How Much Is My Business Worth?
Without telling a broker you are thinking about it. A broker will value your business for free, and from that moment a salesperson knows you are considering a sale — and their number is also their pitch to win the listing. This asks nobody. It runs entirely in your browser: no email, no account, and nothing you type is sent anywhere, including to us — unless you afterwards ask us to email the result to you.
Enter your real numbers and get a Normalised EBITDA and an indicative Enterprise Value range, with every step shown — Reported EBITDA → Owner Compensation Add-back → Normalised EBITDA → Enterprise Value. You get the working, not just a figure, so you can defend it or argue with it.
Free, no email. If you want the full system behind it, the Business Sale Readiness & Valuation Toolkit is $499 — see what it covers.
This gives a real, formula-driven Normalised EBITDA and an indicative range across typical small-business multiples (2x–4x) — not a professional valuation, and not a substitute for one. It does not account for add-backs beyond owner compensation, debt, or cash; the full toolkit's Business Inputs & EBITDA sheet handles every add-back category, plus a full Readiness Assessment and Adviser Prep Summary.
How this calculator works
Almost every small business changes hands on the same arithmetic: normalised earnings × a multiple. Everything else is an argument about one of those two numbers. This calculator shows both, and shows the steps between them, because a figure you cannot explain is a figure you cannot defend in a negotiation.
- Reported EBITDA. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation — profit before the costs of how the business is financed and how its assets are written down, so two businesses can be compared on trading alone.
- Owner compensation add-back. Most owner-run businesses pay the owner something other than a market salary. If you pay yourself £20,000 and a hired manager would cost £60,000, the business is £40,000 less profitable than it looks. If you pay yourself £150,000, it is more. A buyer adjusts for this before anything else.
- Normalised EBITDA. What the business earns under a normal owner, on a normal salary, with one-offs stripped out. This is the number a buyer values.
- Enterprise Value. Normalised EBITDA multiplied by a multiple. The range is wide on purpose: the multiple is the part that is argued over, and a single figure would be a false precision.
What moves the multiple
Two businesses with identical profit can sell for very different money. These are the things buyers actually adjust for, roughly in order of how much they move the number:
- Owner dependence. If the business stops working when you stop working, the buyer is buying a job. This is the single biggest discount on small businesses, and it is also the most fixable.
- Customer concentration. One client at 40% of revenue is a risk the buyer prices in, because that client may have a relationship with you rather than with the company.
- Recurring versus repeat. Contracted, cancellable-with-notice revenue is worth meaningfully more than loyal customers who happen to come back.
- Quality of records. Accounts a buyer's accountant can verify in a week are worth more than accounts that take three months to reconstruct. Diligence friction comes straight off the price.
- Size. Larger businesses attract larger multiples, mostly because they attract more buyers and more financing options.
- Sector and growth. Real, but usually less decisive than owners expect, and almost never enough to rescue the four above.
A worked example
A business reports £120,000 EBITDA. The owner pays themselves £30,000; a manager to do the same job would cost £65,000. There was also a one-off legal cost of £15,000 last year.
- Reported EBITDA: £120,000
- Owner adjustment: −£35,000 (the gap between £30,000 and a market £65,000)
- One-off added back: +£15,000
- Normalised EBITDA: £100,000
At a multiple of 3× that is an Enterprise Value of £300,000; at 4× it is £400,000. The same business, the same year, a £100,000 difference — decided entirely by the four factors above. That is why the output here is a range and why anyone quoting you a single confident number should be asked how they got it.
Enterprise value is not what lands in your account
This is the step most calculators skip, and it is the one that surprises sellers. Enterprise Value is the value of the business. Equity Value is what the shareholders get. To go from one to the other you subtract debt and add surplus cash, and then there is tax.
A business with an Enterprise Value of £400,000 and £90,000 of outstanding finance is a £310,000 equity deal before anything else. Add a deferred element or an earn-out — common on owner-run sales — and the cash at completion is lower again. A valuation is the start of that sum, not the end of it.
What a calculator cannot know
Being straight about this is more useful to you than another decimal place. This arithmetic cannot see:
- What a specific buyer would pay, which depends on what they already own and what they are trying to achieve
- Whether your revenue is contracted or merely habitual — it reads the figure, not the agreement behind it
- Anything in your accounts a buyer's accountant would dispute
- Your local market, your sector's current appetite, or whether anyone is buying at all this quarter
Treat the output as a defensible starting range built from your own numbers, with the working shown — not a price, and not advice. It is arithmetic and general information, not financial, tax, legal or investment advice.
Common questions
How do you calculate what a small business is worth?
Normalised earnings multiplied by a multiple. You start from reported EBITDA, adjust the owner's pay to what a hired manager would actually cost, strip out genuine one-offs, and apply a multiple that reflects how risky the earnings are without you in the business. Both halves are arguments, which is why a credible answer is a range with its working shown rather than a single figure.
What is a typical multiple for a small business?
For owner-run businesses it is usually a low single-digit multiple of normalised earnings, and where a particular business falls inside that is decided mostly by owner dependence, customer concentration, whether revenue is contracted, and how easily the accounts can be verified. Anyone quoting a precise multiple without knowing those four things is guessing.
Why does the owner's salary change the valuation?
Because a buyer has to replace you. If you pay yourself well below market rate, the business is less profitable than the accounts suggest once a manager is hired, and the valuation falls accordingly. If you pay yourself above market rate, the opposite applies. This adjustment is made before anything else and it moves the number more than most owners expect.
Is enterprise value the amount I would receive?
No, and this is the step most calculators skip. Enterprise value is the value of the business; equity value is what shareholders get. You subtract debt and add surplus cash to get there, and tax comes after that. A deferred payment or an earn-out, both common on owner-run sales, reduce the cash at completion again.
Should I just ask a broker to value my business instead?
A broker will usually do it free, and the trade-off is worth understanding: from that moment a salesperson knows you are considering a sale, and the figure they give you is also their pitch to win the listing. Knowing your own number first, with the working, means you can judge theirs. This calculator asks nobody and sends nothing anywhere.
Is anything I type here sent to you?
No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser. There is no email field required, no account, and the figures you enter are never transmitted, including to us, unless you afterwards choose to have the result emailed to you. Print the page or save it to keep your result.
The longer write-up: how to value a small business, with the three methods buyers use →