BizBuySell Businesses-for-Sale & Financials Scraper

BizBuySell is the largest US marketplace for buying and selling small businesses, franchises and commercial real estate. This actor turns its public listings into structured deal data: asking price, location, cash flow, EBITDA, revenue, broker contacts and the full detail-page story for each business.

What this actor does

• Search the marketplace your way — keyword, state, city, county, 200+ industries, listing type, asking-price range, cash-flow range, gross-revenue range, established-after year, days listed and sort order.
• Or paste URLs and IDs — BizBuySell search pages, category pages, state/city/county pages and individual listing URLs all work; exact listing IDs are supported too.
• Get the financial picture — asking price, cash flow (SDE), EBITDA, gross revenue, real estate, inventory, FF&E, rent, year established and employee count when the seller discloses them.
• Reach the broker — broker name, phone, company and profile link from the listing and its detail page.
• Go deeper on demand — turn on enrichDetails for the full description, facilities, competition, growth, financing, support and reason for selling.
• Monitor new and changed listings — set stateKey on scheduled runs to remember what was already seen; onlyNew and emitUnchanged control whether you receive new, changed or every listing.
• Empty fields are omitted, never sent as null.

Output per listing

• productId — BizBuySell's numeric listing ID
• title — listing headline
• description — summary, or the full description with enrichDetails
• url — direct link to the listing
• location — city or county plus state, e.g. Bonita Springs, FL
• city, county, stateCode, state — parsed location parts
• askingPrice, askingPriceNumeric — formatted and numeric asking price
• askingPriceDetail — asking price as shown on the detail page, with enrichDetails
• cashFlow, cashFlowNumeric — seller's discretionary earnings / SDE
• grossRevenue, grossRevenueNumeric — annual gross revenue, with enrichDetails
• ebitda, ebitdaNumeric — EBITDA when disclosed
• realEstate, realEstateNumeric — included real-estate value or Owned / Leased status, with enrichDetails
• inventory, inventoryNumeric — inventory value and inclusion, with enrichDetails
• ffe, ffeNumeric — furniture, fixtures and equipment, with enrichDetails
• rentMonthly, rentMonthlyNumeric — monthly rent, with enrichDetails
• established, establishedYear — founding year, with enrichDetails
• employees, employeeCount — headcount, with enrichDetails
• listingTypeId, listingType — established, asset sale, real estate or startup
• adLevelId, adLevel — marketplace placement level
• category — industry path, e.g. Laundromats and Coin Laundry > Dry Cleaners
• image — primary photo URL; with mirrorImages on (the default) this is a public Apify storage URL that opens from any client. If you turn mirroring off, this is the source CDN URL and may return 403.
• images — every photo URL the search result exposes, in source order. These are the original BizBuySell CDN URLs.
• imageOriginal — the source BizBuySell CDN URL, kept for traceability; the CDN may return 403 to a clean shell, so use image for customer-facing links
• imageStatus — mirrored, mirror_failed or skipped when image mirroring is requested
• recentlyAdded, recentlyUpdated, priceReduced — listing freshness flags
• daysListedAgo, daysModifiedAgo — days since the listing was added or modified, only when BizBuySell reports them; never calculated from an invented date
• hotProperty, franchiseResale — marketplace badges when the search result reports them
• leaseRateDuration, leaseRatePerSquareFoot — raw lease terms exactly as the search result reports them
• leaseDurationMonths — lease duration normalized to months only when the raw text states years or months (for example 5 years → 60); omitted when the unit is not explicit
• leaseRatePerSquareFootNumeric, leaseRatePerSquareFootPeriod — numeric per-square-foot rate and the period (year, month, week or day) only when the source text states it; the raw leaseRatePerSquareFoot text is retained
• listingStatus, listingStatusSource, listingStatusEvidence, statusCheckedAt — inactive tombstone for an explicit listing ID that a successful lookup no longer returns; this is the actor's observed absence, not a BizBuySell sold/expired status
• realEstateIncluded — real estate included in the asking price
• sellerFinancing, homeBased — seller terms and operating style, with enrichDetails
• brokerName, brokerPhone, brokerCompany, brokerProfileUrl — listing contact
• facilities, competition, growthAndExpansion, financing, supportAndTraining, reasonForSelling — detail-page narrative, with enrichDetails
• buildingSquareFeet, website — premises size and business website, with enrichDetails
• detailsRaw — raw detail-page labels and values (for example "Cash Flow (SDE)": "$75,000"), with enrichDetails
• enriched — true only when the detail page was fetched and merged
• detailStatus — ok, blocked, timeout, skipped or error; skipped covers enrichDetails off and the circuit breaker
• detailError — the reason enrichment was blocked, timed out, failed or was skipped by the circuit breaker
• searchUrl — the exact search URL, including every filter and sort used; listing-ID and listing-URL runs use the listing URL as provenance
• searchTotal — the total the source reported for that search, when it returned one
• truncated — true when maxItems or the 10,000-result window actually cut the result set
• searchInput — the normalized search filters used for the record
• isNew, changed, changedFields, previousValues — incremental-monitoring signals when stateKey is set; a new listing has isNew: true, a previously seen listing with different tracked fields has changed: true and lists them in changedFields
• firstSeenAt, lastSeenAt, lastChangedAt, monitorStateKey — actor observation timestamps and the state key used for monitoring; these are not BizBuySell-provided listing dates
• recordType: "businessListing", scrapedAt — UTC ISO 8601 timestamp

