When a SaaS shuts down, the hosting bills stop and the customers move on, but the source code stays. It is usually the most complete artifact the company produced: years of commits, a test suite, an admin panel, billing logic, integrations and the tickets that explain why each piece exists. That record is valuable for AI training and R&D even though the product is off. Odys AI Labs, the research and development arm of Odys, buys this kind of code for cash.
What your code is likely still worth
A SaaS codebase tends to score well on the factors that matter: it is usually large, almost all of it was written by your own team, and it covers many kinds of work in one place (authentication, multi-tenant data models, background jobs, payments, email, an API, a front end). It also comes with history. Pull requests and reviews show how real engineers changed real software under real constraints, which is the part public tutorials cannot teach. Our guide on why git history makes old code worth more explains this in detail.
Marketplaces will not price it this way. They value running businesses on revenue or profit, and Acquire.com generally lists only startups that make money. That is fair for what they do: a profitable SaaS belongs with them, not with us. A shut-down SaaS with no revenue usually does not fit there, and our page on selling code only versus the whole business shows where the line sits.
We do not publish price figures. A concrete cash offer typically follows a review of size, originality, languages, quality, history, docs and tests; your old subscription numbers are not on that list, so a SaaS that never reached profit is not marked down for it. How we value a codebase is explained on the call.
What a buyer will check
- Completeness. Front end, back end, workers, infrastructure code and the admin tools, not one service out of six.
- Original share. How much your team wrote versus vendored dependencies and generated code (ORM migrations, API clients, minified bundles).
- History. Whether the repository still has its full git history, branches and pull requests, or only a zip of the last version.
- Rights. Whether the company owns everything, including code from contractors. This is the most common gap; see who owns the code.
- Sensitive data. Whether customer data ever landed in the repo.
For a quick self-assessment before you talk to anyone, the free code value check asks the same questions and stores nothing.
Three risks specific to this situation
1. Customer data hiding in the repo. SaaS teams often commit things they should not: a production dump used to reproduce a bug, CSV imports from a large customer, seed files built from real accounts, logs with email addresses, webhook payloads saved as test fixtures with real customer names and payment customer IDs. Under GDPR, personal data covers anything that can identify a person, including an email or user ID. Search for .sql, .csv and .dump files, fixtures folders and log files across the whole history. We never take customer data, and it is removed before transfer. This is not legal advice; if your customers were in the EU or UK, a privacy lawyer can confirm your remaining obligations.
2. Live keys in infrastructure code. A SaaS is wired to payment processors, email providers, cloud accounts and webhooks. Those keys end up in .env files, CI configuration, Terraform state files and Kubernetes manifests. GitGuardian found that private company repos are about six times more likely than public ones to hold hardcoded secrets. Even with the company closed, a payment or cloud key can still work. Revoke or rotate first, then clean history; our guide to removing secrets from old code walks through it.
3. Losing the code when you close accounts. In a shutdown, people cancel subscriptions fast to stop costs. Downgrading a paid GitHub or GitLab organization, deleting a cloud project, or letting a founder’s account lapse can take repositories, CI history and issue trackers with it. Keep the git host and its issues alive until you have decided what to do with the code.
What to do this month
- Stop any deletion. Keep the git organization, issue tracker and design files online.
- List every repository, including infrastructure, mobile clients and internal tools, and note which ones hold full history.
- Rotate or revoke every key that was ever committed: payment, email, cloud, analytics.
- Export tickets from Jira, Linear or GitHub Issues, and the Figma files if you have them.
- Confirm who can sign for the company and whether contractor agreements include an IP assignment.
- Run cloc or tokei to get a rough size by language, excluding vendored folders.
Your options
| Option | What it means for a shut-down SaaS |
|---|---|
| Sell | Cash for the code, history and docs; customer data stays with you and is removed first |
| Open source | Public goodwill, but once public it cannot be sold exclusively, and every committed secret becomes public too |
| Archive | Read-only on GitHub at low cost; value stays, but nobody uses it |
| Relaunch | Only if you have a new plan for distribution; the original reasons for shutdown usually still apply |
| Delete | Permanent; removes risk but also every future option |
Selling and open-sourcing do not mix well, because the buyer pays for code that is not public. Our guide to selling, archiving, open-sourcing or deleting compares them in full. If the SaaS also had a marketing site that still gets search traffic, TheBlueOceanWebsites.com buys websites of former businesses, separately from the code.
The process is simple and safe by design. You send a few details through a short form with no code, we talk, and we make an offer. No code changes hands before a signed written agreement, we never ask you to install or run anything, and payment is made on transfer. If anyone else asks you to run a script on a machine that holds your code or credentials, decline: a fair buyer does not need your code before a contract.
What to do next
- Freeze deletions and rotate every key that was ever committed.
- Make a one-page list of repos, languages, years of history and who wrote what.
- Send us a few details for a free code valuation, with no code and no obligation.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell the code of a SaaS that no longer has any customers?
Yes, that is the usual case for us. Odys AI Labs buys the source code of software that is shut down and makes no money today, as long as your team wrote it, it is a complete product and you own the rights or can sign for the company that does. A SaaS that still earns revenue belongs on a marketplace or with a broker instead.
Do I have to hand over the customer database?
No. We never take databases, user records, customer data or chat logs. What is sold is the source code, its git history, docs, tests, ticket exports and design files. Before transfer, secrets, keys and personal data are removed from the repositories, including any seed files, fixtures or database dumps that were committed by mistake, and we help with that step.
My cloud account is closed. Is the code gone?
Not necessarily. Closing a cloud account usually deletes servers, container images and stored secrets, but the source code normally lives in your git host and on developer laptops. Check GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket first, including the organization account, then ask former engineers whether they kept a clone with full history.
Will you relaunch my SaaS under its old name?
No. We never use the seller's brand or name and never relaunch the product as theirs. Odys AI Labs uses the code for AI training and R&D after cleaning, and we may also work on it with research partners. We do not publish who we buy from.
Find out what your old code is worth right now.
Tell us about the product in about a minute. No code needed. We review the details and come back with a cash offer or a plain no.
Get my free code valuation →