A barter exchange is a business organization that provides third party services to members of the organization that engage in the trading or bartering of goods and/or services usually on a local or regional level. Members receive the equivalent of barter dollars when a member provides another member goods and/or services. These barter dollars can then be used to acquire any goods or service offered for sale by any members of the organization. For example, Business A sells advertising to Business B for barter dollars. Those barter dollars can then be used to buy restaurant meals from Business C and so on.

Members of barter exchanges tend to offer their excess inventory or capacity for barter dollars. This saves them from spending their cash on those goods and/or services.

The goods and services most bartered include: