What it's worth
What a business is worth and what the deal work costs
Valuation methods, 409A pricing, quality-of-earnings scope, and fractional CFO rates. Written for the owner on one side of the table, not the advisor billing it.
A valuation is one number times another: your normalized earnings, and the multiple a buyer will pay for them. Most of the disagreement in a deal is about the first, which is why the advice around it costs what it does.
2–3×
SDE multiple, small business
The common Main Street band. Size, growth, recurring revenue, and owner-dependence move it.
$1.5k–$5k
409A valuation, typical startup
From about $499 on a platform to $20,000 at a Big Four firm. Cap-table complexity drives it more than headcount.
$15k–$150k
Quality of earnings review
Tracks deal size and how tangled the books are. Usually the buyer pays.
12 months
409A safe-harbour window
Or until a material event, whichever comes first. A new round is a material event.
The trap: SDE and EBITDA are not interchangeable
SDE adds the owner's pay back in; EBITDA does not. Apply an EBITDA multiple to an SDE figure and you can overstate a small business by the value of a salary. Confirm which one a broker's multiple was built for before you use it on your own numbers.
Tools for this section
Free, run in your browser, nothing submitted. The fastest way to a real number while the written guides land.
409A valuation cost: what startups pay in 2026
A 409A valuation runs from $499 on an AI platform to $20,000 at a Big Four firm. Most startups pay $1,500 to $5,000. What drives the price, and what it buys.
Business valuation: SDE, EBITDA, and multiples
A business sells for a multiple of its earnings. How SDE and EBITDA differ, what multiple a business earns, and how to size up the number before a sale.
Fractional CFO cost: retainers, hourly, value
A fractional CFO runs $3,000 to $10,000 a month on retainer, or $150 to $500 an hour. What each model buys, and when a business actually needs one.
Quality of earnings cost: what a QoE report runs
A quality of earnings report runs $15,000 to $150,000, set by deal size and complexity. What a QoE examines, why buyers order one, and who pays for it.
Worth reading on this
The books we work from in this section, and what each one is actually good for.
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Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies
The reference the other side of the table is working from. Heavy going, and the only book here that treats the cost of capital as something you derive rather than quote.
Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers & Acquisitions
Where the comparable-company and precedent-transaction methods are actually spelled out. Read it before you accept a multiple someone else picked for you.