Small business multiples by industry: what 27,000+ listings ask in 2026

The short answer

This page is a table, not a valuation method. It answers “what do sellers in my industry ask?” so you can judge a listing in front of you. If you want to value a business you already own, start with how much a business is worth by revenue and profit; for the full formula, see how to value a small business.

Every number is an asking price over a seller-stated earnings figure, from the Main Street Index, BigIdeasDB’s census of 84,000+ businesses for sale from 29 sources (78,000+ after counting cross-listed businesses once). It is the market you are shopping in. It is not what businesses sold for.

Small business multiples by country: the at-a-glance table

Four markets have enough priced listings to publish a national median, and each reports a different earnings basis. US and Canadian listings quote SDE, which adds the owner’s pay back to profit. UK and Australian listings mostly quote net profit, which does not. The same business shows a lower multiple on SDE than on net profit, and a higher multiple on net profit than on SDE, so read each row against itself, never across rows.

Only about 57% of US listings and 32% of Canadian ones state both a price and earnings, and under 7% in the UK and Australia. That is why UK and Australian rows rest on a few hundred listings and why no per-industry figure is published for them. The Australian median sits close to 1x; we did not test why, and you should not read it as “Australian businesses are cheap”.

Buyers in Canada can read the local picture in buying a business in Canada and business ideas in Canada. The rest of this page is US data unless a section says otherwise, because only the US has the volume to cut by industry.

Multiples by industry: 72 US industries, sortable

Every row below needs 100+ US listings that state asking price, revenue and SDE, so a median is never a handful of listings. 72 industries and 20,000+ listings qualify. Sort by multiple, revenue multiple or margin, or filter to one sector. The default order is lowest to highest asking multiple.

Three patterns stand out. 10 industries ask under 2x, 45 ask 2x to 3x and 17 ask 3x or more. The middle band is crowded: restaurants (2.40x, 1,900+ listings), HVAC (2.34x), plumbing (2.38x), landscaping (2.46x), auto repair (2.82x) and bars (2.96x) sit within about six-tenths of a turn of each other, so inside it the multiple alone will not tell you which business is better.

The low end is mostly labour. Pool services (1.09x), building maintenance (1.37x), property management (1.43x), nail salons (1.47x) and commercial cleaning (1.67x) are businesses where the owner or a small crew does the work and customers are tied to a route or a contract, not to a brand. Part of the low multiple is that you are buying a job. For how hands-on each type is, see semi-absentee businesses and owner hours.

The high end is capital. Metal fabrication (3.98x), general manufacturing (3.84x), childcare (3.71x), pharmacies (3.65x) and car washes (5.77x) ask more because buyers are paying for equipment, licences, property or regulated income. Car washes are the extreme: the median asks 5.77x SDE and 1.98x revenue, the highest of either measure in the table. If a laundromat or car wash is on your list, see buying a laundromat and buying a car wash, then scan the car wash market for listings.

One caution on the pool services row. Its 76.4% median margin and 1.09x multiple are real in the listings, but pool routes are small owner-operator businesses where SDE is mostly the owner’s wage, so a low multiple and a high margin partly describe the same fact. Our pool service profitability page covers what that income looks like in practice.

Does a better margin buy a higher multiple? No

Sellers price on a multiple of earnings, and that multiple barely changes with margin. Across the 72 industries above, the correlation between median SDE margin and median asking multiple is -0.02 excluding pool services (-0.19 with it). The correlation between margin and the revenue multiple is 0.69 (0.57 with it). This is an industry-level result: 72 points, asking prices, no causation claimed.

Two pairs make it concrete. Restaurants earn an 18.2% median margin and ask 2.40x SDE, or 0.42x revenue. Laundry and dry cleaning earns 39.7% and asks 2.94x SDE, or 1.07x revenue. The earnings multiples differ by about half a turn, yet the laundry asks 2.5 times as much per dollar of sales. Accountancy and bookkeeping (49.7% margin, 2.46x SDE, 1.20x revenue) and bars (16.7% margin, 2.96x SDE, 0.50x revenue) tell the same story from the other side: the bar asks the higher earnings multiple on a third of the margin.

