Marketplace, directory or your own channel

Rent a buyer, rent a listing, or own the channel?

What each way of finding export buyers costs, what it returns, who owns the buyer afterwards, and when the rented option is still right. Then run your own numbers.

Run the numbers Get a free demand report

Platform prices are third-party reports. Our fees are the ones on our pages.

Three ways to be found

Same goal, three very different deals

Marketplace

Rent access to buyers

Alibaba.com, Made-in-China, Global Sources

A storefront inside a platform that already has buyer traffic, ranked by tier and ad spend.

You pay: Membership plus clicks
Buyer sees: You beside every competitor
Buyer belongs to: The platform

Rent a place on a list

Thomasnet, Europages, Kompass, DirectIndustry

A profile in an industrial index that engineers search by category. Placement depends on the programme you buy.

You pay: Programme plus clicks
Buyer sees: One row among dozens
Buyer belongs to: The directory

Own channel

Own the way buyers find you

Website, search, ads, AI visibility, sales desk

Buyers find you when they search for what you make, or when an AI names you. Inquiries land in your inbox.

You pay: Agency or staff, plus ads
Buyer sees: Your company, alone
Buyer belongs to: You

Side by side

What you get, and what it takes

	Marketplace	Directory	Own channel
Up-front cost	Annual membership, paid first	Annual programme, paid first	None: 66-day free trial, then monthly
Ongoing cost	Renewal plus clicks that rise with competition	Renewal plus per-interaction charges	One fixed fee, month to month, ads you control
First inquiry	Days to weeks	Weeks	Weeks from ads, months from rankings
Who inquires	Anyone in the category, price shoppers included	Engineers browsing a category	Buyers who searched for your product
How they see you	One tile among many	One row among many	Alone, with your proof
Buyer data	The platform's	Shared	Yours
If you stop	Nothing remains	Nothing remains	Rankings, content, accounts, data stay
Best for	Commodities, first year, testing demand	Niche categories engineers still index	Products with an edge, sold for years

What the fees look like

No platform publishes a simple price

Reported ranges, not quotes. All of them now add pay-per-click or per-interaction charges on top.

MARKETPLACE

Alibaba.com, Made-in-China

$1,500 to $11,000+

per year, reported, before ads

Entry plans from about $1,500; Gold and premium tiers $4,000 to $11,000
Clicks sold on top; one supplier's cost per click reportedly rose from $0.85 to $2.10 in a year
"Gold Supplier" is a paid mark, not an audit

Thomasnet, Europages, Kompass

$5,000 to $30,000+

per year, reported, by categories

Niche programmes $5,000 to $7,000; multi-category $15,000 to $30,000
Performance listings charge per buyer interaction
European directories don't publish tiers

OWN CHANNEL, WITH DIGIERA

One fixed monthly fee

$4,000 to $12,000

per month, published, after a 66-day free trial

No setup fee, no commissions, month to month
Ad budgets paid by you, in your own accounts, no mark-up
Everything built stays yours, trial or not

Per month, an own channel costs more than a listing. The question is what a dollar buys in each column, and what is left on your side after a year.

What suppliers complain about

Four costs the price list doesn't show

Shared, mixed leads

An inquiry goes to you and every supplier the buyer ticked. Many are price checks, resellers or vendors. Forum reports range from "paid for itself for years" to "zero valid leads".

Pay-to-play that keeps rising

Membership is the ticket. Visibility is sold by click, priced by how many competitors are bidding in your category.

The buyer belongs to the platform

Messages, quotes and contacts live in its system, next to your competitors. Stop paying and the history goes dark.

Badges signal payment, not trust

Experienced buyers know a paid tier from an audit. Certifications and specifications on your own site carry more weight.

Run your own numbers

Cost per customer, side by side

Every assumption is editable. The own-channel defaults use the low end of our fee range and fewer inquiries than either of our published B2B case studies reported.

digieraBreakeven calculator · digiera.co

Breakeven calculator

Change any assumption and the results table updates. The same close rate is used in every column.

Assumptions · what you pay and what comes back

Costs per year or per month, inquiries per month. Defaults reflect typical spend and inquiry quality on each platform.

Marketplace

Results · per channel, best value highlighted

Lower is better for costs and breakeven, higher for customers and profit.

Marketplace

When a marketplace is still the right choice

We sell own channels. We also optimise marketplace listings, and both can be true at once.

Keep the listing when

Your product is a commodity. Buyers compare on price; be where they compare.
It's your first year exporting. The cheapest way to learn who asks, and how.
Nobody can answer inquiries yet. A queue beats an unanswered inbox.
The inquiries are still good. If it earns its fee, it stays.

Build your own channel when

A tile can't show your edge. Engineering depth, tolerances, custom work.
Clicks rise faster than orders. You are funding the platform's growth.
You lost a buyer to the next tile. That is the platform working as designed.
You plan to export in five years. Rankings compound; listings reset at renewal.

What an own channel produced

From our published case studies

38+qualified RFQs a month, CNC machine maker with a new name

50+qualified OEM enquiries a month, kitchen-knife manufacturer

+127%export revenue in 18 months, same knife manufacturer

22+countries reached, 14 new distributors, CNC maker

Channels the clients own. The CNC programme also lifted marketplace enquiries 172 percent. Read the CNC and kitchen-knife case studies.

A practical sequence

You don't have to choose on day one

MONTH 0

Measure first

A free demand report shows whether buyers are searching for what you make.

MONTHS 1 TO 3

Build while the listing runs

Website, search foundations, sales desk. With Digiera, that is the free trial.

MONTHS 3 TO 12

Compare cost per customer

Both channels in one dashboard. Re-run the calculator each quarter with real figures.

MONTH 12

Let the numbers decide

Keep the listing if it still pays. If not, the renewal is the moment to stop.

Questions

Common questions

Should we leave Alibaba or Thomasnet?

Not on day one. Keep the listing while it pays for itself and build the channel you keep when it stops. Our CNC client grew marketplace enquiries 172 percent while we built its own channel.

What does a marketplace or directory cost?

Neither publishes a simple price. Reported ranges: Alibaba from about $1,500 to over $11,000 a year, Thomasnet from $5,000 to over $30,000 a year, plus pay-per-click or per-interaction charges on top.

What does an own channel cost with Digiera?

One fixed monthly fee of $4,000 to $12,000 after a 66-day free trial. No setup fee, no commissions, month to month. Ad budgets go to Google and LinkedIn from accounts in your name.

Isn't a marketplace cheaper per lead?

Often, in the first months. Count what a lead is worth: marketplace inquiries are shared with every listed supplier; inquiries from your own channel come from buyers who found you. Run the calculator with your numbers.

Platform figures are reported ranges from seller pages, reviews and supplier forums, 2024 to 2026, and vary by country and category. Digiera's fees and case-study figures are as published on this site.

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