The main websites for selling land are the Land.com network (Land.com, LandWatch and Land And Farm), LandSearch, LandFlip, Zillow, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and your local MLS through a flat-fee listing service. Several are free. The paid ones run from about $5 to $50 a month for a single owner listing where the price is published, and none of the land sites takes a commission when you sell.
No single site reaches every buyer. Most owners who sell on their own use two or three at once: one land-specific site, one free general site, and sometimes the MLS. This guide covers what each one costs, who it reaches, and what your listing needs before any of them will work.
Prices below are what each site showed on its own pricing page in September 2026. They change, so check before you pay.
The sites compared
| Site | Cost to an owner | Audience | Best for | Drawbacks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Land.com network | Paid; prices not published | People specifically shopping for rural land | Acreage, farms, ranches, recreational land | You have to contact them or start a listing to see the price |
| LandSearch | First basic listing free; $29/month to promote one | Land buyers | A free land-specific listing | Free listings rank below promoted ones |
| LandFlip | $50/month owner plan | Land buyers across six linked sites | Lots, farms, ranches | Entry plan has limited search exposure |
| Zillow | Free | General home and lot buyers | Residential lots near towns | Extra ownership check for vacant land |
| Facebook Marketplace | Free | Local people | Cheap lots, neighbours, local buyers | Many unserious messages; no land category |
| Craigslist | $0 to $5 per post | Local people | Low-cost local exposure | Scam replies; posts expire |
| Land Century | From $5/month | Buyers of cheap and owner-financed lots | Low-priced parcels | Smaller, narrower audience |
| Flat-fee MLS | Usually $100 to $500 one time | Agents and their buyers | Buildable lots where agents are active | A buyer's agent may expect to be paid |
The land-specific sites
Land.com network
This is three sites run as one network: Land.com, LandWatch and Land And Farm. All three are owned by CoStar Group, which also owns LoopNet. Land.com is the former Lands of America, which was renamed in 2022, so if someone tells you to list on Lands of America, this is where that went.
One listing appears on all three sites. There are three plan levels, Standard, Premium and Signature, and the difference is where you sort in search results. The network's listing-plans page does not publish prices and tells you to contact a representative, so we are not going to quote one. Third-party figures floating around online disagree with each other. Get the price from the site.
LandSearch
LandSearch lets an owner post one basic listing free, and says it verifies ownership first. A single promoted listing is $29 a month, and a plan with five promoted listings is $59 a month. Basic listings still show up in search, just without the boosted placement. In Colorado, Tennessee and Washington, LandSearch is also a licensed brokerage and offers MLS exposure for a fee.
LandFlip
LandFlip is a separate, independent network and is not part of Land.com. One listing runs across LandFlip, FarmFlip, RanchFlip, LotFlip, AuctionFlip and CommercialFlip. The owner plan is the Entry plan at $50 a month for one listing with up to 10 photos. LandFlip itself describes that plan's search exposure as limited. The next plan up is $100 a month. Plans renew monthly with no contract and no commission.
Land Century
Land Century leans toward inexpensive lots and owner-financed deals. Its pricing page lists a single listing at $5 a month, with larger plans at $50 and $100 a month. It is a smaller marketplace than the ones above, which matters less if your parcel is exactly the cheap, owner-financed kind its visitors come looking for.
The general sites
Zillow
Listing for sale by owner on Zillow is free, and that includes vacant land. Because land is a target for fraud, Zillow adds a step: after you submit a land listing you have to send proof of ownership for review before it goes live, and its help page says public-record documents pulled from a county website are not accepted as that proof. Allow extra time.
Zillow's audience is mostly people looking for houses. That is useful for a buildable lot in or near a town and less useful for 40 acres an hour from one.
Facebook Marketplace
Free, fast, and local. There is no dedicated category for land, so sellers post under the home-for-sale option or as a general item, and also in local and land-focused Facebook groups. It works best for lower-priced lots, and it is one of the few places the neighbour who has always wanted your parcel might see it.
Expect a lot of 'is this available?' messages that go nowhere.
Craigslist
Craigslist lists for-sale-by-owner posts at $0 to $5 depending on the area, and shows the fee before you pay. The audience is local and the listing tools are basic. It costs almost nothing to add, but expect scam replies and screen them carefully.
