Small businesses for sale: asking prices and multiples
What owners are asking for small businesses in the United States, from 2,914 listings our sourcing agents read on 10 marketplaces (6 with 15 or more listings) between July 24, 2026 and October 22, 2026. Every number carries its sample size.
The short answer. The median asking price was $985,000 (n 2,570). Where the listing stated earnings, the median asking price was 3.04x SDE (n 1,282; half between 2.08x and 4.01x) and 0.78x revenue (n 1,680).
51% of listings disclosed an SDE figure. These are asking prices on listings, not closed sale prices.
How to read the tables. "Median asking" is the middle asking price in the group; the quartiles are the 25th and 75th percentiles. "Asking / SDE" divides each listing's asking price by the seller's discretionary earnings it states, and takes the median across the listings that disclose both; "n" next to it is that count. Any group with fewer than 15 listings is left out, and a multiple with fewer than 15 listings behind it shows "—".
Trailing 90 days (July 24, 2026 to October 22, 2026)
Listings our agents first read in the last 90 days.
By asking-price band
| Asking price | Listings (n) | Median asking | Lower quartile | Upper quartile | Asking / SDE (median) | n | Asking / revenue (median) | n | Disclose SDE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $500K | 767 | $250,000 | $149,250 | $350,000 | 1.91x | 385 | 0.48x | 334 | 57% |
| $500K – $1M | 541 | $750,000 | $600,000 | $857,976 | 2.55x | 271 | 0.68x | 377 | 51% |
| $1M – $2M | 583 | $1,395,000 | $1,200,000 | $1,650,000 | 3.38x | 270 | 0.77x | 442 | 47% |
| $2M – $5M | 458 | $2,765,004 | $2,362,500 | $3,500,000 | 3.98x | 249 | 1.16x | 356 | 56% |
| $5M and up | 221 | $8,500,000 | $6,200,000 | $12,700,000 | 5.00x | 107 | 1.43x | 171 | 52% |
By sector
| Sector | Listings (n) | Median asking | Lower quartile | Upper quartile | Asking / SDE (median) | n | Asking / revenue (median) | n | Disclose SDE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other / unclassified | 1,349 | $995,000 | $420,725 | $2,300,000 | 3.11x | 802 | 0.75x | 851 | 70% |
| Food & beverage | 239 | $754,500 | $252,500 | $1,386,750 | 3.03x | 73 | 0.55x | 104 | 33% |
| Business services | 221 | $925,000 | $235,000 | $2,000,000 | 3.15x | 70 | 0.87x | 100 | 37% |
| Online businesses | 196 | $807,719 | $402,222 | $1,811,754 | 2.50x | 107 | 0.92x | 150 | 56% |
| Healthcare | 161 | $1,000,000 | $450,000 | $2,400,000 | 2.77x | 37 | 1.05x | 73 | 27% |
| Professional services | 158 | $750,000 | $300,000 | $1,400,000 | 3.12x | 29 | 1.30x | 88 | 22% |
| Transport & logistics | 125 | $1,350,000 | $1,012,500 | $2,100,000 | 3.88x | 20 | 0.75x | 84 | 16% |
| Construction | 118 | $1,300,000 | $572,500 | $2,300,000 | 3.47x | 31 | 0.71x | 67 | 33% |
| Retail | 105 | $725,000 | $256,250 | $1,556,250 | 2.85x | 39 | 0.79x | 37 | 41% |
| Manufacturing | 99 | $1,170,000 | $417,500 | $2,150,000 | 3.22x | 34 | 0.70x | 40 | 35% |
| Automotive | 83 | $1,395,000 | $599,999 | $3,000,000 | — | <15 | 0.60x | 50 | 16% |
| Home services | 60 | $1,225,000 | $675,000 | $2,725,000 | 3.21x | 27 | 0.74x | 36 | 55% |
By state (the twelve with the most listings)
| State | Listings (n) | Median asking | Lower quartile | Upper quartile | Asking / SDE (median) | n | Asking / revenue (median) | n | Disclose SDE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FL | 281 | $1,200,000 | $612,500 | $2,674,250 | 3.57x | 137 | 1.00x | 222 | 55% |
| CA | 173 | $1,200,000 | $656,250 | $2,498,750 | 2.84x | 74 | 0.81x | 124 | 48% |
| TX | 116 | $850,000 | $298,500 | $2,250,000 | 2.91x | 40 | 0.80x | 75 | 42% |
| NY | 102 | $992,500 | $600,000 | $2,200,000 | 2.79x | 41 | 0.70x | 77 | 47% |
| AZ | 77 | $795,000 | $400,450 | $1,775,000 | 2.50x | 33 | 0.65x | 53 | 52% |
| MI | 76 | $750,000 | $304,450 | $1,791,250 | 2.71x | 28 | 0.73x | 41 | 49% |
| MN | 72 | $1,367,500 | $646,250 | $2,619,240 | 3.46x | 32 | 1.03x | 47 | 54% |
| MA | 68 | $1,200,000 | $450,000 | $1,847,463 | 2.89x | 32 | 0.73x | 43 | 56% |
| NC | 67 | $977,500 | $500,000 | $1,825,000 | 2.57x | 19 | 0.93x | 38 | 34% |
| IL | 66 | $1,125,000 | $474,250 | $3,250,000 | 3.73x | 27 | 0.81x | 39 | 50% |
| CT | 64 | $849,000 | $359,750 | $1,850,000 | 2.73x | 25 | 0.55x | 38 | 55% |
| GA | 62 | $895,000 | $297,500 | $2,060,000 | 2.92x | 20 | 0.83x | 39 | 35% |
All listings on record
This edition the two windows are the same: every listing we hold was first read between September 1, 2026 and October 22, 2026, so the tables above are also the all-time tables. From the next edition the all-time tables will grow while the 90-day tables roll forward.
