Flat-Fee Disclosure · Published 2026

The $100,000 Question Every Trade Owner Asks About Broker Commission

A traditional business broker takes 8–12% of your sale price — on a $1M trade business that's $80,000–$120,000 out of your retirement. TradeReins charges a flat fee that puts a disclosed number on the line instead of a percentage. Below: the fee comparison, the dollar-savings math for a $1M / $2M / $5M shop, and three owners on what that gap meant at close.

Updated July 2026 · ~8 min read · By TradeReins — Built by trades, for trades
Fee Comparison › Savings Calculator › Owner Stories › FAQ
What's actually disclosed on this page: TradeReins does not charge an 8–12% commission on your trade business sale. We use a managed-succession flat-fee structure that, for most trades business sales, falls in the $25K–$100K band depending on deal size, term length, and structure. We only earn when a match closes — there is no upfront retainer. The buyer side pays nothing. The fee comparison below lays out the full picture: the headline commission, the line items brokers routinely add on, and what the net difference means at close for a representative $1M, $2M, and $5M shop.
Fee Comparison

TradeReins Flat Fee vs the 8–12% Broker Commission — Line by Line

The headline percentage is not the whole story. Below is the line-by-line fee build-up for a representative trade business sale, starting from the gross sale price and ending at what actually lands in the seller's pocket at close. Where the line item is a percentage, we use the typical 10% broker commission midpoint — quoted rates vary across shops, regions, and brokers, and 8–12% is the band that surfaces most often in owner conversations.

Line Item Traditional Business Broker TradeReins
Sale price Same deal size on both sides — what the buyer pays at close before any fees. Same sale price — the comparison is fee-by-fee, not headline-price-by-headline-price.
Broker commission (8–12%, typical 10%) 8–12% of gross sale price, paid out of seller proceeds at close. On a $1M sale at 10%: $100,000. On $2M: $200,000. On $5M: $500,000. No percentage commission. TradeReins uses a managed-succession flat fee in the $25K–$100K band depending on deal size, term length, and structure.
Upfront broker retainer Non-refundable $5,000–$25,000 retainer at engagement, typically credited only if the deal closes through that broker. Lost on fall-through. No retainer, no upfront fee. TradeReins only earns when a match closes — the work-cost aligns with the close outcome.
Buyer-side commission / finder fee Sometimes a 2–5% finder's fee paid by the seller as a courtesy to the buyer's representative. Routinely a surprise line item at close. $0. The buyer side pays no fee to TradeReins. Candidate pool is pre-screened for financing and license readiness before NDAs are signed.
TradeReins flat fee N/A — broker model uses a percentage plus optional retainers and add-ons, not a flat fee. Single disclosed fee. $25K for a ~$1M shop, ~$50K for ~$2M, ~$100K for ~$5M. Exact figure depends on deal specifics — disclosed at engagement, not at close.
Net to seller at close Sale price minus broker commission (and minus retainer if non-creditable; minus finder's fee if applicable). On $1M at 10%: roughly $900,000 — minus any add-ons. Sale price minus TradeReins' flat fee. On $1M: roughly $975,000. The $75K difference vs a 10% broker is what stays in the seller's pocket.
What the seller keeps (TradeReins vs broker) ~90% of sale price on a clean close with a typical 10% broker; meaningfully less once retainers, finder's fees, and administration costs are layered on. ~97.5% of sale price on a $1M deal, ~98.3% on $2M, ~98% on $5M — before any contingent add-ons because there are none.
The honest short version: A traditional broker's fee is a percentage that scales with your sale price — the larger the deal, the larger the commission. TradeReins' fee is a disclosed dollar number that does not scale the same way. Below is the inline savings calculator, with the actual dollar difference for representative $1M, $2M, and $5M shops.
Savings Calculator

The Dollar Savings — $1M vs $2M vs $5M Trade Business

Pre-computed for three representative sale sizes. The "Broker typical (10%)" figure uses the midpoint of the published 8–12% band — the most common quoted rate in owner conversations. The "TradeReins flat fee" figure is a representative point within the $25K–$100K disclosure band; the actual fee depends on deal specifics and is confirmed at engagement. The "You save" figure is the net difference — what ends up in your pocket at close rather than as a commission line item.

$1,000,000
Broker typical (10%) $100,000
TradeReins flat fee $25,000
You save $75,000
$2,000,000
Broker typical (10%) $200,000
TradeReins flat fee $50,000
You save $150,000
$5,000,000
Broker typical (10%) $500,000
TradeReins flat fee $100,000
You save $400,000
How to read this: The savings are not theoretical. They are the dollar figure the seller would have written a commission check for at close under a typical 10% broker engagement, replaced by a smaller disclosed flat fee on a TradeReins-managed succession. The savings compound across deal size because the broker model scales by percentage while TradeReins does not. A representative $2M HVAC shop that would have paid $200,000 in commission keeps $150,000 of that on a TradeReins close — that is real retirement money, not a marketing figure. Actual TradeReins fees for a specific deal are confirmed at engagement and do not move at close.
Owner Stories

What the Fee Difference Actually Meant at Close

Three owners on the dollar figure. Descriptors only — last names withheld to keep the focus on the fee math, not the personality. The quotes are honest about what the savings meant and what they didn't change (the work was still real work; the matched buyer pool mattered as much as the fee).

We saved roughly $80,000 on the commission versus the broker quote we had gotten — and the buyer pool TradeReins put in front of us was already licensed HVAC operators. That mattered more than the savings in the end, but the savings mattered too.

