Launch a marketplace with the rules your buyers and sellers need, then grow it from real use
A marketplace has at least three groups of users: buyers, sellers and the team running it, and each needs its own screens and rules. We build marketplace platforms with listings and search, seller onboarding and approval, matching or auctions, payments with commission and payouts, and the back office your team works in every day. We start with an MVP that proves people will trade, then add what the first users ask for. Our marketplace MVPs have taken between 6 weeks and 3 months.
The situations where teams usually call us.
You have a marketplace idea and need a working MVP to show users and investors, not another slide deck.
Sellers are onboarded by email and spreadsheet, and checking each one takes days.
Commissions and payouts are calculated by hand at the end of every month.
Your matching rules, by location, availability or qualification, are too specific for a marketplace template.
Your team runs the marketplace through spreadsheets because the admin side was never built.
Every marketplace has its own rules, but one deal follows much the same path. The rules along the way are what make yours different.
From the projects we’ve built in this area.
Mladilekari, a platform connecting young doctors with hospitals, launched its MVP in 6 weeks. Cardino, a Berlin marketplace for used electric cars, launched in 3 months. Both were built around one core loop: list, find, then apply or buy. Anything that doesn’t serve that loop can wait until real users ask for it.
The hardest part of a new marketplace is having enough on offer for buyers to find something. That is usually done by hand: calling sellers, importing their listings for them, sometimes running the first deals manually. Build the admin tools that make this fast before you build features for scale.
Collecting buyers’ money and passing it on to sellers can bring your company under payment services regulation. Marketplace payment services such as Stripe Connect or Mangopay take on that part, including checking sellers’ identity, and split off your commission automatically. Choose one early: it shapes onboarding, payouts and invoicing.
Founders picture the buyer’s screens. Day to day, the team spends its time in the admin: approving sellers, fixing listings, handling refunds and disputes. For Cardino we built a back-office application for listings and transactions alongside the dealer marketplace.
A ready-made platform or an e-commerce plugin is the right start for many ideas. This is where each one runs out.
| Ready-made marketplace software | E-commerce with a marketplace plugin | Custom platform | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to launch | Days | Weeks | 6 weeks–3 months |
| Upfront cost | Low | Low to medium | Fixed build price |
| Your own matching and approval rules | No | Partly | Yes |
| Commission and payout logic | Partly | Partly | Yes |
| Back office built for your team | Partly | Partly | Yes |
| Ongoing fees | Plan or per sale | Plugins and hosting | Hosting and support |
| You own the code | No | Partly | Yes |
A typical timeline. We confirm yours after the project workshop.
Week 1
Map one dealIn the workshop we follow one transaction end to end: who lists, who approves, how buyers find it and how money moves. You get the MVP scope and a fixed price.
Weeks 2–8
Build the MVPAccounts, listings, search, payments and the back office, in two-week stages with a working demo every week.
Launch
First users, first dealsStart with a small group of sellers you bring on yourself, so problems show up while they’re cheap to fix. The code, repositories and accounts are yours.
Then
Grow from real dataReviews, new categories, user groups and automation, chosen from how people use the platform. Bug fixes are free for 3 months.
Systems we’ve built that are close to this one.
Marketplace for used EVs
Read the case study
Real estate directory for Guatemala market
Read the case study
Platform that connects doctors & students with hospitals
Read the case studyYes, and we recommend it. The MVP covers one complete deal (listing, finding, paying or applying) and the back office to run it. Mladilekari’s MVP took 6 weeks, and we have kept adding features with the client since.
A focused MVP usually fits our connected-system range of €10–30k. Larger platforms with many integrations, several user groups or complex payments start at €30k. You get a fixed price after the project workshop, before any build starts.
Our marketplace MVPs have taken between 6 weeks and 3 months. Payments, the number of user roles and integrations with outside systems make the biggest difference.
We use a marketplace payment provider such as Stripe Connect or Mangopay. It takes the buyer’s payment, checks sellers’ identity, splits off your commission and pays sellers out, so your company doesn’t hold their money. We build your rules on top: fees per category, refunds and invoices.
Where it helps: completing and standardising listings, suggesting categories, matching requests to suppliers or flagging suspicious listings for review. For Mappi, a real estate portal, we built AI tools that fill gaps in listings and standardise their fields.
Yes. We start by reviewing the code or no-code app, the data and the payment setup. Then we either extend what you have or plan a step-by-step move to a new platform without stopping trade.
You do. The code, repositories and hosting accounts are yours from launch, which matters when investors or a future buyer of your company ask about it. Bug fixes are free for 3 months, and monthly support after that is optional.
Buyers’ and sellers’ data lives in your own accounts, hosted in the EU if you prefer. Consent, data export and account deletion are built in from the start, and card details stay with the payment provider, never on your servers.
Tell us who buys, who sells and how the money moves. We’ll tell you what the MVP should include and roughly what it would cost.
JurajCEO, QikBuild
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