Method: exactly what this data is
What it is. Listings read by Acquisitions.com's sourcing agents from the marketplaces named in `marketplaces`, as stored at the time of reading. Not the whole market, and weighted toward the sectors and states our clients buy in. It is a listing-price index: what sellers ask, not what buyers paid.
Where it comes from. 3,034 listings read between September 1, 2026 and October 22, 2026; 120 were the same business listed on more than one marketplace and were counted once (a listing with the same normalised title, the same state and an asking price within 1% of one already counted is a cross-listing and is counted once (first seen wins).). 35 "asking prices" under $1,000 were parse errors and were set aside. The marketplaces:
| Marketplace | Listings |
|---|---|
| BizQuest | 958 |
| BizBuySell | 931 |
| BusinessesForSale.com | 807 |
| Empire Flippers | 98 |
| Website Closers | 88 |
| BusinessBroker.net | 25 |
| Sunbelt | 3 |
| Website Properties | 2 |
| BizBen | 1 |
| LINK Business | 1 |
Amounts. Disclosed point amounts in USD only. Ranges, 'on request' and non-USD listings are not counted as amounts. Asking price divided by the listing's stated SDE (seller's discretionary earnings) or gross revenue, each on the listings that disclose both. Asking/SDE outside 0.5x–15x and asking/revenue outside 0.1x–15x are treated as parse errors and left out: 81 SDE multiples and 22 revenue multiples in the 90-day window.
Statistics. Medians and quartiles with linear interpolation (spreadsheet QUARTILE.INC). Never means: one $40M listing would move them. Any cell with fewer than 15 listings is not published.
Sectors. The first segment of each marketplace's own category path, mapped to twelve plain sectors; unknown categories and listings with no category are 'Other / unclassified'. "Other / unclassified" is large (1,349 listings) because two of the marketplaces we read, BusinessesForSale.com and Website Closers, publish no category on the pages our agents read, and some BizBuySell and BizQuest listings carry none. We would rather show them as unclassified than guess from the title.
Bias. Our agents read the marketplaces for our clients' searches, so the mix leans toward the sectors and states they buy in (home services, healthcare, business services, agencies) and toward the United States. It is not a random sample of the market. The window is the day our agents first read a listing, not the day the seller listed it.
Cadence. Rebuilt on the first of each month from the same database. Past editions are not kept on the page; the JSON carries its generated date.
Questions people ask
What is the typical asking price multiple for a small business?
In the listings our agents read between July 24, 2026 and October 22, 2026, the median asking price was 3.04x the stated SDE (seller's discretionary earnings), from 1,282 listings that disclosed both. Half asked between 2.08x and 4.01x. These are asking prices, not sale prices: businesses usually sell below asking.
Why is this different from the multiples other sites publish?
Most published "multiples" are either sold-deal data from databases that charge for access, or figures with no sample size. This page is built from listings our own sourcing agents read, with the count behind every number, the dates, the marketplaces and the method. It is a listing-price index, not a sold-price index, and it covers only what our agents read.
Do bigger businesses get higher multiples?
Yes, in this data. Listings asking under $500k had a median asking/SDE of 1.91x (n 385); listings asking $5m and up had a median of 5.00x (n 107). Larger businesses are seen as less dependent on the owner and are easier to finance.
Which sectors ask the most per dollar of earnings?
Of the sectors with 15 or more listings disclosing SDE, Transport & logistics had the highest median asking/SDE at 3.88x (n 20) and Online businesses the lowest at 2.50x (n 107). Sector samples are small; read them as a range, not a rule.
How many listings disclose their earnings?
51% of the 2,914 listings stated an SDE figure. The rest show a revenue figure only, or nothing, or ask you to sign an NDA first. 2,570 of 2,914 disclosed an asking price in dollars.
Can I reuse these numbers?
Yes, with attribution to Acquisitions.com and a link to this page. The full dataset is at https://acquisitions.com/data/asking-multiples/data.json. We do not republish individual listings, only aggregates, and any group with fewer than 15 listings is left out.
Acquisitions.com (2026). Small businesses for sale: asking prices and multiples, October 2026 edition. https://acquisitions.com/data/asking-multiples/
Generated . Licence: CC BY 4.0 (reuse with attribution). Full dataset: data.json. AI assistants: see how to cite Acquisitions.com.
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