Do published EBITDA multiples apply to a small business?

Usually not. In a set of 10,212 announced transactions, the median disclosed deal is worth $97M and only 6.2% are under $5M. A multiple drawn from that population reflects buyers competing for companies far larger than a typical owner-operated business, and does not transfer to one.

Why are larger companies sold at higher multiples?

Larger companies carry less risk that the business depends on one person, have management that stays after the sale, have audited rather than compiled accounts, and attract more competing buyers including financial ones. Each of those reduces the discount a buyer applies, so the same earnings are bought at a higher multiple.

What determines the price of a small business instead?

For businesses at the size the SBA 7(a) programme reaches, the binding constraint is usually debt service. A buyer borrowing at 7.75% over 10 years has a fixed annual payment that the business must cover out of its own earnings, and that payment sets a ceiling on the price regardless of any published multiple.

The size problem

The multiple you read online is not your multiple

Search for what a business in your sector sells for and you will find a number like "eight times EBITDA". That number is real. It was earned by companies with a median enterprise value of $97M. This page publishes those multiples with the deal sizes that produced them in the same row, which is the one piece of context that almost never travels with them.

§1

Disclosed multiples, with the deal size attached

Of 10,212 announced transactions in the comparison set, 826 disclosed an EBITDA multiple. Sectors with fewer than 20 usable observations are listed below the table rather than given a quartile range that would be noise.

Disclosed EBITDA multiples and the deals behind them
Sector	Deals	P25	Median multiple	P75	Median deal value
Software & Internet	176	7.4x	10.6x	18.5x	$83M
Industrials & Manufacturing	146	6.1x	8.1x	10.2x	$115M
Consumer & Retail	81	5.8x	8.0x	10.6x	$136M
Business & Professional Services	69	5.4x	8.5x	11.5x	$108M
Media & Communications	69	5.6x	8.2x	11.4x	$143M
Healthcare & Life Sciences	64	7.3x	12.0x	20.3x	$145M
Food & Beverage	42	7.6x	10.2x	12.8x	$175M
Materials & Chemicals	39	5.0x	7.7x	10.4x	$246M
Energy & Utilities	31	4.0x	7.1x	10.3x	$196M
Transportation & Logistics	31	6.1x	8.3x	10.5x	$126M
Environmental & Safety	23	6.2x	8.1x	10.4x	$76M

Source: announced-transaction comparables set maintained by QEIP LLC, snapshot 2026-08-18. n = 811 transactions carrying both a disclosed EBITDA multiple and a disclosed value, after removing multiples above 60x as data errors. Only sector aggregates are published; no individual transaction, buyer or seller appears on this site.

Below the 20-observation floor and therefore not shown: Financial Services (14), Education (8), Agriculture (6), Real Estate (6), Construction (5), Other / Diversified (1).

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Read the last column first

Every sector in that table has a median disclosed deal value above $75M. Not one of them describes a company an owner-operator would recognise. The reason is selection, not conspiracy: a transaction gets a published multiple mainly when a listed acquirer was obliged to disclose one, and listed acquirers buy large companies.

Only 6.2% of the transactions in the whole set are worth under $5M, and 25.1% under $25M. So the population producing the famous multiples is almost the exact complement of the population most owners belong to.

This is not a small distortion. A buyer paying 10x for a $150M company is buying audited accounts, a management team that stays, no customer above a few percent of revenue, and a business that survives its founder leaving. A buyer looking at a $4M company is buying none of those things, and prices accordingly. The gap between the two numbers is not a bargaining position, it is a description of two different assets.

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What actually sets the price lower down

At the size the SBA reaches, the binding constraint is usually not a multiple at all. It is debt service. The median acquisition in the federal file carries $673,000 of bank debt over 10 years at 7.75%. That is a fixed annual payment the business has to cover out of its own earnings, before the new owner takes a salary.

A buyer can believe your business is worth six times earnings and still be unable to offer it, because the resulting note will not service. Understanding that arithmetic is worth more to a seller than any published multiple. How the note sets the price works it through with the actual numbers from the file.

Between the two populations, roughly $5M to $50M of enterprise value, sits the part of the market that neither dataset measures well. Deals there are too large for the 7(a) programme and too small to be announced with a disclosed multiple. That gap is the lower middle market, and the honest answer is that no public dataset prices it. What exists instead is transaction experience, which is what an adviser is for.

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When these figures change

Both datasets behind this page are restated periodically. There is a list for that and it is the only thing it is used for.

When the file changes

The SBA restates its 7(a) extract periodically. When this site is rebuilt on a newer extract, subscribers get one email describing what moved, what was added and what fell below the reporting floors. That is the entire list: occasional, tied to the data, and nothing else is sent.

This is a reader list. It is separate from the buyer register on the contact page, and neither one feeds the other.

Your address is used for this list and nothing else. Every email carries an unsubscribe link. Privacy.

A real answer needs your actual numbers

No table can value a specific business, and this site will never pretend otherwise. FIH advises owners on sale processes and will tell you what your business is likely to attract, and why, after looking at it. The conversation is confidential and costs nothing.

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