whole price at closing?
Not always. In three app acquisitions that Mode Mobile disclosed to the SEC, sellers received 63% to 90% of the price in cash at closing. In the two smaller deals, 10% was held back for up to twelve months, and in two of the three part of the price was paid in Mode Mobile stock.
How long does an App Store transfer take?
The buyer has 60 days to accept a transfer started in App Store Connect, and while it is pending the seller cannot change the app's metadata, pricing or in-app purchases. A transfer cannot start while a version is waiting for review or in review, and Apple Arcade apps cannot be transferred.
What happens to Stripe subscriptions when a SaaS business is sold?
If the buyer takes the whole company, the Stripe account stays as it is. If the buyer takes the assets, Stripe can copy customers and their saved payment methods to the buyer's account, usually within 72 hours once both sides approve. Subscriptions are not copied, so the buyer recreates them on the new account.
Can you sell an app or SaaS business without listing it on a marketplace?
Yes, that is an off-market sale: the business is shown to a short list of buyers under NDA, with no public listing. FE International notes that a narrow process to pre-qualified buyers, with a complete data room ready on day one, can close in four to six months. Deals Tonic sells apps and SaaS this way from $20K in monthly revenue.
Sources: Acquire.com Biannual Acquisition Multiples Report, January 2026, covering deals closed in 2025. FE International, "How to Sell a SaaS Business in 2026", 1 September 2026. Mode Mobile, Inc., Form 1-A offering circular filed with the SEC in 2026, amounts as stated there, checked 20 September 2026. Apple's App Store Connect help on app transfer and Stripe's documentation on copying customer data between accounts, both checked September 2026. Strava's press release of 17 April 2025, and archived copies of Runna's App Store page (Wayback Machine), where the developer link changed between 2 February and 6 March 2026.
What would yours take?
Free, and off the record until NDA
Deal. We’ll be back
before the ice melts.
Andrew Levenko
I run off-market M&A for online businesses: fintech, martech and consumer apps. Operator before that, scaled payments to $50M GMV. Based in the UAE.