What business should I start? A decision table built on 49,900+ real businesses

• $173K is the median stated owner earnings (SDE) across 28,900+ USD listings that disclose it, at a 2.6x median asking multiple. That is before your salary, debt and taxes.
• Absentee businesses ask a median $390K for $150K of SDE. Owner-operated ones ask $283K for $160K. You pay for free time; it does not pay you.
• Recurring businesses earn a median $188K SDE at a 25.9% margin. Walk-in businesses earn $140K at 19.9%. The asking multiple is the same (2.57x vs 2.61x).
• One-person businesses keep a 34.4% margin, the highest of any team size, and report burnout or health as the exit reason in 6.2% of cases, nearly double teams of 21+ (3.2%).
• Licensed trades earn about 1.9x more: listings naming a contractor licence report a median $322K SDE against $171K for listings that name none.

The numbers come from the same index that powers our business ideas pillar, counted once per business and labelled as asking prices and stated earnings, because that is what a listing is. For how the corpus was built, see methodology.

Every competitor page on this question gives you a personality quiz (we covered the creative side in how to come up with a business idea): what are you passionate about, what are your skills. Those matter, but they do not tell you whether you can afford the business, whether it eats your evenings, or whether it needs a licence you do not hold. The questions below do. Answer them in order, because each one removes rows the next one would waste time on.

1. How much capital can you risk? Under $25K, you are starting a service. $100K to $500K, you can buy most main street businesses with financing. Over $1M, you are buying a team.
2. How many hours a week can you give? Under 20 means you need a business that is sold with a manager or a route you service one day a week, and you will pay more for it.
3. How many people can you manage? Zero to three keeps you in the work. Ten or more makes you a manager first.
4. Can you hold the licence? Alcohol, childcare, healthcare, pharmacy and the licensed trades gate who can own or run them.
5. Do you want recurring or walk-in revenue? Recurring means contracts and routes. Walk-in means you open the door and hope.

The SBA’s own guidance for choosing between starting, franchising and buying uses the same order: quantify your investment, then consider your talents and lifestyle, then review the full landscape (SBA, Plan your business). This page puts numbers on each step. If you want a scored version of the same idea for software and online businesses, our six-signal scorecard covers that side.

“First questions is how much capital you have.”r/sweatystartup

Two rows need a footnote. Courier & Delivery is dominated by contracted parcel delivery routes, which is why it reads 95% hands-off, 98% recurring and $1.25M asking. It is a capital and fleet business, not a van-and-phone start. Swimming Pool Services shows a 75% margin because most pool listings are owner routes where the owner’s own labour is inside SDE. Buying a pool route buys you a job with customers attached.

The full version of this table, with every listing behind each row, state filters, seller financing and price bands, lives in the Main Street Index industry view. The public rows here are the 55 business types most people ask about.

Capital decides your list faster than any other answer. Here is what an established business looks like at each asking-price band, across 47,200+ USD listings that disclose a price.

Read it as a ladder. Small businesses are cheap per dollar of earnings (1.4x under $100K) because the earnings are mostly the owner’s own labour. As price rises, you buy more staff, more hands-off structure and a higher multiple. At $1M and up, 63.6% of listings that state involvement are hands-off and the median team is 10 people.

The practical rule: your capital sets the band, and the band sets how much of the work you do yourself. With under $100K, you are buying a job or starting one. Work out your own startup budget with the startup cost calculator, and see every budget band in detail on the best business to start or buy by budget.

“If the focus is ‘lack of capital’ as the restriction then insurance and real estate are absolutely less than $5K.”r/smallbusiness

“You need to budget for 3-6 months of working capital on top of your down payment, not just enough to close.”r/buyingabusiness

Starting is cheaper and slower. Registering a business usually costs less than $300 in state fees, according to the SBA, and a service start needs equipment, insurance and marketing on top. Buying costs a median 2.6x a year of stated owner earnings and pays from the first month.

