How accurate is a business valuation calculator?

It gives a realistic starting range based on what similar businesses have sold for. It cannot see things like customer contracts, the quality of your records or local demand, so treat it as a starting point and get a formal valuation before negotiating.

What is seller’s discretionary earnings (SDE)?

SDE is pre-tax profit plus the owner’s salary and perks, interest, depreciation and one-off costs. It shows what a single owner-operator would earn, and it is how most small businesses are priced.

Why does my industry change the value so much?

Buyers pay more for industries with predictable, transferable earnings. In BizBuySell’s data, average earnings multiples range from about 1.95 for transportation and storage to 3.28 for online and technology businesses.

Is this calculator free?

Yes. It is free, needs no signup, and runs in your browser. Your numbers are not sent anywhere unless you choose to use the signup form.

Business Valuation Calculator | Selling My Business Guide

How this calculator works

Most small businesses sell for a multiple of their seller’s discretionary earnings (SDE): what one owner-operator takes home before tax. The calculator adds your profit, your pay and perks, and one-off costs to get SDE, then applies the average earnings multiple for your industry from BizBuySell’s data on businesses sold from Q3 2021 to Q2 2026.

It then adjusts that multiple for four things buyers consistently price: how much revenue is recurring, how much customers depend on you, how concentrated your customers are, and whether earnings are growing. These adjustments are our editorial estimates of how buyers weigh each factor, not published figures, so the result is shown as a range.

Average multiples by industry

Industry	Earnings (SDE) multiple	Revenue multiple
Online and Technology	3.28×	1.09×
Automotive and Boat	3.10×	0.71×
Manufacturing	3.04×	0.73×
Service Businesses	2.61×	0.83×
Building and Construction	2.65×	0.59×
Financial Services	2.46×	1.21×
Food and Restaurants	2.27×	0.42×
Transportation and Storage	1.95×	0.64×

Selected sectors. Source: BizBuySell, businesses sold Q3 2021 to Q2 2026. The calculator includes all 16 sectors.

When your business is bigger than this

Once a business earns roughly $500,000 or more in EBITDA, private equity firms start to compete and pricing shifts to EBITDA multiples. Add-on buyers typically pay 3 to 7 times EBITDA. Read more inhow much is my business worth andselling to private equity.

Business Valuation Calculator

Your business

What buyers will look at