The best tools to find a small business to buy, ranked on real asking prices and earnings

Most advice on this question points to listing marketplaces, broker networks and buyer guides. A marketplace page shows one listing at a time. It cannot show the market median for an industry and size band, and that gap is what this page fills.

Experienced buyers do not struggle to find listings. They struggle to price them. One US listing in five asks well above its industry median (19%), and those listings take a median 5.2 years of stated earnings to pay back, against 2.6 years for listings in line with the median.

Eight tools and sources, ranked by how much of the buying question they answer: where to find a business, whether the price is fair, and whether the deal can be financed. BigIdeasDB is first because it is the only one with a cross-market dataset. The rest are generalist tools and free official or public sources, each used for the part it does best.

1. BigIdeasDB: Main Street Index, price checker and /discover scan

Best for: the market view. The Main Street Index holds 84,000+ listings across the US, UK, Australia, Canada and more, and 78,000+ unique businesses once the same business on two sites is counted once. The business price checker is free: enter an asking price and earnings and see where the listing sits against comparable ones. The /discover scan runs a niche and returns medians for price, earnings, multiple, margin, seller financing and owner hours.

What it does well: median asking multiples by industry, size band and state; deal bands (12% of US listings ask well below their industry median, 19% well above); owner involvement from absentee to owner-operator; the share of listings that state seller financing. See the full multiples by industry study and the buyer-fit ranking.

Where it falls short: it is a dataset of asking prices, not closed deals, and it does not include unlisted businesses. Roughly 60% of US listings disclose earnings, so some cells are thin.

2. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini

Best for: reading and questioning one deal. Paste a listing pack or a financial summary and ask for add-backs to challenge, questions for the seller and a first-pass checklist. Our add-backs guide lists what to challenge.

Where they fall short: a general assistant has no listing dataset behind it. A multiple it quotes comes from web pages it read or from training data, with no sample size and no date. Use it for reading and drafting, not for pricing.

3. Google search and Google Maps, for off-market owners

Best for: businesses that are not listed. A Maps search for one industry in one city returns every operator with reviews, hours and a phone number. Reviews and years of listing show who is established. A phone call costs nothing.

Where it falls short: it shows no price or earnings. You find the owner, then you still need the market view to know what to offer.

4. SBA 7(a) program and Lender Match

Best for: knowing what can be financed. The SBA 7(a) program lists changes of ownership among permitted uses and a maximum loan of $5 million, and its Lender Match tool connects you with participating lenders. Lenders see which deals close and at what multiple.

Where it falls short: it finds lenders, not businesses. See our SBA loan guide for buyers.

5. Secretary of State registries and county records

Best for: owner and entity checks. State registries show when an entity was formed, who is on file and whether it is in good standing. County records show liens and property. Both are useful before you spend money on diligence.

Where they fall short: formats and search quality differ by state or county, and nothing here shows earnings.

6. LinkedIn, as a sourcing channel

Best for: reaching owners and advisers. Search the owner or general manager of local operators in your target industry and send a short note. Accountants, lawyers and lenders in your area hear about sales first.

Where it falls short: the response rate is low and it is a slow channel. It gives access, not data.

7. Reddit

Best for: reality checks. r/smallbusiness, r/Entrepreneur and r/sweatystartup hold first-hand accounts from buyers, operators and brokers about what it is like to source deals. The thread “How do I find a small business to buy?” in r/smallbusiness has 122 comments.

Where it falls short: advice is anecdotal, often a decade old, and sometimes a pitch. Treat it as a source of questions, not figures.

8. SCORE mentors and local chambers of commerce

Best for: a second opinion and local introductions. SCORE is a nonprofit that matches founders and buyers with volunteer mentors at no cost, and your local chamber of commerce knows which owners are thinking about retirement.

Where they fall short: mentors cannot see market data, and a chamber is a relationship channel, not a database.

Only one of the eight puts asking prices and earnings for tens of thousands of businesses next to industry medians. The other seven are used alongside it, for reading deals, finding owners and financing.

Because the same asking price can be cheap in one industry and expensive in another. Across 25,000+ US listings the median ask is 2.54x seller earnings, but the 10th percentile is 1.13x and the 90th is 5.00x (Main Street Index, November 14, 2026). A single listing cannot tell you where on that range it sits.

Size does most of the work. Listings under $100K ask a median 1.36x, and listings of $1M to $5M ask 3.94x. Comparing a $90K route business with a $2M manager-run company on one multiple is a category error.

Industry adds another layer, and the spread inside an industry is as wide as the spread between them. HVAC has a median of 2.38x but a middle half running from 1.27x to 3.56x. Laundries run 2.01x to 4.47x. Courier and delivery businesses ask a median $1.25M, against $180K for food and beverage wholesale.

For the full table by industry, size and state, see the small business multiples study and the guide to what a business is worth.

