From idea to live marketplace, in eight to twelve weeks.
Discovery, design, build, and launch. One team. One timeline. One fixed-scope quote that already answers the questions most agencies leave open. You leave with a live marketplace, paying users, seed supply already loaded, and a repo you actually own.
Most agencies cannot ship a marketplace. They ship websites and call them marketplaces.
A marketplace is not a website with a checkout. It is two-sided economics, supply onboarding, payouts, trust signals, dispute paths, and a backend portal you can actually run, all working from day one. Build & Launch packages the whole thing: a known scope, a known timeline, and a fixed price. You stop negotiating over whether your marketplace gets email verification.
A small, dedicated team.
We work with five to seven active partners at a time. You will not be a JIRA ticket inside a billable-hours machine. You will know everyone working on your build, by name.
Fixed scope, fixed price, fixed timeline.
Forty-six baseline features and six custom deliverables, all written down before you sign. Three milestone payments tied to clear handoffs. No surprise change orders.
Complexity. Quality. Speed.
You can pick two. We tell you which two we are picking, on Day One, in writing, so the trade-off is yours and not a surprise three weeks before launch.
44 features you do not have to negotiate for.
This is the baseline platform you get on every Build & Launch — desktop and responsive. The boring, table-stakes infrastructure that turns a directory into a marketplace. You do not pay extra for a backend portal. You do not pay extra for email verification. It is part of the fixed price.
- Edit listings
- Review users
- Review transactions
- Manage reviews
- Close / delete listings
- Listing process
- Listing page
- Category management
- Review / approve listing
- Keyword search
- Location search
- Static filters
- Add / edit filters
- Checkout
- Credit-card payments
- 2-way chat system
- 2-way reviews
- Platform fee
- Request to book
- Login (email)
- Signup
- Profile
- Account settings
- Payout info
- New message
- Email verification
- Welcome email
- Request to book
- Booking confirmation
- Invoice
- Review reminder
- Home page
- About / contact
- FAQs
- Privacy policy
- Terms & conditions
- Blog pages
- OpenAI / Anthropic
- Vercel
- Stripe
- Mapbox
- GitHub
- Supabase
- Dev setup / config
Six surfaces customized for your marketplace, specifically.
The baseline gets you a generic marketplace. The custom work gets you yours. Six surfaces are scoped, designed, and built around your category, your personas, and your wedge — by the same team running discovery with you.
Custom UX on five surfaces
We replace the Sharetribe out-of-the-box UI with custom designs on the home page, listing creation, listing page, profiles, and search results. Five surfaces. Yours.
Algolia search & discovery
We replace the default search with a powerful, dynamic API that promotes discovery and improves your SEO surface area from day one.
A category-specific listing flow
The default listing UX is generic. We replace it with a custom design and taxonomy that fits your category, your supply, and your moderation needs.
Identity and trust primitives
Profile types, sub-profiles, multi-actor onboarding, document collection. The trust primitives that turn a directory into a marketplace.
Payments and credits
Stripe Connect for split payouts. Optional credit packages so users can purchase, redeem, and re-engage without a card every time.
Two custom integrations
Two API integrations scoped at MVP requirements. Identity verification, shipping, tax, CRM, safety scoring — whatever your wedge actually needs.
Five things that are not "extra," even though most agencies charge for them.
Ten hours of senior strategy
A Senior Product Manager on call for product strategy, SEO, and go-to-market work. Use them for what only a senior can answer.
A dedicated Product Manager
Your conduit to the build. Available on Slack and email throughout the engagement, and after launch.
A two-week Discovery Process
At least two team members run the discovery sprint with you. Empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, iterate. The bones of every marketplace we ship.
A 60-day bug guarantee
Bugs surfaced in the first 60 days after upgrading to your production Sharetribe subscription are resolved at no charge.
Continued partnership, not abandonment
We do not vanish on launch day. Hourly support packages and added-benefit services are available the moment you go live.
Different phases need different rhythms.
We do not pretend a discovery sprint runs at the same tempo as a pre-launch hardening week. Here is what each phase looks like from your side of the table.
