Choose a Business Model for Your Marketplace

Choose the charge your marketplace can justify and collect. Start with who receives value, what they pay for, and the event that makes the fee due. Then compare a small number of models against the work needed to deliver them.

Directorism designs and builds marketplaces and directories for clients. The revenue model affects what we need to build: checkout, subscriptions, lead qualification, refunds and the records behind them. This guide helps you choose what to charge for; the commission pricing guide helps you test the amount.

Billing Events and Observability

Write down when a fee becomes due, when money moves and what happens if the promised outcome fails. These are separate decisions, and their order depends on your payment flow.

Agree the accounting treatment separately; collecting a payment does not by itself settle when revenue is recognized.

Keep transaction value separate from platform revenue. Gross merchandise value (GMV) measures goods or services sold through the marketplace over a period before platform fees are deducted. Record your treatment of taxes, shipping and refunds so comparisons use the same base. Transaction fees are only one source of platform revenue; subscriptions and lead fees can earn revenue without a marketplace checkout. Stripe's metrics guide explains the GMV and take-rate distinction.

Your model also depends on observability. If buyers and suppliers complete their transaction off-platform, reliable observation may be difficult, though not strictly impossible if users have incentives to report outcomes. Your terms of service do not automatically enforce the collection of fees you cannot see.

Standard Marketplace Models

Sharetribe's marketplace guide describes commission, subscriptions, listing fees, lead fees, freemium and featured listings. Use the questions below to compare what each approach would require in your market.

Hybrid Models

A hybrid model combines two or more approaches, such as a baseline subscription alongside a reduced commission rate. Explain what each charge buys before combining models. Adding layered fees without corresponding value risks suppressing user adoption.

Comparing Model Economics

When comparing models, keep your unit types separate: leads are not bookings, and subscriptions are not GMV. To decide between models, evaluate the actual user commitments and the support costs required to deliver them.

Here is a hypothetical example. Every input is an assumption for teaching the calculation, not a recommended rate or a client result:

• Assumed Volume: 100 completed transactions
• Assumed Value: $200 base GMV per transaction
• Assumed Fee: 10% commission
• Gross Fee Revenue: $2,000 (100 transactions × $200 × 10%)
• Assumed Costs: $100 in fee credits + $500 in total direct processing, support, and fulfillment costs
• Contribution: $1,400 contribution before acquisition and overhead.

Your decision requires identifying what specific operational costs and user behaviors will change these assumptions in your market.

Documenting and Testing Your Decision

Before writing code, document your hypothesis. Establish a recorded outcome that might force you to change your selected model.

MARKETPLACE BUSINESS MODEL DECISION RECORD

1. Target Payer(s): [Buyer / Supplier / Both]
2. Fee Trigger: [e.g., Completed transaction, Accepted qualified lead]
3. Selected Initial Model: [e.g., Commission, Lead Fee]
4. Primary Value Exchanged: [What exactly is the payer buying?]
5. Largest Operational Risk: [e.g., Off-platform leakage, Lead qualification disputes]
6. Evidence That Would Change the Decision: [What user behavior or cost would make us reconsider?]
7. Owner and Review Date: [Who runs the test, and when do we review it?]

Modeling Your Scenarios

Use the Excel workbook. Create scenario copies of the file with explicitly different assumptions for each model you want to compare.

The workbook uses four tabs: Read Me, Inputs, Model, and Model Choice.

1. Enter Inputs: State the revenue period and currency. Enter zero for a category that does not apply; leave an unknown value blank. Define the paying side and acquisition cohort separately.
2. Calculate Operations: The Model tab calculates GMV, platform revenue, fee credits, direct costs, and contribution before acquisition and overhead.
3. Define Acquisition: Enter your acquisition spend and new paying customers for a defined cohort (a specific matched group of buyers or suppliers acquired together) to determine Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC).
4. Determine Payback: A same-cohort monthly contribution per paying customer and an explicit assumed paying lifetime provide an assumption-based contribution lifetime value. Payback uses CAC divided by the positive same-cohort monthly contribution. Missing or invalid required inputs leave the result blank. Nonpositive monthly contribution leaves payback blank; a negative contribution lifetime value stays negative. These are constant-contribution scenarios, not forecasts.

To check whether buyers and suppliers reach completed transactions, use the liquidity measurement guide. If you are unsure whether your market will adopt a platform at all, complete a marketplace validation checklist first.

Next step: Compare your preferred model with one alternative in the workbook. Record the smallest test that would show whether customers will pay for the proposed value.