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search, byUrls or byListingIds
searchQuery	string	-	Keyword, e.g. restaurant, HVAC, car wash (mode=search)
state	string	ALL	US state or ALL (mode=search)
city	string	–	City filter, e.g. Austin (mode=search)
county	string	–	County filter, e.g. Los Angeles County (mode=search)
category	string	ALL	BizBuySell industry category (mode=search)
listingType	string	all	all, established, assetSale, realEstate, startup (mode=search)
minAskingPrice / maxAskingPrice	integer	–	Asking-price range in USD
minCashFlow / maxCashFlow	integer	–	Annual cash-flow range in USD
minGrossRevenue / maxGrossRevenue	integer	–	Annual gross-revenue range in USD
establishedAfterYear	integer	–	Only businesses founded after this year
listedWithinDays	integer	0	Only listings added or refreshed within this many days; 0 = any
sortBy	string	default	default, priceAsc, priceDesc, cashFlowDesc, newest
sellerFinancing	boolean	false	Only seller-financing listings
homeBased	boolean	false	Only home-based businesses
realEstateIncluded	boolean	false	Only listings with real estate included
absenteeOwner	boolean	false	Only absentee-owner listings
priceReduced	boolean	false	Only price-reduced listings
franchiseResale	boolean	false	Only franchise resales
strictFilters	boolean	false	Enforce the gross-revenue filter strictly. The source-side filter is trusted when detail revenue is unavailable; with enrichDetails, unknown detail values are dropped
enrichDetails	boolean	false	Fetch each listing's detail page for full financials and narrative
mirrorImages	boolean	true	Copy photos into public Apify storage and return stable URLs
startUrls	array	[]	BizBuySell search, category or listing URLs (mode=byUrls)
listingIds	array	[]	Numeric listing IDs (mode=byListingIds)
maxItems	integer	50	Hard cap, 1–10,000
stateKey	string	–	Optional incremental-monitoring key. Reuse the same key on scheduled runs to persist seen listings in a named key-value store
onlyNew	boolean	false	With stateKey, emit only listing IDs never seen in a previous run
emitUnchanged	boolean	false	With stateKey, also emit listings whose tracked fields did not change; leave off for new/changed only
proxyConfiguration	object	–	Optional proxy override; leave empty to use the actor's own connection fallback

Example: California laundromats with strong cash flow

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "laundromat",
  "state": "CA",
  "minCashFlow": 100000,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: restaurants in Los Angeles County

{
  "mode": "search",
  "category": "17",
  "state": "CA",
  "county": "Los Angeles County",
  "minAskingPrice": 100000,
  "maxAskingPrice": 1000000,
  "sortBy": "priceAsc",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: look up exact listings with full details

{
  "mode": "byListingIds",
  "listingIds": ["2501583", "2571748"],
  "enrichDetails": true,
  "maxItems": 2
}

Example: paste a BizBuySell search URL

{
  "mode": "byUrls",
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.bizbuysell.com/california-businesses-for-sale/" }
  ],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: daily monitoring of new California laundromats

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "laundromat",
  "state": "CA",
  "maxItems": 50,
  "stateKey": "ca-laundromats",
  "onlyNew": true
}

Run this on a schedule with the same stateKey; each run emits only listing IDs that were not seen before. Drop onlyNew and keep emitUnchanged: false to receive new plus changed listings, or set emitUnchanged: true to receive every match with change flags.

Use cases

• Deal sourcing — build a daily shortlist of businesses for sale by state, county, industry and cash flow.
• Broker outreach — collect broker names and phone numbers for a target market and industry.
• Valuation benchmarking — compare asking prices and SDE multiples across regions and categories.
• Search-fund research — screen acquisition targets by revenue, cash flow and seller financing.
• Market monitoring — track new listings, price reductions and recently updated businesses.
• Franchise and real-estate buyers — find franchise resales and listings where real estate is included.

FAQ

Do I need a BizBuySell account?

No. Every field comes from public listing pages and the public search feed. No login, cookie or API key is needed.

How fresh is the data?

Each run reads the current search results and listing pages, so the dataset reflects what BizBuySell shows at that moment.

How does incremental monitoring work?

Set stateKey to a stable name, for example ca-laundromats, and reuse it on every scheduled run. The actor stores a per-listing field snapshot and observation timestamps in the named Apify key-value store bizbuysell-monitor-state, under the stateKey record, not in the dataset. Each emitted record then carries isNew, changed, changedFields, previousValues, firstSeenAt, lastSeenAt and lastChangedAt.