Pre-development discovery
- Empathize: research and user interviews
- Define: the problems, in writing
- Ideate: generate solution candidates
- Prototype: design and click-test
- Test: real users, real reactions
- Iterate: update based on feedback
Build
- Weekly Slack updates and conversations as needed
- Demo videos shipped as features land
- Working software, every two weeks, on a real environment
- Senior review on every architectural decision
Pre-launch
- Weekly working session with the build lead
- Bug tracker live and triaged with you
- Release notes per cut
- Performance, accessibility, payments edge cases
Going live
- Stage 1 · Live testing and bug fixing
- Stage 2 · Friends-and-family closed beta
- Stage 3 · Closed live testing until confidence is high
- Stage 4 · Public launch
Four conversations we have before the deposit clears.
The work that decides whether a Build & Launch is the right call happens before kickoff, not after. Here is what we cover with every founder during the discovery call and proposal phase, so the engagement starts with no surprises on either side.
Review workflow list
We start by reviewing everything you believe is required for a successful launch: every flow, every integration, every edge case. Then we work backward from launch day to figure out what stays in scope and what gets sequenced for later.
Thinking design-first
We pick one to three workflows to fully customize for your persona through Design Thinking with our core team. Not every screen needs a custom design. The ones that decide whether your wedge works do.
Additional integrations
Beyond the two MVP-scoped integrations, think through what else your category needs in Phase 1: CRM, safety scoring, shipping, ID verification, adoption analytics. We help you decide what is launch-critical versus post-launch work.
Scheduling a start date
We are a small shop with extremely limited capacity. Quotes are valid until the deposit due date and start dates are booked first-deposit-priority. The earlier we lock yours, the more room we have to do discovery the right way.
The stack we use, the costs you should plan for.
We pick tools that are powerful at MVP scale and cheap until you need them not to be. Most of the stack starts on free tiers; the two paid platforms are Sharetribe and Heroku, and Stripe takes a per-transaction cut. Costs grow as you scale — the tools are billed to you, not us.
The two things people mean when they say "one more change."
The difference matters because one is in scope and one is not. We tell you which one a request is, before we start work — so you never get a surprise invoice.
New features or significant changes.
Additions or improvements to your platform that introduce new features or significantly modify existing ones. These are not in the original scope and require additional planning, resources, and time.
"Researching, designing, and developing a review system post-launch or during the bug period."
Refinements to what we already built.
Refining and optimizing existing features based on user feedback or testing. Minor tweaks and adjustments essential for improving the experience — without changing core functionality.
"Adjust the weighted search or an integration to reflect new user feedback."
Use them on enhancements, iterations, or any combination. Once the 15 hours are used, you move into one of our hourly support packages.
What people most often add on, and when it makes sense.
None of these are required to launch a great marketplace. All of them are common asks once founders see their wedge clearly. Pick what your category demands, skip what it does not, and we will quote each one against MVP requirements.
Strategy & planning
- SEO strategy
- Product strategy & roadmap
- Traction forecasting
- Go-to-market planning
- Fundraising strategies
- UX journey mapping
Custom design surfaces
- Custom home page
- Custom listing page
- Custom profile page
- Custom signup process
- Custom listing process
- Personalized home pages
Integrations & systems
- Custom integration
- Tax calculation integration
- ID verification integration
- Notification mapping
- Automated QA
- Alternative payout system
Marketplace mechanics
- Bidding & offer system
- RFP / RFQ process
- Coupons & discounts
- Advocacy & referral program
How a Build & Launch is paid for.
One non-refundable deposit, three milestone payments, one end date. No surprise invoices. The structure below is illustrative; actual amounts and dates are written into your quote.
Locks your start date. Non-refundable. The quote expires if the deposit is not received by the due date.
Due at kickoff. Discovery sprint begins, brand and prototype tracks open in parallel.
Due mid-build. Working software on a real environment, demo videos shipping, bug tracker live.
Due at launch. Public launch complete, 60-day bug guarantee begins, partnership transitions to support.
Quotes are based on resource availability and booked on a first-deposit-priority basis. Canadian businesses are subject to local tax laws. Final pricing depends on scope, complexity, and integration count.