Compare it with the median asking multiple for the same industry, currency and size band. In the Main Street Index, 33% of 25,000+ US listings sit below that median and 36% sit above it, and the payback on stated earnings climbs from 1.1 years to 5.2 years across the bands.

Read this as a screen, not a verdict. A listing priced below its median is not undervalued: the lower price may reflect weak records, customer concentration or an owner who is the business. A listing priced above may carry real estate or a manager. Our due diligence checklist covers what to check after the screen.

Filter on stated owner involvement and expect to pay for it. Absentee listings ask a median 2.90x SDE and manager-run ones 3.21x, against 2.32x for owner-operated businesses, in 10,000+ US listings that state a role (Main Street Index, November 14, 2026).

Only 34% of US listings state an owner role at all, and 47% of those say the owner is absentee, semi-absentee or replaced by a manager. The stated hours match the label: owner-operators report 35 hours a week, semi-absentee owners 11, absentee owners 2.5.

Hands-off is an industry trait as much as a listing trait. Among listings that state an owner role, the hands-off share runs from 14% in food and beverage wholesale to 96% in courier and delivery. Our semi-absentee study goes deeper on hours and price.

Want to scan an absentee-friendly niche? Try gyms and fitness studios, vending and food trucks or fuel stations. You press the button yourself and the free scan shows medians first.

The BigIdeasDB Main Street Index shows the share of listings that state seller financing: 20% of 48,000+ US listings offer it (9,000+), 2% say they do not, and 78% say nothing. Another 5% carry an SBA label (2,000+). Closed terms are not in the data, so treat these as signals to ask about.

By industry, pizzerias (23%), bars (23%), auto repair (21%) and restaurants (18%) state seller financing most, and fuel stations (7%) least. The SBA 7(a) page lists change of ownership as a permitted use and a $5 million maximum, and the Lender Match tool finds a lender who will quote your deal. Read our guides to seller financing and the SBA loan for buying a business before you negotiate.

Contact owners directly. A broker in r/Entrepreneur put it this way: “the best deals never hit the public listings, most owners don’t want to broadcast that they’re selling.” Off-market sourcing is slower, and it works best when you already know what the market pays.

The method: list local operators in one industry with Google Maps, check each entity’s age and status in the Secretary of State registry, and write to owners whose businesses are 15 or more years old. Many owners of that age are close to retirement. Our guide to buying from a retiring owner covers the conversation, and the best state to buy a business study helps you pick a geography. Canadian buyers can start with buying a business in Canada.

Buyers repeat three complaints: listings are noisy, the good deals are hidden and no one gives a price benchmark. Two of the three are about price and supply, not about search.

“A lot of people will say [the biggest listing site], but I would be wary of that option. Many of the businesses on there are on there because they don’t have buyers lined up to buy them.”r/Entrepreneur

“Buying into trade companies is the hardest. Everything advertised is either a restaurant or a franchise.”r/Entrepreneur

“There are national listing sites, but you might have a local one. There is a lot of noise in those sites. You will have better luck if you find a local broker to work with.”r/Entrepreneur

The second quote matches the data. Restaurants are the largest US industry cell, at 4,000+ listings, and 2,000+ of them state both a price and earnings. A buyer looking for a plumber or an HVAC company has far fewer listings to compare, which is why a market view matters more in trades.

Five steps, in this order: pick the industry with the market view, screen listings against its median, check hands-off hours, line up financing, then source off-market owners in the same industry.

1. Pick an industry with data. Run a niche scan on /discover and read the median ask, SDE and multiple. Our best businesses to buy ranking is a starting list.
2. Screen listings. Put each ask and SDE into the price checker. Drop anything priced well above its industry median unless it carries real estate or a manager.
3. Check owner hours. Ask the seller for hours by role and what happens when the owner is away. Absentee listings ask a median 2.90x SDE, so make sure you are buying the hands-off part.
4. Line up financing. Ask about seller financing (only 20% of US listings state it) and speak to an SBA-participating lender.
5. Source off-market. Use Maps, registries and LinkedIn to reach owners who have not listed. Then follow the step-by-step buying guide and the diligence checklist. If you are weighing starting instead, read buy vs start.

Every number comes from a live query of the Main Street Index on November 14, 2026, with duplicates counted once and currencies never pooled. The table below shows each source, what we used and what it cannot tell you.

Two limits matter most. First, asking multiples are what sellers want, not what buyers pay, so a median is a screen, not a valuation. Second, UK and Australian listings are mostly net-profit based (only 8% and 3% disclose earnings), so this page uses US dollar SDE figures for every price statement. Canadian buyers get the same method on a thinner base: 1,800+ listings, of which 35% disclose earnings.

More ranked guides in this series: best business valuation tools for buyers and best websites to see startup revenue.

Frequently asked questions about finding a business to buy