What share of intentful demand finds a successful match?
№ 035 · Liquidity / match rate curve
Definition
MetricSearch-to-fill rate (demand side) and utilization or match rate (supply side) over time
Unit% of intentful searches or listings that convert to a completed transaction in the period
Search queries (or buyer signals) divided by matched transactions over time. Rising rate means supply gap; falling means stocking out demand. Build by counting search events vs orders per period. Example: 18% match rate Q1, 24% Q4 (healthier liquidity, more searches finding matches).
Benchmarks
| Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|
| fill rate declining as supply grows (supply quality problem) or as demand grows (supply shortage); double-commit models with long negotiation loops and no streamlining | highly model-dependent: double-commit marketplaces sit lowest, buyer-picks in the middle, auto-match highest; site-conversion proxies run 1-3% for B2C listings models and 5-15% for B2B where traffic is qualified | search-to-fill well above the model's structural ceiling: auto-match managed models (ride-hailing style) fill the large majority of requests; a 75% fill on request-based models reads as strong |
cross-model marketplace frameworks 2018-2026; no large-sample cross-marketplace dataset publishes fill rates, so ranges are structural by matching model (auto-match, buyer-picks, double-commit) rather than percentile tables · Fewer than 5 sources publish hard fill-rate numbers; confidence set to low. The metric is definition-sensitive: intentful search must be defined (query with filters, booking request, quote request) and stated with the number. Compare only within matching model. The 1-3% and 5-15% figures are session-conversion proxies, not booking-request fill rates.
Category split omitted: No two independent Tier 1-2 sources publish fill-rate distributions by category; ranges exist only by matching model.
When it looks bad
The fill-rate line declines while sessions and listings both grow, and the funnel decomposition shows the loss concentrated at one stage, typically results-to-detail (relevance) or intent-to-completion (price, trust or checkout).
Booking requests grow 40% QoQ but fill drops 62% to 48%; decomposition shows accept-rate by suppliers fell 81% to 60% because new demand arrived in a city with 30 active suppliers.
What to do about it
- Instrument the four-stage fill funnel per Kissmetrics decomposition and put a named owner on the weakest stage; a relevance fix and a checkout fix are different projects and blended fill hides which one you have.
- Reduce double-commit friction where possible: instant-book for vetted suppliers, standardized pricing, response-time SLAs with ranking consequences; Point Nine identifies transaction streamlining as the number one lever for double-commit models.
- Manage liquidity locally, not globally: cap demand acquisition in geographies or categories where fill is below target and redirect spend to supply acquisition there, using buyer-to-supplier ratio as the trigger.
- Track time-to-fill alongside fill rate; a stable fill achieved with lengthening match times is decaying liquidity that the headline number has not caught yet.
Sources
- Point Nine Capital (Julia Morrongiello) liquidity measured via search-to-fill, utilization rate, time-to-fill and buyer-to-supplier ratio; double-commit models structurally lowest, auto-match highest medium.com ↗
- Lenny's Newsletter fill rate, the % of intentful sessions converting, named the single most important marketplace health metric ahead of GMV lennysnewsletter.com ↗
- Bowery Capital match or utilization rate defined as probability of a listing transacting in a window, worked 30-day example at 75%; demand-constrained vs supply-constrained markets need different liquidity metrics bowerycap.com ↗
- Kissmetrics search-to-fill should be decomposed into search-to-results, results-to-detail, detail-to-intent and intent-to-completion, each with distinct levers kissmetrics.io ↗
- Origami Marketplace session conversion proxies: 1-3% B2C, 5-15% B2B where traffic is qualified origami-marketplace.com ↗
- Andreessen Horowitz matching efficiency and fragmentation underpin defensibility; measure both sides a16z.com ↗