How we value businesses

The free MainStreetKeys valuation is a market-multiple estimate: what businesses like yours actually sold for, scaled to your owner earnings and adjusted for a few facts buyers care about. This page lists every step and every number, so you can check the math or redo it yourself.

1. Start from owner earnings (SDE)

Main-street businesses (roughly under $5M in revenue) are priced on seller's discretionary earnings: the total financial benefit to one full-time owner-operator. It's net profit plus the owner's salary and benefits, depreciation and amortization, interest, and one-time or personal expenses. See SDE explained: owner earnings and add-backs.

2. Apply a published multiple for your trade

Our base multiple is BizBuySell's average sale-price-to-SDE (“cash flow”) multiple for businesses in your industry that sold on its marketplace from Q3 2021 through Q2 2026. Those figures are reported by owners and brokers when a listing closes. Where BizBuySell publishes no row for a trade (for example pool service or roofing), we use its sector average and label the page “sector average”. We don't invent trade numbers, and we don't add a trade unless a published source exists.

3. Adjust for what buyers pay more or less for

BizBuySell notes that businesses with consistent performance, above-average earnings and low owner involvement tend to sell at or above the upper quartile, and smaller, owner-dependent businesses at or below the lower quartile. We turn that into fixed steps. The step sizes are our own judgment, not published data, and every step that applies is listed on your result.

Factor	Change to multiple
Owner involvement: Absentee: I check in, a manager runs it	+0.25×
Owner involvement: I manage, my team does the work	+0.15×
Owner involvement: I work in it part of the time	0
Owner involvement: I do most of the work myself	-0.25×
Recurring revenue 60% or more	+0.25×
Recurring revenue 30–59%	+0.10×
Recurring revenue under 10%	-0.10×
Under 2 years in business	-0.40×
2–4 years in business	-0.15×
10+ years in business	+0.10×
Owner earnings under $75K	-0.25×
Owner earnings $75K–$150K	-0.10×
Owner earnings $500K–$1M	+0.20×
Owner earnings $1M+	+0.40×
Owner earnings above 60% of revenue	-0.10×

The adjusted multiple is kept between 1.0× and 4.5×.

4. Show a range, not a point

Where BizBuySell publishes sold-business quartiles for a trade, the low and high ends scale your adjusted multiple by that trade's lower-quartile-to-average and upper-quartile-to-average ratios. Where it doesn't, we use a typical spread of 0.72× to 1.21× of the average, derived from BizBuySell's HVAC quartiles (1.99 ÷ 2.75 and 3.33 ÷ 2.75). Half of sold businesses land between the lower and upper quartile.

5. Cross-checks

We show the trade's average revenue multiple as a sanity check only, because margins vary too much for revenue to set price. For small pool routes we blend the SDE method 50/50 with the 10–12× monthly-billing rule of thumb, because that's how routes trade.

What this estimate is not

Not an appraisal, a broker opinion of value, or an offer. MainStreetKeys is not a business broker.
Not local: national averages can differ from your market. Local comps from a broker or a valuation report are more precise.
Not for real estate, inventory above normal levels, or working capital, which are usually priced separately.
Above about $1M of earnings, buyers usually price on EBITDA, so treat our range as a floor.

Sources

BizBuySell, Business Valuation Multiples by Industry (sold Q3 2021–Q2 2026), retrieved Oct 30–31, 2026.
BizBuySell per-industry valuation benchmark pages (sold-business quartiles, median revenue and owner earnings, 2021–2025), linked on each trade guide.

Trade guides

All published multiples

Trade	Avg SDE multiple	Avg revenue multiple	Median sale price	Basis
Plumbing	2.61×	0.69×	$699,000	Trade row
HVAC	2.83×quartiles 1.99–3.33×	0.60×	$750,000	Trade row
Electrical	2.77×	0.63×	$1,009,000	Trade row
Landscaping	2.49×	0.72×	$449,950	Trade row
Pool service / routes	2.61×	0.83×	—	Sector average (no trade row)
Pest control	2.46×quartiles 1.69–3×	1.01×	$250,000	Trade row
Cleaning	2.25×	0.72×	$281,500	Trade row
Roofing	2.65×	0.59×	$750,500	Sector average (no trade row)
Auto repair	2.85×	0.65×	$430,000	Trade row
Salon / barbershop	2.10×	0.52×	$117,375	Trade row
Restaurant	2.18×quartiles 1.34–2.53×	0.39×	$220,000	Trade row
Daycare / child care	3.28×quartiles 1.94–4.03×	0.88×	$380,000	Trade row
Dental practice	2.75×quartiles 1.6–3.37×	0.76×	$350,000	Trade row
Gym / fitness center	2.54×quartiles 1.72–3×	0.70×	$204,000	Trade row
Insurance agency	2.87×quartiles 1.88–3.44×	1.52×	$500,000	Trade row
Accounting / tax / bookkeeping	2.27×quartiles 1.61–2.66×	1.08×	$450,000	Trade row
Moving company	2.52×quartiles 1.8–3.11×	0.63×	$350,000	Trade row
IT services / MSP	3.22×quartiles 2.2–3.87×	1.08×	$726,800	Trade row
Locksmith	2.35×	0.75×	$300,000	Trade row
Pet grooming	2.30×quartiles 1.38–2.51×	0.63×	$152,500	Trade row
Other main-street business	2.61×	0.83×	$350,000	General main-street range

Source: BizBuySell, Business Valuation Multiples by Industry, businesses sold Q3 2021–Q2 2026; quartiles from BizBuySell's per-industry valuation benchmark pages (sold 2021–2025). Pool and roofing use sector averages; “Other” uses the Service Businesses sector. Retrieved Oct 30, 2026.

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