The hard part of starting is year one. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 34.7% of business establishments born in 2013 were still operating in 2023. A listed business has already survived that stretch, which is part of what the multiple pays for. Our startup failure statistics page covers the survival curve in more depth.

So the choice is mostly about your capital and your sales skill. Little capital and willing to sell door to door: start. Capital and no appetite for a cold start: buy, using the buyer guide. Software builders have the same fork; buying vs building a SaaS runs the numbers for online businesses.

“I would love to go into business for myself but could not survive without my income being replaced in a very short time period.”r/sweatystartup

“I just felt that I was risking too much of my retirement funds.”r/sweatystartup

The cheapest established businesses in the index ask under $100K and report a median $50K SDE, so even the bottom of the market needs real savings or a lender. With a few thousand dollars, the honest answer is a service you perform yourself, sold before you buy equipment. The decision table still helps: pick from rows where the licence share is low and the recurring share is high, because each recurring customer funds the next one.

The full playbook is in how to start a business with no money, and low-cost business ideas with high profit lists formats that fit a small budget. For a line-by-line cost estimate, read how much it costs to start a business.

If you plan to buy, the seller can be part of your capital. 21.9% of USD listings say seller financing is offered, and the share rises with price: 18.5% under $100K, 21.9% at $250K to $500K, and about 25% above $500K (see the capital ladder). A seller note also keeps the seller invested in a clean handover. Silence on a listing is not a no; ask.

The live listings with seller financing, filterable by state and budget, are in the Main Street Index listings view, and the buy-side view groups them for first-time buyers.

This is the question most people answer wrong, because the data that would answer it is thin. Only 15,300+ of 46,300+ USD listings with a readable description (33.1%) say how involved the owner is, and only 1,100+ (2.5%) state a number of hours.

Here is what the stated-hours listings look like. The median is 15 hours a week. A quarter state 8 or fewer, a quarter state 30 or more, 65.7% state 20 or fewer and only 5.5% state over 40.

The earnings column barely moves with hours. The multiple does: businesses sold as 10 hours or fewer ask 2.9x, businesses sold at 31 to 50 hours ask 2.1x to 2.2x. Buyers pay about 30% more per dollar of earnings for a business that promises your evenings back.

“The owner is down to about four or five hours a week.”business-for-sale listing

“1 Full-time Owner: ~50 hours / week”business-for-sale listing

“Current owner services the route 1 day per week for approximately 6 hours.”business-for-sale listing

If you are keeping a job, read how to start a business while working full time before you pick, and our part-time business ideas for formats built around a schedule.

Hours appear in listings mostly when they are low. That is a selection effect: a seller working 60 hours has no reason to print it, a seller working 8 does. So the 15-hour median is the median of businesses marketed on hours, not the median owner week. When you see a low number, ask three things: who covers the hours the owner no longer works, what that person costs, and whether that cost is already inside the stated SDE.

“Owner Involvement: 10–20 hours/week overseeing quoting, scheduling, staffing, and QC; does not perform cleanings.”business-for-sale listing

“The business runs on just ~5 hours per week of owner time”business-for-sale listing

“And it’s not easy to make a lot of money as an absentee owner”r/smallbusiness

Owners who already run something part time also sell because it does not fit around a job. Among stated reasons we found lines like these, which are worth reading before you assume a side business stays small.

“owners have fulltime jobs and its too much work to manage”business-for-sale listing

“Owner opened as a hobby but business is getting busier each day”business-for-sale listing

This is the finding we did not expect. Grouping USD listings by how the owner’s involvement is described:

Absentee businesses ask 38% more than owner-operated ones ($390K vs $283K) and report 6% less SDE ($150K vs $160K). Their sellers are also different people: 37.7% of absentee sellers say they are leaving for other business interests, against 20.7% of owner-operators, who mostly retire. Absentee businesses are often investor-owned, and investors sell to investors at investor multiples.

