ROVQIX builds two-sided marketplace platforms — supplier and buyer onboarding, listing and search, matching, split payments and escrow, reviews and trust and safety tooling. The hardest problems are liquidity and trust rather than the software itself.
Marketplace software is well understood. What kills marketplaces is launching both sides at once with no liquidity, and underestimating how much trust and safety tooling is needed.
Both onboarding flows
Escrow and payouts
Built, not deferred
Realistic MVP
Separate, well-designed flows for supply and demand — they have almost nothing in common.
Fast faceted search with ranking logic you control, since discovery determines liquidity.
Marketplace payment infrastructure with escrow, commission, payouts and refund handling.
Verification, reviews, dispute handling and moderation tooling — needed from day one, not later.
In-platform communication so transactions do not leak off-platform and out of your commission.
The tooling your operations team needs to intervene, refund, suspend and investigate.
The cold-start problem, disintermediation, and trust — none of which are solved by writing more code.
| Problem | What it means | Common response |
|---|---|---|
| Cold start | Neither side joins without the other | Seed one side manually first |
| Disintermediation | Users transact off-platform | Make on-platform genuinely better |
| Trust | Strangers transacting money | Verification, escrow, reviews |
| Quality control | Bad suppliers poison the pool | Curation and moderation tooling |
| Unit economics | Commission must cover acquisition | Model before building |
Handling marketplace money yourself means money transmitter considerations, KYC obligations and reconciliation complexity. Almost no early-stage marketplace should take that on.
That is realistically $25,000 to $60,000 and 12 to 20 weeks. Marketplaces are more expensive than single-sided products because you are effectively building two applications plus a payments layer.
A realistic MVP is $25,000 to $60,000 over 12 to 20 weeks. It costs more than a single-sided product because you are building two applications plus a payments and trust layer.
No. Use Stripe Connect or an equivalent marketplace payments provider. Handling funds yourself introduces regulatory obligations that are entirely disproportionate for an early-stage platform.
Make on-platform genuinely better — escrow protection, dispute resolution, reviews, scheduling. Enforcement alone does not work; users leave when the platform adds no value beyond introduction.
Usually you should. Manually recruit and service supply, sell to demand by hand, and build the platform once you know the transaction actually works. It is slower to look impressive and much faster to reach liquidity.
Indicative ranges in USD. Every engagement is quoted to a written scope before work starts, so the number you approve is the number you pay.
$4,000 – $8,000
2–4 weeks
Best for: Modelling economics and testing the concept
$25,000 – $60,000
12–20 weeks
Best for: Launching a real transacting platform
from $4,000 / month
Ongoing
Best for: Iterating toward liquidity
How we think about this work, in more depth.
Marketplaces
A 30-minute call, then a written proposal with scope, price and timeline within two to three working days. No retainer required to get a real number, and no obligation if the answer is that we are not the right fit.