DataMillions · Inspection ledger

Will it sell? Most asking prices sit near the market. A few do not.

Set against what each category trades at, the typical business for sale asks about 3.45× its yearly profit. The story is in the tail, and in how little the resolved listings can yet tell us.

Aggregate snapshot published 22 Oct 2026 · collection date not recorded · sample sizes shown on every figure

607listings tracked
243with a numeric ask and profit
19resolved, both figures
11,429startups, 293 days (separate comparison set)

The typical ask: about 3.5 years of profit

Implied multiple is the asking price divided by the profit the seller states. Across 243 live listings the median is 3.45×. Software-as-a-service sits at the top of the range and direct-to-consumer at the bottom, but four of the nine models rest on fewer than fifteen listings, so their order is soft.

Median asking price, as a multiple of stated annual profit By business model · live listings with a numeric ask and profit · bars start at zero
  • SaaSn=45 4.22× SaaS: median ask 4.22×, 45 listings.
  • Comparisonn=17 3.90× Comparison: median ask 3.90×, 17 listings.
  • Marketplacen=12 3.62× Marketplace: median ask 3.62×, 12 listings, small sample.
  • Median=33 3.45× Media: median ask 3.45×, 33 listings.
  • Reviewsn=36 3.39× Reviews: median ask 3.39×, 36 listings.
  • Newslettern=11 3.10× Newsletter: median ask 3.10×, 11 listings, small sample.
  • Coursen=31 3.06× Course: median ask 3.06×, 31 listings.
  • Leadsn=12 2.94× Leads: median ask 2.94×, 12 listings, small sample.
  • DTCn=10 2.84× DTC: median ask 2.84×, 10 listings, small sample.

Hatched bars mark models with fewer than 15 listings; their medians can move a lot with one listing. The vertical rule is the median across all 243 priced listings.

Asking is not selling

For 19 listings we hold both an ask and a recorded outcome. Their median multiple is 3.01×, a little under the 3.45× of the whole pool. That comparison is the one readers most want, and it is the weakest number on this page: 19 listings, a spread from 0.90× to 28.5×, and the ask recorded at resolution rather than a transaction price.

Asking vs resolved: median multiple of stated profit Historical snapshot · common zero-based scale · resolved = recorded outcome; ask as recorded, not a transaction price
Asking multipleall 243 priced listings
3.45×
Resolved listingsonly 19 listings
3.01×

The 19 resolved listings ranged from 0.90× to 28.5× — the top of that range is off this chart’s scale (5×) by design, not trimmed from the median. With n = 19, the 0.44× gap between the two medians is within what a handful of listings could change; it is not evidence of a difference.

Median asking multiple 3.45× across 243 listings; median resolved multiple 3.01× across 19 listings.

One resolved listing sits at 28.5× its stated profit, in a category whose median ask is 4.22×. It is the strongest counterexample to this whole method. Its price is not published anywhere we can check, so it stays here as a contradiction, not a conclusion.

A listing closing is also not a business succeeding. “Resolved” means the listing reached a recorded outcome. It says nothing about whether the buyer was right.

The tail: 9 of 243

Only 9 of 243 asks (3.7%) sit at twice their category median or more. This describes the observed sample, not an estimate of the wider market.

Each square is one priced listing 243 listings · 9 ask at 2× or more their category median

9 of 243 (3.7%; roughly 2%–7% at 95% confidence, computed from the counts)

Square position carries no meaning; the 9 are grouped only for counting. A category median built from ten or twelve listings is itself noisy, which widens this band further.

9 of 243 priced listings ask at least twice their category median.

How an inspection scores a listing

Six weighted dimensions. Each is tagged with its evidence tier — observed, seller-stated or proxy — and a verdict on a proxy is labelled as one.

  1. 25%

    Comps

    Three or more siblings in the same category and revenue band. No comps, no verdict above slow.

  2. 20%

    Claim consistency

    Does revenue × margin × multiple reconcile to the ask. The gaps are where listings fall apart.

  3. 15%

    Concentration

    Single client, single channel, single algorithm. Named in the listing or inferred from it.

  4. 15%

    Durability

    Recurring vs one-off, traffic source, whether the revenue is trailing or run-rate.

  5. 15%

    Transferability

    Owner hours, founder dependency, licensure, whatever does not survive the sale.

  6. 10%

    Price sanity

    Ask multiple against the category median. A premium needs a stated reason.

Haltthe ask is not defensible near its price
Slowdefensible only with named diligence conditions
Proceedat or under the comp median, claims reconcile

What is public, and what is not

Method, rubrics, aggregate counts and limits are public — that is this page. Individual inspections are commissioned: a buyer, a broker or a lender names a listing and gets the comp sheet, the verdict and the conditions, privately. A seller’s financials are never republished to make a point.

Commission an inspection → max@workhere.org