Custom-building made smarter
Build a marketplace that is uniquely yours. Thanks to its advanced, headless approach, Sharetribe Flex powers your business at a fraction of the cost of a custom-build. On any scale.
Start developing for freeYour unique design and workflow
With Flex, you have full control over your marketplace's user experience. Design and develop a completely unique frontend in web or mobile. Build custom features and integrations on top of powerful APIs. Connect to Zapier to integrate with thousands of other apps to automate tasks without coding or relying on developers.
"Flex lets us implement all our unique features and customizations."
Isabella Johnson, Co-founder of From The People
90% of what you need is already there
Flex gives you a powerful back-end with all the features you need for an advanced service, rental, events or product marketplace. Easily take them into use with Flex's customizable web templates and save months of development time.
"Flex helped me build the world's largest marketplace for music studios."
Mike Williams, founder of Studiotime
Scalable infrastructure
Sharetribe maintains your Flex-powered back-end for you. You will never need to employ a sysadmin or worry about traffic spikes, performance, data security, or compliance. You can focus on building your marketplace business.
"Now, we can continue to grow our business with Flex."
Raphaëlle de Monteynard, founder of Swimmy
Get a flying start with beautiful Flex templates
Even though Flex lets you build and design a unique frontend from scratch, you can dramatically reduce your time to market by starting from one of the beautiful open-source templates build for Flex.
NEW!Sneakertime is a product marketplace template using stock management
Yogatime is a service marketplace template with time-based bookings
Saunatime is a rental marketplace template with day-based bookings
The features you need to succeed
Flex packs a comprehensive set of functionality that keeps improving.
› Read more about features
› See what's next
› Recent releases
Beautiful web templates
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Flex lets you build and design a unique frontend from scratch. But you don't have to. Flex's open-source templates for web implement a fully functional Flex marketplace, built on top of the Marketplace API. Download, customize, launch!
Powerful Admin Console
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Flex Console is a powerful tool for managing your marketplace. See what your users are doing, moderate the content they create, and manage transactions and conversations between them.
Advanced availability & stock management
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Your sellers get advanced tools to control when their listings are available. Your customers can filter search results based on availability. Support for day-based, time-based and stock-based availability, as well as multi-seat bookings.
Content that you control
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Let your users create complete profiles and engaging listings on your terms. Decide how they message each other during the transaction process. Keep track of reviews and send automatic email notifications and reminders.
Flexible transaction engine
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Add-ons, seasonal or dynamic pricing, complex negotiation flows, delayed payments or invoicing, custom cancellation policies. Create a completely customized pricing and booking flow with Flex's transaction process editor.
Customizable data storage and search engine
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Collect any type of data about your users, listings, and transactions. Manage who is able to access the data. Create customized search experiences and filter the search freely by the collected data.
Developers first
With Flex, developing a unique marketplace is faster and more enjoyable than ever before.
Powerful, well-documented API
Customizable React front-end templates
Support from Sharetribe's engineers
Environments for development & production
Active developer community
Developer tooling (SDK, CLI, etc.)
Sketch & Figma design templates
Documentation with guides & code examples
Not a developer? No worries!
Find an experienced Flex developer from the Flex Expert Directory.
Pricing that works for all scales
Your Flex marketplace is free to develop. Monthly fees apply only once you're ready to invite your first real users in. Flex's monthly fee consists of a subscription fee and a transaction fee that is based on your monthly transaction volume.
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- About the Sharetribe Flex pricing
- Sharetribe provides hosting for your marketplace's back-end, but you will need to host your own front-end (usually around $15–$50 per month).
- Working with Flex always requires some development work. If you're not a developer, the minimum budget for hiring one to develop a marketplace with Flex is typically around $5K.
- If you handle transactions through the Stripe integration (Connect with Custom accounts), Stripe will charge you some payment gateway fees. Learn more about Stripe fees.
- We offer a special 25% discount to registered non-profits and steward-owned companies on all plans. Contact us for more information.
- Currency is USD (U.S. Dollar). Prices do not include VAT. If you are an individual in the EU or a company in Finland, the VAT of your country will be added to the price. In other cases, paying VAT is not necessary.
Fees for transaction volume:
Frequently Asked Questions
Will you be there to help?
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Absolutely! The support team will answer all your questions within 24 hours, often way faster. For technical questions, you will get a reply directly from the developers who built Flex from the ground up.
I’m not a developer. Can I still use Flex?
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Some development work is always needed to build a marketplace with Flex. If you're not a developer yourself, we’ll be happy to help you find a qualified Flex developer to partner with. Start by clicking "Start developing for free", and we’ll help you forward from there.
How much does it cost to build a marketplace with Flex?
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If you're not a developer, you need to pay someone to do development work to build a marketplace with Flex. Sharetribe Flex experts estimate that $3k is the minimum budget required to hire a developer to build a platform with Flex, and $5k–$10k is a more common budget. The final budget depends heavily on your exact requirements.
When do I start paying for Flex?
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Developing with Flex in test environment is free. At the time when you're ready to start inviting users in and process payments with real money, you will need a production environment for the real user data (test environment is only for test data). Flex fees apply starting from the day when your Flex production environment is initiated.
Are there any additional costs besides the Flex subscription fee and the cost of development that I should be aware of?
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You will need to pay for the hosting of the custom code your developers have written. You can use any hosting service, but we recommend a service called Heroku. Their $25/month plan is enough for most platforms. The Flex documentation has instructions for setting up hosting with Heroku.
In addition, if you have lots of traffic and use a map in your marketplace, your map provider (Google Maps or Mapbox) might charge you for it. Their pricing depends on your traffic volume. If you handle transactions on your marketplace through the Stripe integration (Connect with Custom accounts) Stripe will also charge you some fees per transaction. The exact cost depends on the volume & amount.
What programming language should I use to build my Flex marketplace?
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You can use the programming language of your choice to work with the Flex API. If you use Flex Template for Web to create your marketplace site, you need to be familiar with its technology stack. You can find a comprehensive guide to working with Flex Template for Web in the Flex documentation.
What happens if I want to leave?
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You own your data. If you wish to leave Flex, we will provide you with a full export of all your data. The custom code and design you've built are also yours to keep. However, remember that if you want to keep your marketplace operational after leaving Flex, you need to replace Flex APIs and Admin Console with ones you've built yourself.
Can I get a refund of my subscription payment?
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You can cancel your subscription at any point before the next renewal date. If you cancel after the renewal date, your subscription will remain active until the next renewal date. Sharetribe does not provide refunds by default. However, we understand that life happens and some extraordinary circumstances may warrant a refund. If you feel your case deserves re-assessment, please contact us. We will be happy to review and discuss your case.
Is Sharetribe suitable for enterprise businesses?
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Absolutely. We are already serving several large international corporations and even some Fortune 500 companies. You can read more about our enterprise offering here.
Have more questions? Get in touch
Looking for an enterprise solution?
We are already serving several large international corporations and even some Fortune 500 companies.
Start building your unique marketplace
- Fully customizable front-end
- Easily extendable feature set
- Infinitely scalable architecture