The rules.
Short ones.

1. Fees

• Listing: £19 per startup for a 14-day listing. It pays for us to recheck the audit gate. You can relist an unsold startup once for free.
• Success fee: 8% of the final price, minimum £60, paid by the seller only if it sells (by Buy it now or at auction).
• Buyers: free to look, register and bid. The escrow partner's fee is shown before you pay.
• Rank: not for sale, at any price.

Starting prices to test, not yet approved. Our own house startups pay no fees.

2. Buy it now

Every listed startup has a fixed Buy it now price. Pay it any day and the startup comes off the auction. If a bid has already been placed in a running Friday auction, Buy it now is switched off until that auction ends.

3. The Friday auction and the last inch

Auctions run every Friday from 2pm to 5pm UK time. Each one opens at the opening price on the card. Bids go up in steps shown on the page. If a new top bid arrives in the final 10 minutes, the clock goes back to 10 minutes after that bid: a fresh 10 minutes. The auction ends only when 10 minutes pass with no new top bid.

4. Reserves

A seller may set a private reserve. We never show the amount, only reserve met or not met yet. A reserve can be lowered during an auction but never raised. If the clock runs out under the reserve, nothing sells. The house startups in this preview have no reserve set.

5. Fair play

• Sellers, their staff, family, bots and linked accounts can't bid on their own startups (shill bidding). We block it, and accounts that try are banned.
• Every bidder verifies their identity and payment method through the escrow partner before their first bid.
• A winning bid is a promise to buy. Not paying within 3 working days can mean a ban.
• Our fair-play bot flags odd patterns. A person decides what to do; the bot never bans anyone on its own.

6. The audit gate

Before a startup is listed it needs an overall audit score of 8.0 or more, no single area under 7, no accessibility errors, no sideways scrolling on phones, and seven honesty checks: estimates labelled, example data labelled, no invented reviews, testimonials, customers, users or stats, AI staff described as set up and ready to switch on, plain disclosures, nothing sends or charges without approval, and the right to sell everything in it. We recheck it ourselves.

7. Reviews policy

• Only a buyer whose purchase completed (paid and handed over) can review that startup, once.
• We publish positive and negative reviews alike, without delay, with the date.
• Sellers can reply publicly. They can't edit, hide or remove a review, and can't offer anything in return for a good one.
• If a reviewer received anything in return, the review says so.
• We remove a review only if it is unlawful, abusive or exposes personal data, and we record why.

We follow the UK ban on fake reviews (DMCC Act 2024, Schedule 20, and CMA guidance CMA208). Buyers-only reviewing is our reasoned choice, because a startup can't be used without buying it. It is an open question for legal review.

8. Rankings

Rank points are the verified review stars added up, plus 5 for each buyer-confirmed launch. A launch counts when the buyer shows us a public link to the startup trading with real customers and we check it. Ties go to more launches, then the latest launch. Money never moves the board.

9. Sponsored spots

Sponsored spots are paid, always labelled Sponsored, kept in their own panel away from the startups and rankings, and never change either. We follow the CAP Code and never put ads in payment or handover messages.

10. After the sale

The buyer pays the escrow partner. The seller hands over the startup (files, accounts, bot set-up notes). The buyer confirms it arrived complete, and escrow releases the money minus our fee. Startups are sold as new businesses: no customers or trading history, and their figures are estimates.