Why it matters to a buyer. If you shop on revenue multiples, a thin-margin industry looks cheap and a fat-margin one looks dear, and neither tells you anything about value for money. The margin shows up in the revenue multiple, not in the price you pay per dollar of take-home. A high-margin business is not priced as one, which is the opportunity: the same 2.5x SDE buys a much sturdier income stream in a 40% margin industry than in a 17% one. Of the 72 industries, 17 have a median margin under 20% and 16 are at 30% or higher.

The limit: margin here is SDE over stated revenue, and SDE includes the owner’s pay. A 17% margin restaurant may leave less than a manager’s salary once you hire one. Check the earnings with add-backs when buying a business before trusting any margin.

Revenue multiples by industry: 0.30x to 1.98x

The median US asking price is 0.61x revenue, but industry medians run from 0.30x (fuel stations) to 1.98x (car washes), a 6.6x spread. Revenue multiples are the number people quote first, and the least transferable between industries.

Low revenue multiples belong to thin-margin, high-turnover businesses: fuel stations (0.30x), food and beverage wholesale (0.32x), care homes (0.33x), seafood restaurants (0.34x), car dealerships (0.37x), pharmacies (0.38x) and grocery (0.40x). High ones belong to service and asset-heavy businesses: accountancy (1.20x), equipment rental (1.10x), laundry (1.07x), marketing agencies (1.07x), metal fabrication (1.07x) and car washes (1.98x).

The practical rule: use a revenue multiple only inside one industry, as a quick filter on listings that do not state earnings. Within restaurants, 0.42x is the median; a restaurant asking 0.9x revenue is asking more than twice its peers unless its margin is exceptional. Across industries, a revenue multiple answers nothing.

Small business multiples by size: the U-shape

Asking multiples rise with earnings from $100K of SDE upward, but the smallest businesses break the pattern. Listings under $50K of SDE ask a median 3.30x, higher than the 2.27x of the $100K to $250K band, and a quarter of them ask 6.29x or more.

From $100K up, every step in earnings adds to the multiple: 2.27x at $100K to $250K, 2.65x at $250K to $500K, 3.17x at $500K to $1M and 3.78x above $1M. That is the size premium: bigger businesses are priced less like jobs and more like assets, and more of them can carry a loan. Median margin rises from 24.0% to about 27% over the same range, and the $50K to $100K band (2.30x) is level with the one above it.

Below $50K the rule flips. The median ask is $99.5K for a business that earns under $50K, so the price is likely anchored on equipment, inventory or a round-number floor instead of earnings; we did not test the cause. For a buyer the lesson is plain: the cheapest listings are not the cheapest per dollar of earnings. A $100K ask for $30K of SDE is 3.3x, a worse earnings deal than a $350K ask for $150K. If budget is the constraint, see the best business to start or buy by budget.

US vs Canada, sector by sector

Canada is the one foreign market we can compare directly, because both quote SDE. Canadian listings ask half a turn or more above US ones in 6 of 8 sectors with 30+ Canadian listings, and are level in the other two. The gap is largest in health and medical (3.74x against 2.58x) and home and trade services (3.26x against 2.25x).

Business services (+0.07x) and manufacturing (+0.01x) are effectively level, so the sturdier claim is “Canadian asking multiples run higher in most sectors, by half a turn to more than a turn where they differ”. The sector cells each hold 32 to 101 Canadian listings, so one or two oddly priced listings can move a row. We could not separate a real premium from Canadian sellers pricing more optimistically, from a different mix of listings within each sector, or from an exchange-rate effect on how sellers anchor. Any of the three fits the data.

The UK and Australia are not in this table on purpose: their listings quote net profit, which is a different denominator. Both countries also have thin earnings disclosure, so only the national medians above are published for them.