What this means for the decision: if you want a hands-off business, budget for the premium, or buy owner-operated and hire your replacement yourself. The cheapest way to own a semi-absentee business is usually to build the manager layer after you buy. More on reading absentee claims in our due diligence guide.

“The business is truly absentee-owned”business-for-sale listing

“You don’t just “hire guys and get trucks”. You (yes YOU personally) have to learn about the ins and outs of the business”r/smallbusiness

5,400+ USD listings are flagged home-based. They report a median $162K SDE against $175K for the rest, but ask a median $233K against $367K, a 2.09x multiple against 2.71x. No premises means no lease to assign and less capital tied up, which is why home-based formats dominate the cheap end of the table: pool service, cleaning, delivery routes, e-commerce and property management all have large home-based shares.

The catch is the one the r/smallbusiness thread above describes: your home becomes the office. If you want a home-based format, our small business ideas and unique side hustles lists are a good place to widen the search.

Team size is the cleanest dividing line in the data. Across 25,800+ USD listings that state a headcount:

Every step up in team size raises earnings and the multiple and lowers margin and burnout. Solo owners keep a third of every dollar and report health or burnout as their reason for leaving nearly twice as often as owners of 21+ person firms. Staff is how owners buy back their own capacity. If you want to work alone, pick from Recruitment & Staffing, Pharmacies, Insurance Agencies, Liquor Stores and Specialty Food Retail, which run with a median of three people or fewer, and read one-person business ideas for the online side.

“Things that worked at 1 mil broke at 2 and then broke again at 3.”r/sweatystartup

“I really need ops help but still get scared it’s adding overhead.”r/sweatystartup

“Hiring before you know that is how you scale the losing jobs.”r/sweatystartup

12.3% of USD listings with a readable description name a licence or permit that the business holds or a buyer must hold. That sounds low, and for most of the table it is. But licences concentrate. In our decision table the highest licence-named shares are pharmacies (57%), childcare (47%), bars (39%), home care (36%), plumbing (27%) and electrical (27%).

Silence is not proof a licence is not needed. The SBA lists construction, dry cleaning, plumbing, restaurants, retail and vending machines among the activities commonly regulated at the local level (SBA, Apply for licenses and permits), and alcohol sales need federal and state permits through the TTB and your state control board. Treat a low share as “rarely a gate”, not “never needed”.

“Plumbing, HVAC, and electrical businesses require a master license. The SBA will require you to have an equity partner with the license.”r/buyingabusiness

“How do you know if the 5k furnace needs to be replaced or just needs a new controller board? What about licenses and insurance?”r/smallbusiness

Two lessons. First, an alcohol licence does not raise earnings; bars and liquor stores with one earn the same median as everything else, and the licence is often part of what you pay for. Second, trade and healthcare licences are a moat: listings naming a contractor licence report 1.9x the SDE of listings that name none. If you can hold the licence, or partner with someone who does, that moat is the most reliable earnings lift in the data.

Before committing to a licensed trade, test the idea in that industry the way our guide to validating in an industry you do not know describes.

83.4% of USD listings with a readable description state how the business earns. We grouped them into four models: recurring (contracts, memberships, subscriptions, routes), repeat customers, project-based, and walk-in only.

Recurring businesses earn 35% more than walk-in ones and keep six more cents of every revenue dollar. The most recurring rows in the decision table are Courier & Delivery, Food & Beverage Wholesale, Property Management, Gyms & Fitness Studios, Swimming Pool Services, Food Trucks & Vending and Care Homes & Home Care. The least recurring are restaurants, cafes, pizzerias and nail salons, all at about 1%. If income stability matters more to you than foot traffic, start from the recurring end. Our subscription business ideas list the online equivalents.