• onlyNew: true emits only listing IDs that were never seen before.
• With onlyNew: false and emitUnchanged: false (the default when stateKey is set), only new or changed listings are emitted.
• emitUnchanged: true emits every match and still annotates changes.
• Without stateKey, every run is stateless and always emits every matching listing. Use a new stateKey to start a fresh baseline.

The tracked fields are search-level (title, price, cash flow, EBITDA, location, listing type, status and freshness flags), so a temporarily unavailable detail page does not create false price-change alerts. Monitoring timestamps are observation times recorded by the actor, not listing dates published by BizBuySell.

Which date and status fields are available?

BizBuySell's search feed sometimes exposes daysListedAgo and daysModifiedAgo; the actor emits them only when the source provides them. recentlyAdded and recentlyUpdated come from the same feed. Detail-page date-listed or sold/expired status is not reliably exposed by BizBuySell; that part is a hard limit, so the actor does not invent one. For explicit listingIds or listing URLs, an ID that a successful lookup no longer returns is emitted as a tombstone with listingStatus: "inactive", listingStatusSource: "listing-id-lookup" and statusCheckedAt. Tombstones keep the ID, status, provenance and observation timestamps but do not invent a title or price. A failed lookup is not treated as an inactive listing.

How are lease terms normalized?

The raw leaseRateDuration and leaseRatePerSquareFoot text is always preserved. leaseDurationMonths is added only when the raw duration states a year or month unit. leaseRatePerSquareFootNumeric is the amount and leaseRatePerSquareFootPeriod is set only when the source text names the period. A bare number such as 20 is not assumed to be monthly or annual.

Why are some financial fields missing?

Sellers fill in cash flow, revenue, EBITDA, inventory and similar fields voluntarily. If a seller did not disclose a figure, that field is omitted from the record instead of being invented.

Why do some listings have no asking price?

Some sellers hide the price. Those records keep the listing, location, description and broker details but omit the price fields.

What is the difference between cash flow, EBITDA and gross revenue?

Cash flow (SDE) is the seller's discretionary earnings after owner compensation and add-backs. EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Gross revenue is total annual sales before expenses. BizBuySell sellers report them separately and not every listing discloses all three.

How many listings can I get in one run?

BizBuySell returns up to 10,000 results per query. To go deeper, split the market into smaller slices — for example one state, county or category at a time — and combine the runs. maxItems is capped at 10,000 for the same reason. Each search-mode record carries searchTotal when the source reports it, and truncated tells you whether maxItems or the 10,000-result window actually cut that search short.

Does enrichDetails always fill every detail field?

It fills what the public detail page shows. The detail page is sometimes rate-limited by the site, so the actor treats enrichment as best-effort: when a detail page is unavailable, the listing is still saved with its search-result fields and the run continues. Every record states enriched and detailStatus, with detailError when applicable; records skipped after repeated failures are marked detailStatus: "skipped" rather than being reported as enriched.

How does the gross-revenue filter behave when revenue is unknown?

The search feed rarely includes gross revenue, but BizBuySell applies the gross-income range on its own search endpoint. The actor trusts that source-side filter when detail revenue is unavailable. With enrichDetails, a missing detail value is included unless strictFilters: true is set; strict filtering only drops unknowns when detail data was expected. The run status message states which behavior was used, so the filter is never silently claimed to be complete.

Can I search by city or county?

Yes. Enter a city or county name and the actor resolves it against BizBuySell's location list. A state filter is optional but helps disambiguate names that exist in several states.

How does keyword search work?

BizBuySell ranks keyword matches by relevance across the listing, including the full description. It is not an exact substring match, so a result can match a word that appears later in the description rather than in the title.

Can I get broker email addresses?

No. This is a hard limit. BizBuySell's public search API returns broker name, phone and profile URL only, and the public detail page's broker block exposes name, phone and profile link with no email address. The actor does not invent, guess or enrich emails.

Why does imageOriginal sometimes fail to open?

imageOriginal is the source BizBuySell CDN URL, kept for traceability. That CDN can return 403 to a clean client. The image field is the customer-facing URL and is mirrored into Apify storage by default.

Do you scrape franchise and broker directories?

No. The actor covers business-for-sale listings, including franchise resales and real-estate listings. The separate franchise directory and broker directory are out of scope.

Why are some fields only present with enrichDetails?

Fields such as gross revenue, inventory, FF&E, rent, employees, year established, facilities, financing and website come from the individual listing page. The search feed does not carry them for every listing.

Do I need to set up a proxy?

No. Search works with no proxy at all, and the actor chooses a fallback connection for detail pages automatically. proxyConfiguration is an optional override for advanced users only; leaving it empty is the recommended setup.

Is this affiliated with BizBuySell?

No. This is an independent, third-party actor that reads publicly available BizBuySell listing pages. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by BizBuySell or its parent company.