Deal terms and the multiple: seller financing, SBA labels, franchise resales

Listings that mention certain deal terms ask different multiples, and the gaps survive controls for industry. Controlling for industry and excluding real estate, listings that offer seller financing ask 4% above their industry median, franchise resales 13% above, listings labelled SBA-eligible 11% above, home-based businesses 11% below and price-reduced listings 13% below.

Seller financing is the one buyers ask about most, and it is the one where the size of the gap depends on how you cut it. Unadjusted, listings that offer it ask 2.74x against 2.58x for listings that do not mention it, a 6% gap. At the same $100K to $250K SDE size and no real estate it is 2.44x against 2.22x, a 10% gap. Within the same industry it is 4%. The direction holds in all three cuts; the magnitude does not, so the safe reading is a modest premium of a few percent to about a tenth. Sellers who offer to carry a note may simply be the ones who can afford to wait for a higher price. About 20% of US listings state seller financing is offered; see seller financing a business for how the notes work.

The SBA-eligible label sits 11% above peers, which fits a common buyer belief: lenders look at larger, cleaner deals, and sellers who advertise loan eligibility often have them. It does not show that eligibility raises the price. The loan test that matters is whether the earnings cover the payments at the asking price, covered in the SBA loan guide for buying a business.

Franchise resales ask 13% more than non-franchise peers in the same industry: the brand, training and supplier terms are part of what is priced. Home-based businesses ask 11% less, consistent with lower fixed assets and a smaller customer base. For the home-based end of the market see home-based business ideas that make money.

Price-reduced listings ask 13% below peers. That flag comes from one marketplace, and a listing that has been cut is by definition cheaper than it was, so this row is the weakest evidence on the page. It does say that asking prices move, which is a reason to negotiate.

Testing a buyer’s claim against the data

Buyers on forums trade multiples as rules of thumb. One r/smallbusiness buyer under LOI on a business with $175K of SDE at 3.2x was told:

“3.2x is high unless it’s a business that deals in some kind of manuf including skilled labor and is fairly recession resistant.”r/smallbusiness

The data agrees on the size and adds the manufacturing caveat. Among US listings at $100K to $250K of SDE with no real estate (10,000+ listings), 21.9% ask more than 3.2x and 10.4% ask 4x or more; the median is 2.27x. So 3.2x is in the top fifth for that size. Manufacturing is the exception the commenter predicted: general manufacturing asks a 3.84x median and metal fabrication 3.98x across all sizes.

In an r/buyingabusiness thread on multiples, a commenter relayed a lender’s view:

“I had an sba lender suggest 3.5x was what they typically use in their calculations. 4-6x and above is usually held for companies with very strong financials and/or some form of proprietary offering.”r/BuyingaBusiness

Asking prices put that threshold in context. Across all US sizes 21.7% of listings ask 4x or more, a share that includes property-bundled and capital-heavy listings. At a typical $100K to $250K of SDE, only 10.4% ask 4x or more. A buyer who sees 4x on a small owner-run business is looking at an outlier and has room to negotiate. Another commenter in the same thread put the rest of the argument simply:

“multiples will vary by industry, by company size and by company specific risk.”r/BuyingaBusiness

That is what the sections above measure: industry, size and, in the deal-terms table, a few of the risk-related flags. Company-specific risk, such as customer concentration or a key employee, is not something a listing aggregate can see. For the due-diligence side, see 12 mistakes when buying a business, checked against real listings.

How to use these multiples when you are looking at a listing

Five steps, in this order. They take ten minutes and stop most overpaying.

1. Get the stated SDE and fix it. Ask for tax returns. Rebuild SDE with real add-backs, using the add-backs guide. A multiple of an inflated SDE is meaningless.
2. Divide the asking price by that SDE. Exclude real estate from the price if the building is in the deal, or the number will read three times too high.
3. Find your industry in the table and note the median and the listing count. Under 100 listings, use the sector view and treat it as a range, not a median.
4. Correct for size. Below $50K of SDE expect a higher multiple; at $100K to $250K the median is 2.27x. Compare to the band, not the national figure.
5. Run the loan test. A multiple can sit at the median and still fail to cover debt and your salary. Check it against the SBA loan guide.