The MLS, through a flat-fee service
The MLS is the database agents use, and it feeds many of the big home portals. You cannot post to it yourself. A flat-fee listing broker will enter your parcel for a one-time fee, usually somewhere between $100 and $500 depending on the state, the package and how many months you buy. You handle the calls and negotiation.
Two things to know. First, since August 2024, offers to pay a buyer's agent can no longer be published in the MLS, but an agent who brings a buyer may still ask you to pay their fee, and that is negotiated per deal. Second, the MLS helps most where agents actually work with lot buyers. For remote acreage, the land sites usually matter more.
If you would rather hand the whole thing to someone, that is a different decision. See our guide to choosing a real estate agent for selling land.
What a listing needs to actually sell
The site matters less than what you put on it. Land listings fail mostly because they leave out the facts a buyer needs to say yes.
- Parcel number (APN) and county. This lets a serious buyer look the parcel up in minutes.
- Exact location. GPS coordinates or a map pin, plus plain driving directions.
- Access. Paved, gravel or dirt, and whether it is legal recorded access or not. Say so honestly.
- Utilities. Power, water, sewer or septic, and how far away each one is.
- Zoning and what can be built.
- Perc status. Tested and passed, tested and failed, or never tested.
- Survey. If you have one, say so and offer it. If the corners are marked, show them.
- Photos taken on the ground, in daylight, including the road in and the view from the middle of the parcel.
- Aerial or drone images with the boundary drawn on. For land, this is often the single most useful picture.
- Taxes, HOA or road dues, and any liens.
- A price supported by recent sales. Overpricing is the most common reason a land listing sits. Start with what your land is actually worth.
For the full step-by-step, from pricing to closing at a title company, see how to sell vacant land by owner and our page on selling land by owner.
Scams you will meet online
List land anywhere public and some of the replies will not be real buyers.
Overpayment checks. Someone offers to send a check for more than the price and asks you to send back the difference. The Federal Trade Commission's advice is blunt: never deposit a check for more than the selling price and never wire money back. A check showing in your balance does not mean it was good, and banks can take weeks to discover a fake.
Buyers who will not use a title company. Sight-unseen offers, pressure to sign a deed before money arrives, requests for your bank login or a 'verification code'. Close through a title company or attorney, and let them handle the funds.
Upfront fees. Anyone who needs you to pay for an appraisal, a 'buyer list' or a listing upgrade before they will buy is selling you something else.
The reverse: someone pretending to be you. This one is aimed at owners of vacant land, and it is the reason the listing sites now check ownership. Criminals use fake IDs to pose as the owner of a vacant parcel and sell it without the owner knowing. The FBI issued a public warning about it in June 2026. In a 2025 National Association of REALTORS survey, 62% of reported deed fraud involved vacant land.
Two practical points follow. Do not be offended when a site, agent or title company asks you to prove you own the land. And if your county recorder offers a free alert when a document is filed under your name, sign up, whether or not you are selling.
Cash buyers get the same scrutiny, and should. Here is how to tell a legitimate cash land buyer from a scam.
How long it realistically takes
Selling by owner usually takes 2 to 12 months from listing to closing. A fairly priced buildable lot near a growing area can go under contract in a few weeks. Remote parcels with thin demand can take more than a year, and some never get a serious inquiry at the asking price.
If you have had no real inquiries after 60 to 90 days, the problem is almost always price or missing information, not the choice of website.
If you do not want to run a listing
Running a listing is real work: photos, a survey hunt, weeks of messages, screening strangers, and then a closing to organise. Some owners enjoy it. Many live several states away from a parcel they inherited and just want it finished.
The alternative is to sell your land online directly to a buyer. We buy land for cash, make an offer within 24 hours, pay the closing costs and charge no fees or commissions. The trade is simple and you should know it going in: a direct offer will be below what a patient retail listing might bring. You can get a cash offer for free, with no obligation, and compare it against listing.
The bottom line
For most owners the sensible setup is one land-specific site plus one or two free ones: LandSearch's free listing or a paid spot on the Land.com network or LandFlip, alongside Zillow and Facebook Marketplace. Add a flat-fee MLS listing if the parcel is a buildable lot where agents are active.
Then spend your effort on the listing itself. A complete, honestly described, fairly priced parcel will sell on almost any of these sites. A vague, overpriced one will not sell on all of them combined. And if the whole exercise sounds like more than you want to take on, a cash offer costs nothing to get.