Duuce

Overview

Duuce is a specialized online marketplace designed for buying and selling newsletters and digital content businesses. Originally launched in September 2020 as a side project by Jonas, a Meta employee, the platform was built on Bubble as a no-code marketplace and sold 18 months later for a five-figure sum to the owner of the French market leader in buying and selling websites. The platform now operates as the first dedicated marketplace for newsletter acquisitions, manually verifying, auditing, and filtering newsletters before listing them to ensure buyers have access to quality and legitimate opportunities.

What differentiates Duuce from general business-for-sale marketplaces like Flippa or Empire Flippers is its exclusive focus on newsletters and email-based content businesses. The platform understands the unique metrics that matter for newsletter valuations, including list size, open rates, click-through rates, revenue models, and engagement levels. Duuce provides a free newsletter valuation tool based on real-world acquisition data from actual transactions, giving creators a realistic understanding of what their publication might be worth in the current market. For newsletter creators considering an exit strategy or acquisition opportunity, Duuce provides a specialized marketplace where both parties understand the newsletter business model, eliminating the need to educate potential buyers about industry-specific metrics or explain the value proposition of engaged subscribers.

Best For

Duuce is ideal for newsletter creators who want to sell their publication and exit the business, as well as entrepreneurs and investors looking to acquire established newsletters as a business opportunity. The platform works particularly well for creators who have built subscriber bases ranging from 1,000 to over 100,000 readers but no longer want to continue operating the publication, whether due to time constraints, burnout, or desire to pursue other projects. Buyers on the platform include entrepreneurs seeking turnkey content businesses, investors looking for high-margin digital assets, and established media companies wanting to expand their newsletter portfolio. The marketplace spans diverse niches including finance, health, travel, local news, business, politics, and creator economy topics, making it suitable for sellers and buyers across virtually any newsletter category.

Key Features

• Manual Verification and Auditing: Duuce manually verifies, audits, and filters every newsletter before listing it on the marketplace, ensuring buyers have access to legitimate opportunities with verified metrics. This thorough vetting process protects buyers from fraudulent listings, inflated subscriber counts, or misrepresented engagement data that plague less specialized marketplaces, building trust in the transaction process.

• Free Newsletter Valuation Tool: The platform offers a free valuation tool based on proprietary knowledge from real acquisition data, market demand patterns, and relationships with entrepreneurs, brokers, and mergers and acquisitions experts. This valuation service helps newsletter creators understand what their publication might realistically sell for before listing, setting appropriate pricing expectations and avoiding the common mistake of overvaluing or undervaluing their asset.

• Diverse Newsletter Categories: Duuce hosts newsletters across a wide range of niches including finance, health, local events, travel, business, creators, politics, and marketing, catering to various buyer interests and investment strategies. This category diversity ensures sellers can find relevant buyers who understand their specific niche and appreciate the value of their audience, rather than pitching to generalist investors unfamiliar with their market.

• Transparent Listing Information: Each newsletter listing displays critical information including niche category, subscriber list size, asking price, revenue status, engagement metrics like open rates and click-through rates when available, and the date posted. This transparency allows buyers to quickly evaluate opportunities and compare newsletters based on objective metrics, streamlining the discovery and due diligence process.

• Guided Transaction Process: Duuce guides both buyers and sellers through a smooth and secure purchasing process, acting as a broker that facilitates transactions rather than leaving parties to navigate complex negotiations alone. The platform assists with contract templates, escrow services for secure payment handling, and migration support to transfer subscriber lists and assets from seller to buyer, reducing the friction and risk typically involved in private business sales.

• Standard Brokerage Commission: The platform operates on a 10 percent commission on the seller side, which is standard in business brokerage and only charged when transactions successfully close through the platform. This success-based fee structure aligns Duuce's incentives with sellers, as the company only earns revenue when newsletters actually sell, encouraging them to facilitate quality matches and successful transactions.

• Code of Ethics and Anti-Circumvention Policy: Duuce maintains a strict code of ethics requiring all transactions to be conducted through the platform, with policies against finding newsletters on Duuce and then contacting owners through other channels to avoid commission fees. This policy protects the platform's business model and ensures both parties benefit from Duuce's vetting, contract support, escrow services, and migration assistance rather than attempting risky private deals.

• Buyer and Seller Support Services: For buyers, Duuce provides vetted assets, valuations, contract assistance, escrow services, and migration help to streamline the acquisition process. For sellers, the platform provides qualified buyer leads, negotiation assistance, contract templates, free escrow services, and migration support, handling the complex logistics that might otherwise require hiring expensive brokers or attorneys.

• Community Building Through Newsletter: Duuce operates its own newsletter called News'letter Market on Substack, providing insights about the newsletter acquisition space, market trends, and opportunities for both buyers and sellers. This content builds authority in the space and keeps the community informed about developments in newsletter business transactions and valuations.

Pricing

Duuce is free to list newsletters for sale, with no upfront fees for sellers to create listings or browse available newsletters as buyers. The platform operates on a success-based commission model, taking 10 percent of the final sale price from sellers when transactions successfully close through the marketplace. This commission covers Duuce's services including manual verification and auditing of the newsletter before listing, buyer lead generation, negotiation assistance, contract templates, free escrow services for secure payment handling, and migration support to transfer the newsletter from seller to buyer. Buyers do not pay any fees to Duuce, though they negotiate the purchase price directly with sellers based on asking prices that typically range from a few thousand dollars for small newsletters to six figures for large, established publications with proven revenue. The valuation tool is completely free for anyone to use regardless of whether they list their newsletter for sale, providing market intelligence about newsletter valuations without requiring commitment to the platform.