You built the firm, the team, and the client relationships over decades. See what it's worth, privately, before you talk to a single buyer. We run a confidential, competitive process, so your clients, your staff, and your competitors never know unless you decide to move forward.
For most owners this is the biggest and most personal decision of their lives. We treat it that way.
Tell us about your firm and a senior advisor will reach out personally to discuss what your business is worth.
What a service firm sells for comes down to how much revenue renews, client concentration, and founder dependence. We've closed 33 professional services transactions as part of more than $1B in deals; these are the ranges we see.
Revenue that renews is the biggest lever, whatever your lane calls it. Retainers, managed-services contracts, a renewing book: buyers pay a premium of a turn or two over comparable project work for it, because it survives the founder's exit. Documenting that base is part of how BizDepot lifts your price.
For smaller, founder-run firms, buyers price on SDE (Seller's Discretionary Earnings), which is your profit plus your owner salary, benefits, and one-time costs added back. Once a firm earns more than about $1M and runs on a management team, buyers switch to EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization). Same idea, larger firm. The multiple is applied to that earnings number.
An example. Take a service firm with $6M in revenue and about $1.2M in adjusted earnings. A project-heavy firm where the founder holds the key relationships and one client is a quarter of revenue might sell around 4x, roughly $4.8M. The same earnings from a firm with a majority-recurring book, strong retention, and a leadership team that owns the client relationships can command 7x in a competitive process, roughly $8.4M. Same earnings, very different outcome, driven by revenue quality and transferability.
What you keep. What you actually keep matters more than the headline price. How the deal is structured (asset versus stock sale, earnout, rollover equity), your tax basis, and how much of the price is contingent all change your net. In professional services, buyers often propose earnouts tied to client retention, so how those terms are written matters as much as the multiple, and negotiating them is a core part of what we do. Talk to a tax professional for your situation.
See the exact number your multiple gets applied to.
For most founders of service firms, the hardest part of selling isn't the number. It's the people. You want your team to keep their jobs and your clients cared for after your name comes off the door. So we make that part of the deal, not an afterthought.
In most professional-services sales the team is retained, because the team is the product a buyer is acquiring. How your people are treated is something we negotiate for you and weigh when choosing a buyer.
Client transition is the make-or-break of a service-firm sale: introductions sequenced, relationships documented across the team, and the buyer's plans vetted before you commit.
Many buyers keep the firm's name and brand, especially where it carries the client trust they're paying for. If your name matters to you, we look for a buyer whose plans fit.
Not all private equity is what you fear. Many PE-backed buyers invest in the firm, keep the team, and give founders a second payout when the platform sells again. We steer you toward the right buyer.
You decide how involved you stay after the sale. Buyers usually want the founder through a defined handover, but the length, the terms, and how much of your price rides on it are all negotiable, and we work it around your goals.
Successful service firms get unsolicited calls, often from a PE-backed platform rolling up your lane or a larger firm buying capability. One buyer, negotiating alone, has every reason to pay as little as possible and to shift price into an earnout. A competitive process changes the math.
The buyer who called you is welcome to bid. In our process, they just have to bid against everyone else.
Know your number before any buyer names theirs.
BizDepot is a national M&A advisory that sells profitable professional-services firms. We've closed 33 professional services transactions as part of more than $1B in deal volume. Here's what that gets you.
We bring your firm to a national universe of vetted, qualified buyers, the platforms, strategics, and family offices acquiring service firms, not just whoever called you.
Your firm is marketed as a blind profile. Your name is revealed only to buyers who have signed an NDA, so your clients, staff, and competitors don't learn the firm is for sale until a vetted buyer signs.
We know how service firms are valued, how buyers underwrite recurring revenue, concentration, and key-person risk, and where value is won or lost, because we've done it 33 times.
Our fee is success-based. You pay nothing up front and only when your business sells. If it doesn't sell, you owe us nothing.
You don't have to be ready to sell to find out what your business is worth. Get a free, confidential valuation, keep the number, and decide in your own time. No pressure, no obligation.
Service firms are valued on a multiple of recast earnings, but the multiple itself is set by a handful of factors you can influence most of.
The share of revenue on retainers, managed contracts, renewing engagements, or a retained book. Renewal revenue survives the founder's exit, which is exactly why buyers pay a premium for it.
Client retention and contract renewal rates, documented. Strong retention history is what converts "we have great clients" into a number a buyer will underwrite.
How much of your revenue depends on any single client. Concentration draws discounts and retention-tied earnouts; a spread book protects both your price and your terms.
Whether clients are served by your people or by you personally. Relationships that transfer are valued; relationships that leave with the founder are discounted, and this is the sector's defining risk.
