PRIVATE-BUSINESS SALE RESEARCH · UPDATED AUGUST 2026

The valuation market, in 15 useful views.

Compare public-company EBITDA multiples, private-company evidence from Main Street through the middle market, what businesses sold for, how far prices moved from asking, and how long deals stayed on market.

OPEN DATA EXPLORERS

Start with the question you need answered.

Every public benchmark is aggregated. Open a report to search, sort, inspect the source, and follow a business type into its valuation page.

EXACT ANSWERS · LOWER MIDDLE MARKET
$5M · $10M · $25M revenue

Revenue milestones translated into EBITDA markets

Change the normalized EBITDA margin, add a supported industry, and keep only references that fit their own reported deal-size bands.

Start with $5M revenue
EXACT ANSWERS · PROFIT / SDE
$100K · $250K · $500K · $1M

How much is a business worth by annual profit?

Choose a profit level, see all 26 public business-type indications immediately, and learn when accounting profit must first become normalized SDE.

See the $250K answer
EXACT ANSWER · INTERACTIVE
$390K–$1.96M · 26 types

What $1 million of revenue can—and cannot—tell you

Choose the business type and SDE margin to compare two separately labeled public-average methods.

Test the $1M scenario
00 · PUBLIC COMPANY MULTIPLES
16.95× · 91 industries

US public-company EBITDA multiples

Search, sort, cite, and download the January 2026 industry table—then see why public and private markets cannot be blended.

Search the public table
01 · LOWER MIDDLE MARKET
7.2× · 297 full-year deals

What PE-backed buyers paid—by industry and size

Start with GF Data's full-year 2025 market pulse, then compare the detailed industry, enterprise-value, and EBITDA tables through Q3 with observation counts attached.

Explore lower-middle-market data
02 · SIZE LADDER
2.0× SDE → 10.3× EBITDA

How multiples change by company size

Compare nine public benchmarks across two source families, with the metric, buyer universe, and period attached to every row.

Compare size tiers
03 · EVIDENCE DESK
10+ current facts

Small business valuation statistics

Copy source-linked statistics spanning price, multiples, negotiation outcomes, timelines, and independent index coverage.

Open the evidence desk
04 · TWO-AXIS MAP
6 of 25

Which businesses sell faster—and at higher multiples?

Explore every supported category by sale speed and average SDE multiple, with both source periods kept separate.

Open the market map
05 · TIMELINE
85250 days

How long does it take to sell a business?

See the fastest and slowest supported category medians, plus the full searchable ranking.

Compare sale timelines
06 · PRICE OUTCOME
24 of 25

Business types averaging below asking

Compare average sale-to-ask ratios with each category's separate median asking and sold prices.

Explore asking vs. sold
07 · SAME EARNINGS
$435K$1.22M

Turn any SDE into 26 market indications

Enter annual owner earnings or start with the $250K example. Only the reported average multiple changes across 26 business types.

Open the SDE matrix
08 · METHOD CROSSOVER
17.9%–53.0%

Where revenue and SDE methods agree

Move an SDE margin and see which reported average-multiple method runs higher across 26 business types.

Compare crossover margins
09 · INDUSTRY × SIZE MAP
57 public cells

Which industries have evidence at each deal size?

Map the independent index across broad sectors and six deal-value bands. Every displayed cell clears a ten-record privacy threshold.

Explore the evidence map
10 · INDEPENDENT INDEX
4,359

sanitized transaction records across six deal-size bands

392 recent records include usable valuation-multiple evidence. Download coverage from under $1 million to $1 billion+ without exposing an individual deal.

Explore the full index
11 · MICRO INDEX
Under $1M

Where micro-business evidence is deepest

Inspect only the defensible public sector cohorts inside the under-$1 million band, while every individual transaction and percentile remains protected.

Inspect micro-market coverage

READ THE EVIDENCE CORRECTLY

Useful comparisons. Honest limits.

01

Closed sales anchor the public reports.

Reported asking prices are never silently treated as completed-sale outcomes.

02

Category aggregates are not a company valuation.

Size, earnings quality, growth, concentration, transferability, assets, and terms still matter.

03

Protected data stays protected.

Public pages show only non-identifying aggregates. Richer cohorts remain account- and contribution-gated.

Public closed-sale tables: BizBuySell Full year 2025 outcomes and rolling valuation multiples. The independent index uses approved, sanitized records with minimum cohort thresholds.

YOUR BUSINESS · PRIVATE

Turn market evidence into your valuation.

Enter your industry, revenue, and normalized SDE or EBITDA to get a private market reference. Share operating context only when you want to unlock richer anonymized benchmarks.

Value my business