Benchmarks · Marketplace
What investors check first in a marketplace
Healthy ranges for a marketplace at an early stage: gross margin 60%–85%, monthly buyers churn up to 6%, year 3 take rate 5%–20%, year 2 orders per buyer per month 0.5–4.
How a marketplace makes money
Buyers x orders x order value x take rate.
That one line is the revenue engine. Every number in it should be something you can measure today and defend with your own data. Investors rebuild it in their heads in the first five minutes, so your model should too.
The benchmark ranges
| Metric | Healthy (green) | Watch (amber) |
|---|---|---|
| Gross margin | 60%–85% | 45%–90% |
| Monthly buyers churn | up to 6% | up to 9% |
| Year 3 take rate | 5%–20% | 2%–30% |
| Year 2 orders per buyer per month | 0.5–4 | 0.2–8 |
Year 3 take rate. Very high take rates invite disintermediation (buyers and sellers going direct).
Year 2 orders per buyer per month. Frequency must match how often your buyers really restock.
Ranges are rules of thumb for early-stage companies, used by the Model Health Score in the Marketplace edition. They are not market data; check current sources and talk to founders who raised recently.
The drivers in the model
These are the inputs the Marketplace edition asks for, with the values used for the sample company, Tradelane Inc. (B2B wholesale marketplace for independent retailers). Where a value changes over five years, the first and last are shown.
| Driver | Sample | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Buyers at start (month 0) | 300 | Active buyers you already have before month 1. |
| Organic / referral new buyers in month 1 | 40 | Word of mouth, SEO, referrals, partnerships. |
| Organic new-buyer growth per month | 7% → 2% | Compounds monthly. Above 10% a month needs strong evidence. |
| Paid marketing spend | $10,000 → $120,000 | Ads, sponsorships, paid campaigns (people costs are in Headcount). |
| Paid CAC (cost to win one buyer via paid channels) | $150 → $230 | Paid new customers = paid spend / paid CAC. CAC usually rises as you scale. |
| Monthly churn | 6% → 4% | Share of active buyers who stop ordering each month. |
| Orders per active buyer per month | 1.2 → 1.6 | Order frequency. Repeat ordering is the heart of marketplace economics. |
| Average order value (GMV per order), Year 1 | $450 | Gross value of one order paid by the buyer. |
| Annual change in average order value | 3% | |
| Take rate (your share of GMV) | 10% → 12% | Commission plus fees as % of GMV. Many marketplaces sit between 5% and 20%. |
| Payment processing cost (paid by you on GMV) | 2.2% | If sellers or buyers pay card fees directly, set to 0. |
| Support, trust & safety cost per order | 2 | Customer support, fraud checks, disputes. |
What the sample model looks like over five years
| Tradelane Inc. | Y1 | Y2 | Y3 | Y4 | Y5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $516k | $1.77M | $4.41M | $8.83M | $15.3M |
| Gross margin % | 70% | 71% | 73% | 74% | 75% |
| EBITDA | -$609k | -$1.01M | -$403k | $1.41M | $5.18M |
| Cash at year end | $1.68M | $6.67M | $6.27M | $7.55M | $11.4M |
| Active buyers (year end) | 1,272 | 3,311 | 6,545 | 10,636 | 15,415 |
| Revenue run-rate (year end) | $798k | $2.46M | $5.67M | $10.7M | $17.8M |
| Headcount (year end) | 9 | 16 | 22 | 28 | 30 |
| LTV : CAC | 2.8x | 3.0x | 3.8x | 5.1x | 6.6x |
| CAC payback (months) | 5.9 | 6.1 | 5.2 | 4.4 | 3.8 |
Fictional sample company, Base case. Figures are illustrative and come from the SAMPLE file of the Marketplace edition.
Marketplace terms to know
- GMV
- Gross merchandise value - total value of orders placed through the marketplace.
- Take rate
- Your revenue as a share of GMV.
- Liquidity
- How reliably buyers find what they want and sellers find buyers.