A real second layer of leadership, and key staff under the right agreements. The team is the product, and buyers underwrite whether it stays.
Founder dependence is the most common discount in professional services, and it is fixable. We help you show a buyer the firm runs on its team and systems, and we structure a transition that protects your value.
These are the levers that move your multiple. You do not need them all in place before you talk to us. If you have 12 to 24 months, working on them can add a full turn or more to your multiple. If you're ready to sell now, we position the strengths you already have.
Convert project work to renewing arrangements where your lane allows: retainers, managed contracts, annual engagements.
Document retention and renewal rates so your recurring base is provable, not asserted.
Spread client relationships across your team, and introduce your seconds to the accounts that matter most.
Reduce client concentration so no single account dominates your revenue.
Retain your key people with the right agreements, so the team a buyer is paying for demonstrably stays.
Clean up and separate your financials, and keep a multi-year earnings history that supports your story.
Not sure which of these matters most for your firm? A free, confidential valuation shows you exactly where your value is today and which levers move it most.
Get a free valuationFour kinds of buyers are acquiring service firms today. Many of them keep the team and the brand and grow the firm. We help you find one whose plans fit yours.
PE-backed platforms are rolling up accounting, IT services, insurance, staffing, and agencies, and each platform buys many firms exactly this size. Buyer demand is strong and consolidating fast, and a generation of founders is reaching retirement at once. That's why many founders are choosing to find out their number now rather than wait.
Larger firms buying capabilities, geography, or a book of business. Strategics can pay the strongest prices when your firm is worth more inside theirs.
Patient buyers who acquire quality firms from retiring founders and hold for the long term.
Experienced professionals and funded buyers looking for one great firm to run themselves.
We work with established service firms, from founder-led practices with real earnings to larger specialty operators. If you're above $2M in revenue and thinking about an exit, you're worth a conversation.
BizDepot's job is to bring that buyer universe to your door, confidentially, and make them compete for your business.
Your sale is run end to end by a senior advisor, confidentially, from the first valuation to the wire at closing.
4–7 months
first call to wired funds
We do everything else
You do three things
Straight answers to the questions firm owners ask us most. Pick a topic.
Most service firms sell for about 2.5x to 4x SDE at the smaller, founder-led end, and about 4x to 9x EBITDA once earnings pass roughly $1M and the client relationships live with the team. Recurring-revenue firms and scaled specialty operators reach the top of those ranges and beyond. Your exact number depends most on how much revenue renews, your client concentration, and founder dependence, and a free, confidential BizDepot valuation gives you a specific range.
Established service firms generally sell for about 4x to 6x EBITDA, firms with majority-recurring revenue reach 6x to 9x, and scaled specialty firms go higher. The spread between lanes is real (a renewing insurance book prices differently from a project-based consultancy), which is why the specific multiple for your firm matters more than any average. BizDepot gives you that specific multiple in a free valuation.
SDE (Seller's Discretionary Earnings) adds the owner's salary and perks back to profit and is used for smaller, founder-run firms. EBITDA is used for larger firms with a management team. Service firms shift from SDE-based to EBITDA-based pricing as earnings pass roughly $1M.
Revenue that renews is the most valuable revenue a service firm has, whatever your lane calls it: retainers, agency-of-record relationships, managed-services contracts, a retained book, annual engagements. Buyers underwrite the renewal rate and the contract terms, and a majority-recurring firm can be worth a turn or two more than a comparable project shop. Documenting that base is part of how BizDepot lifts your price.
Heavily. A single client above roughly a fifth of revenue draws a discount and usually an earnout tied to retention, and heavier concentration compresses the price further or narrows your buyer pool. It is fixable: diversification and relationships spread across the team protect your multiple, and we position concentration honestly so it never surprises a buyer in diligence.
Convert project work to renewing arrangements, document retention, spread client relationships across your team, reduce concentration, retain key people with the right agreements, and clean up your financials. Starting 12 to 24 months out has the biggest impact, but even a few months of preparation helps, and a free BizDepot valuation shows you which levers matter most for your firm.
Founder dependence lowers the price, because a buyer weighs the risk that the clients and the know-how walk out the door with you. It is the defining discount in professional services, and buyers respond with earnouts and long stay-ons. It is normal and fixable. We help show a buyer the firm runs on its team, and we structure a transition that protects your value.
Start with a valuation and exit strategy, then a financial recast and CIM, confidential introductions to vetted buyers, a private buyer auction with the earnout and transition terms negotiated hard, diligence, and a funded close. BizDepot runs all of it for you, confidentially.
