How much is a business actually worth?

April 07, 2026

by an investor from University of Oxford in Austin, TX, USA

We built a free Business Valuation Tool based on real world transaction data, so you can start with what’s actually happening in the market. You can check it out here: https://tinyurl.com/583dyrht It draws on 20,000+ SMB deals to give you a baseline valuation using: - Revenue and EBITDA - Industry - Geography The model is transparent, so you can see how much each of these factors contribute to the overall multiple. From there, you can adjust for important qualitative factors: customer concentration, owner involvement, growth potential, etc. and see how they impact value. If you're a buyer, seller, broker, or investor, it’s a quick way to gut-check a valuation before spending too much time underwriting it.

Reply by a professional
from University of Toronto in Toronto, ON, Canada

^redacted‌, thank you for sharing this valuation model - it's simplicity is intriguing! Could you kindly elaborate on the "20,000+ SMB deals" that comprise the underlying data set? Are they from the SBA files that you reference on your website? Since data relevance declines with the passage of time, what time period(s) do they cover? Are they given equal weight in the model regardless of their age and the macroeconomic environment that prevailed at the time, or are they 'adjusted' to take those factors into account?

Reply by an intermediary
from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, USA

Like with any valuation tool, serve it with a grain of salt and a helping of rational thinking. Take this example (same NAICS, same geo): 1. $7 mm revenue, $900k EBITDA = $3.39 mm and 3.76x P/EBITDA. 2. $10 mm revenue, $2 mm EBITDA = $6.48 mm and 3.24x P/EBITDA.

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