What your business is worth, with real numbers.

The market medians, by size

Two different yardsticks apply depending on size. Below roughly $2M in price, businesses trade on seller's discretionary earnings (SDE): profit plus the owner's salary and benefits, because the buyer is usually replacing the owner. Above $2M, the market shifts to EBITDA with a market-rate manager assumed in the cost structure. Pepperdine's Private Capital Markets project finds recast EBITDA multiples are the primary method for about 76 percent of appraisers and intermediaries.

What moves you up inside the range

• Recurring or contractual revenue that repeats without reselling it every January.
• A customer base where losing any single account stings but cannot sink the year.
• A management layer that runs the day without you: the single most common premium.
• Clean, accrual-basis books a lender can underwrite without archaeology.
• Equipment and vehicles maintained like you meant to keep them.
• Growth that is documented, not narrated.

What moves you down

• Owner dependence: if the business is you, the buyer is buying a job, and pays accordingly.
• Customer concentration above roughly a quarter of revenue in one account.
• Declining or flat earnings with a story instead of a plan.
• Deferred maintenance, messy add-backs, or cash sales that never met the books.

Why financing sets a ceiling on price

Most sales at this size are financed, and lenders underwrite the business's actual cash flow. Pepperdine's research consistently reports a capital shortage below $5M of EBITDA, and stricter senior lending below $10M. Practically: a price the business cannot service with debt is a price that cannot close, no matter what a teaser said. BizBuySell's 2025 review found completed sales closing at about 94 percent of asking price, which tells you asking prices set near market data mostly hold.

The most expensive mistake owners make is anchoring on the highest number anyone has ever said out loud. The market pays what the data supports plus a premium for transferability. Everything else is a negotiating tactic aimed at you.

How to get a real number for your business

Recast your last three years of earnings with a CPA, honestly. Apply the band multiple for your size as a starting range. Then adjust for the transferability factors above, which is where an experienced buyer or a good advisor earns their keep. Any serious buyer should be willing to walk you through exactly how they got to their number, on paper, with your CPA in the room. We do that in a 30-minute conversation, with no documents required to start.