What pre-IPO platforms charge: minimums and fees

By Unicorn Private Research. Published and last updated 25 September 2026.

Key takeaways

Published minimums range from 10,000 dollars on EquityZen to 100,000 dollars for a direct secondary on Forge Global.
Headline transaction fees run from about 2% to about 5.75%, and they are charged on the way in and often again on the way out.
Third-party costs, legal opinions and company transfer fees are not included in the platform fee and can add several thousand dollars per trade.
Fee drag compounds against a holding period measured in years, so the total cost of a five-year hold matters more than the entry percentage.

The cost of buying pre-IPO shares through a platform is not one number. It is an entry fee, sometimes a fund or vehicle layer with its own management charge, third-party legal and transfer costs, and an exit fee. The table below reproduces only what each platform publishes itself, with the date of the disclosure.

Published minimums and fees

These are the figures each platform states in its own documentation, read on 25 September 2026.

Platform	Stated minimum	Stated fee
Forge Global	100,000 dollars for a direct secondary; from 5,000 dollars for certain Forge fund offerings	Typically 2% to 4% on direct secondaries, can be higher for other structures and as low as 0% in some cases
EquityZen	10,000 dollars standard, 5,000 dollars on selected opportunities	2.5% for buyers up to one million dollars, 2% above that; sellers typically 2.5%
Clarity, formerly Hiive	25,000 dollars standard, higher for certain private funds	Sellers up to 5.75%, falling above 500,000 dollars; buyers in private funds typically up to 4.85%, and 7.5% for certain funds

The costs the headline percentage leaves out

Two categories of cost sit outside the platform fee and are easy to miss when comparing offers.

Third-party transaction costs. EquityZen states that a legal opinion typically costs between 1,000 and 1,500 dollars and a company transfer fee between 1,000 and 5,000 dollars, neither of which it charges or controls.
Vehicle costs. Where the purchase is made through a special purpose vehicle or a fund rather than directly, that vehicle has its own formation, administration and often management and performance fees, disclosed in the offering document rather than on the platform's fee page.

How to compare two offers properly

The comparable number is the total cost of the round trip, expressed against the holding period rather than against the trade.

Add the entry fee, the vehicle costs over the expected holding period, the third-party costs and the expected exit fee.
Divide by the expected holding period in years to get an annual drag.
Compare that annual drag against the discount or premium to the last round at which the shares are being offered.
Ask for the fee disclosure in writing before committing, since the published schedules are ranges rather than quotes.

One platform to be careful about

Linqto, which operated in this segment, filed for Chapter 11 in July 2025 after its management identified potential securities law violations dating from 2020, and a court approved its Chapter 11 plan on 6 February 2026. Any fee or minimum published for Linqto on a comparison site should not be treated as current. Platform solvency is itself a risk factor in a market where the holding period is measured in years.