“The genius: He targets apartment complexes where people don’t have access to water/space to wash their own cars. Leaves flyers, offers “first-time” discounts, then gets them on monthly subscriptions.”r/Entrepreneur

Buyer forums repeat that recurring revenue raises what a business sells for. In asking prices for small businesses, it does not. Holding size roughly constant by banding on SDE:

Below $250K of earnings, recurring businesses ask a lower multiple than walk-in ones. Only above $250K does recurring revenue earn a small premium. Part of this is industry mix: walk-in businesses at small sizes are often restaurants, liquor stores and fuel stations whose price includes inventory, equipment and licences, while small recurring businesses are often owner routes. Either way, the lesson for a starter is the same. Pick recurring revenue because it pays you more and steadies your month, not because it will make the business worth more when you sell a small one.

Earnings are the question under every other question on Reddit. Across the 55 types in the table, median stated SDE runs from about $80K (hair salons, dessert shops) to over $400K (dental practices, delivery routes). The top earners by median SDE are Courier & Delivery, Dental Practices, Roofing, IT Services, Medical Practices and Trucking & Freight.

Two warnings before you sort by that column. SDE is what one full-time owner could take out before their own salary, loan payments, taxes and equipment. A $160K SDE cleaning company does not pay you $160K; it pays you and your lender out of $160K. And SDE is stated by the seller or broker, never audited, so treat every figure as a ceiling. Our most profitable small businesses page ranks every industry by earnings with full ranges, and the idea evaluator guide shows how to sanity-check an earnings claim.

“Can you make 150k in a 40 hour week? Are you okay with working 80-100 hours for half the pay, no 401k match, no insurance, no paid vacation?”r/smallbusiness

“$50k is pretty good just doing your own thing in a small town.”r/sweatystartup

Fat margins and big earnings are different businesses. The highest-margin rows are Swimming Pool Services (75%), Insurance Agencies (55%), Accountancy & Bookkeeping (50%), Food Trucks & Vending (50%), Dental Practices (48%), Laundry & Dry Cleaning (40%). Most of them are small, owner-heavy or professional businesses where the owner is the product. Many of the biggest earners, such as roofing (18%), trucking (25%) and delivery routes (26%), run modest margins on much larger revenue. If you have little capital, a high-margin service is how you start; if you have capital, a lower-margin business with more revenue is how you earn.

Laundromats are the classic example of the trade-off: a 40% median margin, 57% hands-off, a $350K median ask and $123K median SDE. Restaurants sit at the other end: 17% margin and 9 staff for $150K. Neither is wrong. They suit different owners.

“he has 4 total suppliers, no website, minimal staff costs and he’s making money hand over fist.”r/Entrepreneur

Sellers rarely write “burnt out” on a listing. Of 31,000+ scoreable stated reasons in the USD set, 1.4% cite burnout or workload and 3.5% cite health. Retirement leads at 40.6%, then other business interests at 24.3% and relocation at 10.9%. So we combine burnout and health into one “worn down” signal and compare industries.

The highest worn-down shares in the decision table: Schools & Tutoring (12.7%), Catering (9.9%), Food Trucks & Vending (9.6%), Swimming Pool Services (9.5%), Gyms & Fitness Studios (8.7%), Trucking & Freight (8.5%), Ice Cream & Dessert Shops (8.2%). The lowest: IT Services (0%), Pharmacies (0.8%), Dental Practices (1.1%), Fuel Stations (1.5%), Domestic Cleaning (1.7%), Insurance Agencies (2.4%). The pattern is consistent: most of the high rows are customer-facing businesses with evening, weekend or seasonal demand, while the low rows are licensed practices and staffed operations.

Tutoring stands out at 12.7%, the highest in the table, on a $168K median ask. It is cheap to enter and hard to keep doing. For the full breakdown of stated reasons by industry, see why owners sell their businesses.

“Burnt out and ready to move into another venture after 15 years”business-for-sale listing

“Owner is seeking a break after nearly 9 years of operating the business.”business-for-sale listing

“Doesn’t have the stamina to scale by himself”business-for-sale listing

“the financial freedom youre building now is gonna buy you options most people wont have until their 30s. just dont burn out”r/Entrepreneur

The listing counts in the decision table measure how common a business is, not how crowded your town is. 4,700+ restaurants for sale means restaurants are everywhere, not that there is no room for one more. Saturation is local, and the SBA’s market research checklist frames it the same way: how many similar options are already available to the customers you can reach.