A well-prepared sale typically runs about 4 to 7 months from first call to wired funds, depending on your financials, client diligence, and buyer type. BizDepot manages every stage so it stays on track.
A recast rebuilds your profit-and-loss to show a buyer the true earnings power of the firm by adding back owner-specific and one-time expenses. It is what your valuation multiple is applied to.
A Confidential Information Memorandum is the blind marketing document that presents your firm to qualified buyers without revealing its identity until they sign an NDA.
An Indication of Interest is a non-binding early signal of a buyer's price range. A Letter of Intent is a more detailed offer that sets price and terms and moves the deal into diligence.
For a firm with meaningful earnings and multiple potential buyer types, an M&A advisor that runs a competitive process usually nets a higher price and better terms than a single-buyer sale. In service firms the terms (earnout, transition, retention packages) matter as much as the price. BizDepot is a national M&A advisory built for exactly this.
Service firms are bought by private-equity-backed platforms rolling up their lanes, larger strategic firms buying capabilities or books, family offices and search funds, and experienced individual operators. PE is the most active class, consolidating lane by lane with each platform buying many firms of exactly this size, and BizDepot brings that whole buyer universe to you.
Yes, all of them. Professional-services firms we represent include accounting and CPA practices, IT services companies and MSPs, insurance agencies, staffing and recruiting firms, marketing and creative agencies, engineering practices, and consultancies. Each lane prices differently, and matching your firm to the buyers consolidating your lane is exactly what BizDepot's process is built for.
The best time is when your recurring base and retention story are strong, because that is what buyers pay premiums for. Demand from consolidating platforms is high, a generation of founders is heading for the exit at once, and disciplined buyers are rewarding prepared firms. A free BizDepot valuation tells you what your firm would attract in this market.
No. We market your firm as a blind profile and reveal its identity only to vetted buyers who have signed an NDA. Your clients, your staff, and your competitors never know unless and until a deal closes. Confidentiality is the number one guarantee of how BizDepot works, and in a relationship business, where a leak can unsettle clients and staff alike, we treat secrecy as the deal's first asset.
In most service-firm sales the team is retained, because the team is what the buyer is acquiring. Retention packages for key staff are a normal part of these deals, and how your people are treated is something we negotiate for you and weigh when choosing a buyer.
With a managed transition, most do. Client transition is a process: relationships documented and spread across the team before the sale, introductions sequenced through a defined handover, and a buyer chosen partly for how they will serve your clients. It is the make-or-break of a service-firm deal, and BizDepot manages it as a first-order part of every engagement.
Expect a transition, and negotiate it well. Service-firm buyers usually want the founder through a defined handover, and platform deals often propose multi-year arrangements. The length, the terms, and how much of your price rides on it are all negotiable, and shaping them around your goals is a core part of what we do.
Often, yes, especially where the name carries the client trust the buyer is paying for. We help you find a buyer whose plans fit what matters to you.
Many deals let you roll over a portion of equity and take a second payout when the platform sells again. Rollover is common in professional-services platform deals, and we structure the deal around your goals.
Some professions require the buyer, or a qualified person inside the firm, to hold the license, and some regulate who may own the firm at all. It is a solvable structuring question, not a dead end, and it is exactly the kind of item we map before going to market so it never stalls a deal. BizDepot addresses licensure and ownership requirements as one of the first items in every professional-services engagement.
The fee for selling a service firm through an M&A advisor is typically success-based, a percentage of the final sale price paid only at closing, with no upfront costs. Your BizDepot advisor confirms the exact terms before you engage.
How much you keep depends mostly on how the deal is structured, not on the headline price, and it is what you actually retire on. The biggest savings come from planning before you sell: asset versus stock sale, how much of the price is contingent in an earnout, your tax basis, state taxes, and whether you roll over equity all change what you owe. Structuring the deal to maximize your net proceeds is a core part of what BizDepot does, and starting 12 to 24 months out gives you the most room. Talk to a tax professional for your situation.
In an asset sale the buyer purchases the assets of the business, and in a stock sale they buy the company entity. In service firms the structure can matter for client contracts and licensure, and it affects taxes and liability for both sides. It is a key negotiation point we manage.
BizDepot is a national M&A advisory that has sold businesses since 2003, with more than $1B in transactions, 530+ successful exits firm-wide, and 33 professional services businesses among them. We work sell-side only, on success fees only, so we're paid when you are. Meet the advisory team that runs these deals.
Yes. BizDepot is a national M&A advisory and represents firm owners across the United States. Wherever your firm is, you get the same confidential, competitive process and the same national buyer network.
Consolidating platforms are competing for well-run service firms. See your number before you decide anything. No one finds out you're exploring a sale.
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