A marketplace connects two sides, such as renters and lenders or clinics and designers, and handles listings, bookings, payments and payouts between them. We have built Cad Cam Masters, Cinekit, Cercle and Truck-4.
Reviewed by Azmat Rana, CEO & Founder · Updated
Most marketplaces struggle with trust and payments, not features. Both sides need to feel safe before the first transaction.
Core capability
Listing tools for sellers and filtered search for buyers. Cinekit lets creators search camera gear by location and category.
Calendars and date ranges that stay correct when many people book at once, as on Cinekit’s gear rentals.
Stripe for checkout, security deposits and payouts to sellers. Cinekit holds deposits on expensive gear, and Cad Cam Masters pays designers through the platform.
Profiles, reviews and checks that make strangers comfortable trading. CashKart only lets verified agents buy devices from sellers.
Clear flows for when things go wrong. Cercle refunds into store credit, so the money stays on the platform.
Project story · Cad Cam Masters
Cad Cam Masters connects dental practices, clinics and labs with freelance dental CAD designers. Labs post jobs, designers bid, and the work and payments run through the platform. We built it over 18 months.
Dental CAD files are large, and uploading them during checkout stalled the servers for everyone else. Labs also needed a way to follow each design through its milestones.
Labs now work directly with remote CAD designers, which reduced clinic overhead and sped up prosthesis fabrication. That is the job of any marketplace: make the deal between both sides easier than any other way of doing it.
See Cad Cam Masters in our projectsA marketplace launches in one niche first and grows from there.
Discover
We agree which buyers and sellers to start with, what they trade and how money moves between them.
Design
Seller onboarding, listings, search, booking and checkout, designed so the first transaction is easy for both sides.
Build
Payments, payouts, notifications and admin tools, tested against real cases like cancellations and disputes.
Launch
We launch to a small group, watch where people drop off and improve those steps first.
The stack behind the marketplaces we have shipped.
Rails
React
Next.js
Stripe
PostgreSQL
Mysql
ElasticsearchThese choices shape the data model and the payments set-up, so they are easier to make early.
Commission, subscription, listing fees or deposits. Stripe Connect handles most of these, but the model has to be chosen first.
Cancellations, damage, refunds and disputes need rules before launch. Cercle refunds into store credit.
Most marketplaces recruit sellers first, so buyers find something to buy on day one.
Verification, reviews and deposits. CashKart verifies every buying agent before they can trade.
Photos, video or CAD files need their own upload pipeline, as on Cad Cam Masters, or they slow the site for everyone.
Many marketplaces start on the web and add apps once the model works. Truck-4 and Cinekit run as web platforms.
Marketplaces from our portfolio.
Projects like this one usually involve these as well.
Further reading: Marketplace payments with Stripe: deposits, payouts and refunds
Hire full-time developers in the stacks we use for this work.
What founders ask before they build a two-sided platform.
Listings and search, bookings or orders, payments and payouts, trust features like verification and reviews, and the admin tools you need to run it.
We usually use Stripe Connect, which takes the buyer’s payment, holds deposits where needed and pays sellers their share. It also runs the identity checks sellers need before they can be paid.
Yes. Cinekit rents camera gear with security deposits, and Cercle rents designer fashion with returns, cleaning and store credit.
Yes. Cad Cam Masters matches dental labs with CAD designers, and Truck-4 lets businesses find, lease or buy trucks and trailers.
It has to be built for that from the start. Cinekit grew to more than 100,000 users, and Truck-4 runs on microservices with more than 2 million shipper records.
You do. Everything we build for you, including the source code and the intellectual property in it, belongs to you.
Tell us who is buying, who is selling and how money should move, and we will map out the first version.