“Population and demographic size is the issue there, not the business. 100k people is a one man operation”r/sweatystartup

“Bruh in my 250k population city there’s like 5 junk removal business with a fleet of trucks.”r/sweatystartup

“Too many Day care centers”business-for-sale listing

A practical test: count operators within your service radius on a map (the free niche finder helps narrow the angle), read their reviews for the complaint you would fix, and check whether the top three are booked out. If the leaders are booked for weeks, demand exceeds supply. Our oversaturated side hustles page covers the online version of this check, and how to validate niche viability gives the steps.

“Willing to bet half the competition also “don’t know what they’re doing”.”r/sweatystartup

The table covers main street businesses because that is where the earnings data is dense. Online businesses follow the same five questions with different answers: little capital, flexible hours, small teams, almost no licences and often recurring revenue. The trade is distribution: you compete with the whole internet instead of your town. If that suits you, start with problem-first business ideas, our scalable business ideas, or research a problem in BigIdeasDB from 1M+ complaints and data points.

There is also a middle path: build software for the businesses in this table. Main street owners run on paper and spreadsheets more than almost any market, which we document in small business software pain points and how small business owners use AI.

Here is the quiz, answered for the six profiles we see most in founder forums. Each shortlist is computed directly from the decision table above, so it moves when the data does. Find the one closest to you, then go back to the table and sort.

Filter: median ask $200K or less and 50% or more of stated listings hands-off. Shortlist: E-commerce & Online Retail, Nail Salons, Domestic Cleaning, Gyms & Fitness Studios, Food Trucks & Vending, Schools & Tutoring, Cafes & Coffee Shops and Ice Cream & Dessert Shops.

These are the formats most often sold with staff in place at a small price. Cafes ask $180K for $89K SDE with 58% hands-off. The catch is margin and burnout: dessert shops and gyms carry worn-down shares of 8.2% and 8.7%. Verify who works the weekends.

Filter: licence named in 5% or fewer listings and 50% or more recurring. Shortlist: Courier & Delivery, Marketing & Advertising, Commercial & Industrial Cleaning, Swimming Pool Services, Gyms & Fitness Studios, Food & Beverage Wholesale and Food Trucks & Vending.

This is the classic “boring business” profile, and the data backs the reputation. Commercial cleaning earns a median $160K on a $255K ask with 54% recurring and one of the lowest asking multiples in the table (1.7x). It is also the most common way people start from zero. See boring business ideas and service business ideas for more in this vein, or the niche business ideas guide to narrow a service to one customer type.

“If you want to make money just start a business doing whatever simple service you can. Mowing, HVAC, Pest Control, Pool Clean.”r/sweatystartup

“the thing about “boring” businesses is that they will typically make money on the way up as well.”r/sweatystartup

Filter: licence named in 20% or more of listings, ranked by median SDE. Shortlist: Electrical Contracting, Plumbing, Pharmacies, Care Homes & Home Care, Insurance Agencies, Childcare & Nurseries, Restaurants and Liquor Stores.

Licences keep competitors out, which is why licensed trades sit near the top of the earnings column. HVAC earns $230K and plumbing $228K at 2.4x and 2.4x. Note that HVAC names a licence in only 14% of listings: many sellers assume the buyer knows. If you are not the licence holder, budget for one on payroll from day one.

“It’s not easy to start an HVAC company.”r/smallbusiness

Filter: median staff of three or fewer, ranked by SDE. Shortlist: Recruitment & Staffing, Pharmacies, Insurance Agencies, Liquor Stores, Specialty Food Retail, Property Management, E-commerce & Online Retail and Convenience Stores.

Small teams keep more margin but leave you as the backup for every role. The upside is control. The downside shows up in the burnout column. If you are keeping a day job, the side hustle vs business breakdown helps decide when a tiny operation should become a real one.

