Three ways to run a marketplace
Two of them make you give something up.
- Rent it — A hosted platform. Fast to start. But you pay a percentage of everything you sell, and your stack lives on someone else’s terms. Gives up: margin, stack.
- Build it — Your own engine, from scratch. Full control. But it takes years to get right, and the maintenance never ends. Gives up: years, upkeep.
- Own it — Mercur. The open-source engine, running on your infrastructure. You keep the hard part already built – and you keep the code. Gives up: nothing structural.
We built this because we kept needing it
Mercur comes out of Rigby, a commerce engineering team. On project after project the same choice came up: rent a platform and give away margin and control, or build a marketplace engine from scratch and spend years on plumbing. Neither was a good answer, so we built the third one.
The name you compare Mirakl against
Not a cheaper Mirakl – a different class of product. The incumbents are closed, hosted, and priced on your growth. Mercur is open, self-hosted, and yours.
| Aspect | SaaS marketplace | Mercur |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Vendor-owned, closed | Yours – MIT core, full source for licensees |
| Cost model | A percentage of your GMV | Zero GMV fees |
| Flexibility | Tickets and workarounds | Official extension points, your own layer |
| Compliance | On their terms | Your infrastructure, your residency |
Start on open source. Scale on enterprise.
Three layers: the open-source engine built on Medusa v2, your own customization layer, and Mercur Enterprise for production features.
Built by a team that develops marketplaces for leading brands
Mercur was built by Rigby – people who have spent 5+ years building and launching marketplaces in production.