Barter Trade Sites

How It Works

Avontage is an online marketplace for local businesses, freelancers, and marketers to trade-exchange services without spending any money. Business barter trading is the smartest way to conserve your cash and grow your business.


For Local Service Businesses & Venues Offer your goods, services, empty seats and more in our robust marketplace. Then get the goods, services, and employee rewards you need without increasing your overhead.	For Freelancers & Creatives Leverage your skills! You can trade your down time for valuable goods and services you need. Plus you expand your portfolio and testimonials!	For Digital Marketers & Influencers Make your unused ad space and digital services work for you! Trade your marketing finesse for goods and services you need. You can even outsource some of your tasks to skilled freelancers!

How to Trade Your Services

It takes less than 5 minutes to join

Join Us with a FREE account.
Post Your Offers. What can you trade to provide both value and a great first impression of your business?
After you post, you'll receive a welcome bonus of A$200 Avontage Bucks! Our site trade credit point system.
Shop Around. Spend your bonus Avontage Bucks on things you need!
Network at our Community Virtual Hour and Community Forum.
Trade your goods and services. Then use your earned A-Bucks to get goods and services your business needs!

How To Videos

How to post an offer	How to buy an offer	How to search for a service
How to find an offer	Save your favorites	Search Avontage First

FAQs

Do I have to be a business owner to be a member?

You must be a legitimate business owner with a passion for collaboration and trade to join our community. You can be a local business, a creative, a highly skilled freelancer, a marketer, a home-business and more. Just keep in mind that we do quality check offers on our site.

What is Avontage Bucks?

Avontage Bucks is our internal trade credit point system to keep track of each trade transaction for accounting, tax, and valuation.
You earn Avontage Bucks when you “sell” your offers/services and spend them to "buy" other offers from other members.
Avontage Bucks have no cash value.

Why Avontage Bucks?

Direct trades are difficult. You have to find someone who has what you want AND they have to be willing to trade for something you have.

To make this process easier, we use virtual currency to measure the worth of your trades. You trade your goods and services for A-Bucks. Then you have the freedom to use your A-bucks on ANYTHING you need in the marketplace.

How do I check my Avontage Bucks balance?

You can veiw your Avontage Bucks Balance anytime on your profile. You will also see it during checkout whenever you redeem a trade.

How does a trade transaction work?

You post your special offers on the Avontage website.
When someone redeems your offer, you provide a high quality experience that shows the best in your business. They might be your best referrer or next cash customer!
Once you have delivered your offer, the buyer will mark the trade as Complete. Some will also leave a review!
When you are ready, you go into the market and make a trade purchase. The A-bucks or funding will be put in escrow until you mark the trade complete. Then the payment will go to your Seller, and you can write a review about your experience.
That's it! Just provide clear communication and excellent customer service like you would any other day.

How do I price my offers in Avontage Bucks?

1 Avontage Buck = $1 USD
Price your offers at the same price you would in a cash offer. The ability to barter the service is already a great value! No deep discounts are needed.
Anyone can find your offer. So members and non-members alike can pay you through our credit card processing service if they don't have the A-bucks! You'll get the full amount minus transaction and processing fees. Make sure you price your offers based on what you would normally charge.

How do I start shopping when I haven't "sold" anything yet to earn Avontage Bucks?

For a limited time, we are offering A$200 in Avontage Bucks just for signing up and posting at least two offers.

How do I earn more Avontage Bucks?

Add more great offers
Increase the limit on your more popular offers
Earn $100 Avontage Bucks for every qualified referral
Referral must have a local or virtual business that provides quality goods, services, freelanced skills, etc to our platform.
They must post at least one offer.
They must be in compliance with our Terms of Use.

Are there any tax implications?

Yes! The IRS and State both regard all business barters and trades as a business income and expense. You need to report your bartered expenses and earnings as outlined below. Please consult your accountant.

"...Reporting Bartering Income You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship) or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ, Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship). If you failed to report this income, correct your return by filing a Form 1040X, Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Refer to Topic No. 308 and Should I File an Amended Return? for information on filing an amended return...."

Can I accept or pay with credit cards?

Yes! If the Seller has opted to sell their services, you will have a choice to Buy through either Avontage Bucks or a Credit Card.
If you want to accept credit card payments, you will need to set up your bank account info. Just go to your Settings and click "Payments" to set it up.
Don't worry! We use Stripe's secure and encrypted system. You can see more about their security processes at stripe.com. Avontage doesn't store any banking or credit card information on our servers.

Do I have to provide my bank account info?

No! You only have to provide banking information if you want to accept credit cards for your offers. If you do opt-in, everything is handled by Stripes (stripe.com) ultra-secure credit card processing company. We never see or store your information on our servers.

What are the top categories of services on Avontage marketplace?

--DIGITAL MARKETING & ADS

--DIGITAL CREATIVE SERVICES

--VIRTUAL ONLINE OFFERS

--Local Services

What if a good or service I need isn't offered?

You have several options available to expand our offerings!

Post your request on our Community Forum
Post a Request Offer. You'll see the option when you go to create a New Offer. [link to send reader to create a wanted offer]
Message Us! Our team will actively recruit and focus our marketing efforts to bring in your requested service!
Know someone? Recruit them! You'll earn $100

How much does the membership cost?

Membership is 100% FREE
Posting and Selling your offers are FREE
You only pay a transaction fee if you take a credit card payment or when you spend Avontage Bucks

How do we make money?

We collect a 7% transaction fee via credit card when you:

Spend your Avontage Bucks on an offer
Accept a Credit Card payment on your sold offering. (You don't pay a transaction fee on Avontage Bucks sales).
This transaction fee helps with our expenses to keep this excellent community up and running! It also gives us the funding we need to market and bring in lots more great services for you!

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Fine print:

Avontage Bucks can not be sold or redeemed for cash
You have 90 days to use any Avontage bucks from referrals or sign on bonuses.
Your Avontage Bucks from sold goods and services have no expiration.
All new members and offers have to be approved by Avontage to qualify for Refer and Earn or their sign up bonus.
Offers MUST be identical to your retail cash value. No Overcharging or price gouging. Voilators will have their accounts suspended without compensation.

Information about Avontage

Barter Trade Sites

How It Works

Avontage is an online marketplace for local businesses, freelancers, and marketers to trade-exchange services without spending any money. Business barter trading is the smartest way to conserve your cash and grow your business.

How to Trade Your Services

How To Videos