“I do not work from home. I live at my office.”r/smallbusiness

Filter: burnout or health in 3% or fewer of stated reasons, ranked by SDE. Shortlist: Dental Practices, IT Services, Recruitment & Staffing, Security Services, Plumbing, Pharmacies, Insurance Agencies and Fuel Stations.

These are mostly staffed, licensed or professional businesses where the owner manages rather than serves. They cost more to buy and take longer to start. That is the price of a calmer week.

“hire a manager or supervisor and step back part time, use profit to buy time not stuff”r/Entrepreneur

Filter: median SDE margin of 40% or more. Shortlist: Swimming Pool Services, Insurance Agencies, Accountancy & Bookkeeping, Food Trucks & Vending, Dental Practices and Laundry & Dry Cleaning.

High margin plus low capital is where most first businesses should start, because each customer pays for the next piece of equipment. Pool service (75% margin, $128K ask) and food or vending routes (50%, $130K) are the cheapest entries. Remember the footnote: high margin in owner-route businesses is mostly your own wage.

“Low startup cost (van, supplies, basic equipment ~$15k), high margins.”r/Entrepreneur

We read 70+ recent threads in r/sweatystartup, r/smallbusiness and r/Entrepreneur that ask some version of “what should I start”. Five questions came up again and again.

“How much will I actually make?”

A median $173K of SDE for an established business, before your salary, debt and taxes. A brand new service business earns far less in year one. Use the earnings column as the ceiling a mature version reaches.

“How many hours does it really take?”

Most listings will not tell you. Of those that do, the median is 15 hours a week, but those are the businesses sold on hours. Owner-operated businesses, the largest group that states involvement, are run by the owner full time.

“How much money do I need?”

To buy: the median ask is $350K. Under $100K buys a business with a median $50K SDE. To start: a few thousand for a service, plus several months of living costs. See the capital ladder.

“Is it saturated?”

Saturation is local. Common businesses have lots of listings because they are common. Count operators in your radius.

“Will I burn out?”

Solo, customer-facing businesses report burnout or health about twice as often as staffed ones. The cure is staff, and staff costs margin.

“Real talk: keep your job longer. Test #1 on weekends until you hit $2k/month consistently. THEN quit.”r/sweatystartup

“The reality of small business ownership is that you are simply trading one job for 5 others.”r/smallbusiness

“you technically dont have a boss, you have to report to the irs, the state, your accountant, and every single customer.”r/smallbusiness

• Low multiple, high margin, no staff. You are buying a job. Fine if that is the goal; price it as a job.
• Hands-off claim with no named manager. Ask who works the hours the owner does not, and whether their wage is already deducted from SDE.
• A licence you cannot hold. Lenders and landlords will ask. Solve it before the letter of intent.
• A stated reason that hides the real one. “Other business interests” is the second most common reason. Ask what changed in the last 12 months.
• Passion as the only filter. Every row in the table was someone’s passion once.

“Don’t start a business for more “freedom” or because you dont want to “report to your boss”.”r/smallbusiness

“It feels like you have to master sales, marketing, product development, software, manufacturing and a few other things just to break even.”r/smallbusiness

The table gets you to two candidates. Local evidence decides between them. Spend two weeks, not two months:

1. Call five operators of each type outside your area and ask what their first year earned.
2. Price ten real jobs or ten real baskets with local competitors.
3. Sell the service once before buying equipment, even at cost.
4. For a purchase, request the last three years of tax returns before discussing price.

Our side hustle validation guide and the idea validation checklist walk through each step. Run a draft plan through the free business idea evaluator and check payback with the break-even calculator. To compare two finalists side by side, use how to choose between ideas and sketch each one with the business model generator. If you still have no candidates at all, start with what to do when you have no ideas or the business idea generator.