Retiring HVAC Owner · Arizona ~$1.1M shop, close 2025

The flat-fee structure was the easy part to explain to my wife. The hard part was whether the buyer pool was real. It was — the matched buyer was a licensed plumber with a two-shop roll-up already in motion. We saved about $150,000 versus the 10% we had been quoted.

Retiring Plumbing Owner · Texas ~$2M shop, close 2025

I'd heard 'flat fee' from brokers before and it usually meant retainers and success fees on top. TradeReins was actually flat. The disclosed number was the number on the closing statement. We saved roughly $400,000 versus the brokerage quote we had shopped around, and the matched buyer was already licensed electrical.

Retiring Electrical Owner · Pacific Northwest ~$5M shop, close 2026
The honest framing: The dollar savings are real, but they are not the only thing that mattered to any of these owners. The matched buyers were pre-screened for licensing and financing, which removed the fall-through risk that broker-listed deals regularly run into. The savings are a feature of the structure, not a substitute for vetting. See the full TradeReins vs Business Broker comparison for the other dimensions owners weighed alongside fee.
FAQ

Fee Questions, Answered Plainly

Click any question to expand. Each answer is plain-language — including the cases where the actual fee depends on deal specifics, where TradeReins is honest about what isn't covered, and where the comparison to a broker has to acknowledge overlap rather than treat the two models as perfectly clean counterparts.

TradeReins uses a managed-succession flat-fee structure rather than a percentage-of-sale-price commission. For most trades business sales the seller's fee falls in the $25K–$100K band depending on deal size, term length, and structure (phased retirement, retained equity, seller financing all change the work involved). The buyer side pays nothing. There is no upfront retainer — TradeReins only earns when a match closes. For comparison, the typical 8–12% broker commission on a $1M sale alone is $80K–$120K, plus a $5K–$25K non-refundable retainer, plus potential finder fees and add-on valuation charges.
Most traditional business brokers charge 8–12% of the final sale price, applied to the gross purchase price before any seller-financed portion is netted out. Some agencies quote a flat 10%, others publish a sliding scale (12% under $500K, 10% to $1M, 8% above). The commission is paid out of the seller's net proceeds at close — buyers almost never pay the listing-side commission directly. On a $1M sale at 10%, that is $100K in commission on top of any up-front retainer; on a $2M sale at 10%, it is $200K. TradeReins' flat-fee structure removes the percentage entirely — the seller knows the dollar figure going in and the closing statement is not reduced by a commission line item.
Beyond the headline 8–12% commission, traditional broker engagements on trades businesses often layer on: (1) a non-refundable retainer of $5K–$25K paid before the listing goes live; (2) a separate valuation fee of $2K–$8K even when the eventual buyer accepts the broker's own estimate; (3) a 'success fee' or marketing fund of $1K–$5K for premium placement on aggregator sites; (4) a buyer-side finder's fee if the deal closes with a buyer the broker did not source, which can run another 2–5% paid by the seller as a courtesy to the referring party; (5) transaction administration fees of $1K–$3K at close for paperwork and escrow coordination. These line items are individually small, but stacked they routinely add $10K–$40K on top of the headline commission. TradeReins' flat-fee structure folds all of these into one disclosed number — no retainers, no add-on charges, no surprise success fees.
On a representative comparison using the typical 10% broker commission midpoint and a TradeReins managed-succession flat-fee assumption: a $1M sale saves roughly $75K ($100K broker commission minus $25K TradeReins fee), a $2M sale saves roughly $150K ($200K minus $50K), and a $5M sale saves roughly $400K ($500K minus $100K). These figures assume a single-fee close with no seller financing drag and a clean 6–12 month process; actual figures depend on deal size, term length, and structure. The savings are net and end up in the seller's pocket at close rather than as a commission line item. The savings calculator further up this page walks through the exact math for each tier.
No. The buyer side pays nothing to TradeReins. Some traditional broker engagements involve a buyer-side premium or finder's fee that ends up being paid by the seller as a courtesy to the buyer's representative or to grease the deal — TradeReins does not run that mechanic. Candidates who match with a TradeReins-listed business have already been pre-screened for financing and license readiness before NDAs are signed, so the buyer's transaction cost is the down payment, earnest money, and the financing they bring to the table — not a platform fee. This is part of why the TradeReins model produces a tighter, more curated candidate pool: the buyer is not paying a commission, so the buyer's price discipline is real rather than baked into a fee structure.
TradeReins' model only earns when a match closes. The seller is not on the hook for an upfront retainer, an engagement fee, or a sunk-cost line item during prep. The work done during the structured 21-step process — financial cleanup, owner-dependency reduction, license transferability verification, candidate matching, NDA management, and process coordination through close — is carried by TradeReins and recovered only at close. This is structurally different from a traditional broker agreement, which routinely takes a non-refundable $5K–$25K retainer at engagement and credits that against the eventual commission at close (or, on a fall-through, keeps the retainer). The honest version: both models carry real transaction work, but TradeReins aligns the work-cost with the close outcome rather than front-loading it.
The flat fee isn't the only cost — but it's the one you control today

Get a Trade-Specific Valuation and See the Real Number

The free valuation gives you a trade-specific report on your shop — and a real number you can compare against any broker quote. If TradeReins is the right fit, the disclosed flat fee replaces the percentage commission line item entirely. Either way, you walk away with a number you can act on.

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