Step 2 and 3 take seconds in the free Business Price Checker: enter price, earnings and industry and it places the multiple against comparable listings. If you have not chosen an industry yet, start with the best businesses to buy, ranked by buyer fit and how to buy a business, then scan laundromat listings or scan HVAC businesses for sale for live comparables. For software businesses the multiples differ completely; see SaaS valuation multiples in 2026.

Asking multiples are not sale multiples

Everything on this page is what sellers ask. We have no data on what the businesses sold for, and the Index cannot tell which listings closed. Three consequences for a buyer.

• Treat the median as an opening number. The asking multiple is where negotiation starts. The price-reduced flag (13% below industry peers) shows prices do come down.
• Earnings are seller-stated. SDE here is what the seller or broker wrote, not an audited figure. The add-back guide covers what to verify.
• Selection effects are real. A census of businesses for sale over-represents businesses owners want to exit, and under-represents ones sold privately without a listing. Medians describe the market for sale, not every business in an industry.

Nothing here calls a listing cheap or expensive in absolute terms. It says where an asking price sits among peers in the same industry and size. That is a comparison, not a verdict.

What this data cannot tell you

• Closed prices. Asking only, as above.
• Per-industry multiples outside the US. Canada, the UK and Australia have too few listings that state both price and earnings; only national and sector medians are published.
• UK and Australian multiples against US ones. Net profit and SDE are different measures. Do not compare them.
• Why Canada runs higher. Listing mix, seller optimism and currency anchoring all fit; we cannot separate them.
• Cause behind deal-term gaps. Flags are true-or-silent, so “not stated” is not “not offered”. The gaps are associations.
• Industry labels. Industry is assigned by an AI classifier over each listing; small misclassifications at the edges of a category are possible.
• Pool and other route businesses. Margin and multiple are driven by owner labour in SDE, so read those rows as buying a job.

Methodology

Population. The Main Street Index holds 84,000+ listings from 29 sources; 78,000+ remain after counting a business once when it appears on two sites (is_cross_site_duplicate). US figures use 48,000+ de-duplicated US listings quoted in USD on an SDE basis; 27,000+ state both a positive asking price and positive SDE. Canada uses CAD/SDE listings; the UK and Australia use GBP/AUD net-profit listings. Currencies and earnings bases are never pooled.

Measures. Asking multiple = asking price / stated SDE (or net profit for the UK and Australia). Revenue multiple = asking price / stated revenue. Margin = SDE / revenue. The country table, industry table and revenue sections use listings stating asking price, revenue and earnings, all above zero (24,000+ in the US) so the three measures share one population; the national middle-half range uses all listings stating price and earnings. Medians and quartiles are computed per cut. Industry rows need 100+ listings; sector and band cells need 30+. Nothing below 30 is published.

Cross-check. The pre-computed industry benchmark layer (scoring version 1.2.0, publishable cells only) agrees with the live medians to within a few hundredths: restaurants 2.39x in the benchmark table against 2.40x live, car washes 5.64x against 5.77x. Differences come from the live table requiring revenue as well as price and earnings.

Deal terms. Each listing’s multiple is divided by the median multiple of its own industry (industries with 30+ listings, real estate excluded), and the median of those ratios is reported per flag. Seller financing, SBA label, franchise resale, home-based, route-based, training and price-reduced are flag columns taken from the listing. Size-controlled comparison: $100K to $250K SDE, no real estate included.

Correlations. Pearson correlation across the 72 industry medians, with and without pool services. Industry-level only; not a statement about individual businesses.

Privacy. Aggregate results only. No listing, seller or broker is identified.

Frequently asked questions