“Cheapest fix is a notebook in the truck. Every job: what he charged, miles driven, dump fee, hours door to door.”r/sweatystartup

Say you have $120K you can risk, can give 30 hours a week while a partner works, will manage up to five people and hold no licence. Walk the filters:

1. Capital $120K: enough for a down payment and working capital on a business asking up to roughly $400K with financing, or a well-funded service start.
2. 30 hours: rules out owner-on-site retail and food, where most owners work full time.
3. Up to five staff: keeps rows with a median of five or fewer.
4. No licence: removes rows over 10% licence-named.
5. Recurring preferred: keeps rows over 30% recurring.

What survives: Recruitment & Staffing, Building & Property Maintenance, Commercial & Industrial Cleaning, Beauty Services, Swimming Pool Services and Food & Beverage Wholesale. Rank by earnings and burnout and you have a shortlist of two to test locally. That is the whole method.

• Days 1 to 30: register the business, open a bank account, confirm every licence and permit with your city and state, and land the first paying customer before buying anything you cannot return.
• Days 31 to 60: track every job or sale in a simple log (price, hours, costs) so you know which work pays. Compare your numbers with the row for your business type in the table.
• Days 61 to 90: raise prices on the work that sells out, drop the work that loses money, and decide whether the next hire or the next piece of equipment buys you more capacity.

If you bought instead, spend the first 90 days learning before changing anything. Our failed business lessons page collects what goes wrong when owners skip that step. Track the numbers with the free ROI calculator.

Your skills, your network, your town and your temperament are not in any table. A median is the middle of a wide range; a great operator in a “bad” industry beats a poor one in a good industry. Use the table to avoid obviously wrong choices and to ask better questions, then let local evidence decide. For the skills side, see what to learn before starting a business, and for problem-first idea discovery, business ideas that solve real problems, built on BigIdeasDB’s 1M+ complaints and data points.

“this is going to be harder than you seem to think it is, and here are some potential pitfalls you will want to be aware of”r/Entrepreneur

All figures were queried read-only from the BigIdeasDB database on October 1, 2026. Each business is counted once (cross-site duplicates removed). We use only USD-priced listings that report SDE (97.9% US), because SDE and net profit are different quantities and currencies cannot be pooled. Industry medians come from precomputed benchmark cells that need 30 or more listings; any share in the table whose own sample is under 30 is withheld.

How the AI fields were checked. Owner involvement, hours, revenue model and licences come from a model reading each listing description, defaulting to “not stated” and quoting its evidence. On a fresh, stratified sample of 100 listings judged by hand, all 14 fields passed an 85% floor: owner involvement 94%, owner hours 99%, licences 99% and revenue model 86%. Every share on this page is “of listings that state it”.

Definitions. Hands-off = absentee, semi-absentee or manager-run, among listings that state involvement. Recurring = recurring contracts, subscriptions or memberships, or routes. Burnout or health = those two stated reasons among scoreable reasons (non-answers and non-owner exits excluded). Search interest for “what business to start” on Google Trends peaked the week of February 1, 2026, about half the level of “business ideas”.

Developers can query the same data through the Main Street Index MCP tools.

• Survivorship. These are businesses that survived long enough to be sold. Startups that failed are not here, so earnings describe what working versions reach.
• Asking, not closing. Prices and multiples are what sellers ask. Closed prices are usually lower.
• Stated, not audited. SDE is the seller’s figure, often with generous add-backs.
• Disclosure bias. Hours appear when they are low; licences appear when they are an asset. Read every share as “of those that say so”.
• Industry mix inside comparisons. The recurring vs walk-in and hands-off vs owner-operated gaps are not controlled for industry. They describe the market a buyer faces, not a causal effect.
• US-centred. USD/SDE listings are 97.9% US. UK and Australian listings report net profit and are excluded from every earnings figure.

FAQ

Keep going with the rest of this cluster: the business ideas pillar, most profitable small businesses, best business by budget and why owners sell. For founders weighing software instead, see boring industries begging for micro SaaS and the vertical SaaS guide.