Home/ Business value estimator
Free tool
What’s your business worth — really?
Answer a few questions about your earnings, your industry, and how the business runs — and see a directional value range today, plus the range that opens up once it’s built to sell without you. No email required to see it.
How it works
Earnings × multiple — and what moves the multiple.
Most owner-operated businesses are valued as a multiple of their adjusted earnings. The multiple isn’t fixed: it rises as risk falls. The single biggest risk a buyer prices is whether the business can run without you.
- Recurring, contracted revenue
- A team that runs day-to-day without the owner
- Low customer concentration
- Clean, buyer-ready financials
- A credible growth trend
Common questions
About the estimate.
The tool starts with your adjusted earnings — your profit with owner pay and one-time costs added back (SDE), and again after subtracting what it would cost to replace you (EBITDA). Each of those earnings figures has its own multiple range for your industry, because buyers price an owner-dependent business differently from one that runs without you. The tool then adjusts within that range based on what raises or lowers risk in a buyer's eyes — how much the business depends on you, customer concentration, revenue quality, growth, and the state of your books. It's a directional range built from current market multiples, not a formal valuation of your specific company.
Seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) is your profit with the owner's salary, perks, and one-time costs added back — the total benefit to a single owner-operator. EBITDA is what's left after also subtracting a market-rate cost to replace the owner's role — the earnings a buyer sees in a business that runs without its owner. Smaller, owner-run businesses are usually valued on SDE; larger, manager-run ones on EBITDA. The tool shows you both.
Same earnings — lower risk. Most owner-operated businesses sell at a discount because so much depends on the owner, a few big customers, or revenue that has to be re-won every year. The potential range shows what the same earnings could be worth once those risks are reduced and the business can stand on its own: buyers pay a higher multiple for lower risk, and a business that no longer depends on you can cross into a higher class of buyer entirely. The gap between today and potential isn't growth you have to wait for — it's value already in the business, waiting to be unlocked.
No. A real valuation comes from your actual financials, your industry's current multiples, and how a specific deal is structured. This tool gives you a fast, directional sense of the range — and of what's holding it down — so you know whether a deeper conversation is worth your time.