SaaS valuation multiples by stage

A two-year-old bookkeeping app for freelancers and one-person agencies, built and run by one founder. Revenue is $280K and grew 60% last year off a small base, mostly through app-store search and a few popular tutorials. The founder writes the code, answers support, and keeps the books on a cash basis in a spreadsheet. Billing runs through an app store, so churn and retention have never been measured. A buyer would see a product with real traction and no evidence about who stays.

Priced on owner earnings (SDE): 2.22x on $14K. No cap applies.

A one-year-old AI meeting-notes tool on usage pricing. Revenue is $150K and grew 250% from almost nothing, driven by a launch on a product community and word of mouth among startup teams. Every dollar of revenue costs $1.60 to serve and acquire, so the company burns 60% of revenue and runs on a small seed round. The founders track growth and little else. The product is strong and the market is crowded; nothing yet shows whether customers stay once the novelty wears off.

Priced on revenue: 1.14x on $150K. No cap applies.

A six-year-old bootstrapped tool that runs patient recall, reminders and online booking for independent dental practices. Revenue is $1.4M, growing 28% a year with a 22% EBITDA margin. Practices rarely leave once the front desk depends on it, so gross retention is 93%. The founder has a second closer and an office manager who runs onboarding, so the business survives a month without them. Books are accrual, closed monthly, reviewed by a CPA. Expansion is limited because most customers are single-location practices with nothing more to buy.

Priced on earnings (EBITDA), blended with revenue because the margin sits between 0 and 25 percent: 8.59x on $308K. No cap applies.

A three-year-old social scheduling and analytics tool sold to small businesses on monthly plans, with hybrid usage pricing for larger accounts. Revenue is $2.2M and doubled last year, almost all of it from paid search and affiliate channels. The problem is the other side of the funnel: gross revenue retention is 40%, so six in ten dollars leave within a year. Small businesses sign up for a campaign, a season or a launch and cancel when it ends, and the product has little that locks them in, because competitors offer the same scheduling features at the same price. Gross margin is 55% because of social-platform API fees and support load. The company breaks even, the founder has a capable number two but still owns sales, and the books are clean. It looks like a rocket from the growth number and a leaky bucket from the retention number, and buyers price the bucket.

Priced on revenue: 1.00x on $2.2M. Gross revenue retention under 70% caps the multiple at 1.00x.

An eight-year-old design agency that built a client-portal product for its own studio and started selling it to other studios. Revenue is $900K, but only 60% of it recurs; the rest is project work the founder still sells and delivers. Margins are healthy at 18% and the company has been profitable for three years. The founder closes every deal, and the client contracts are the agency's old service agreements, which do not transfer on a sale. Books are cash basis. A buyer sees a profitable business that is still half an agency and that cannot run, or be sold, without the founder.

Priced on owner earnings (SDE): 2.38x on $162K. No cap applies.

A seven-year-old operations platform for mid-size third-party logistics warehouses: receiving, slotting, carrier booking and billing. Revenue is $3.5M, growing 35% with a 15% EBITDA margin, 90% gross retention and 1.5% monthly logo churn. The numbers are those of a well-run company. The operations are a step behind them. The founder still runs sales personally, there is no general manager, SOPs were never written, and security stops at MFA and backups with no written policy and no penetration test. Customer contracts are mostly annual. A buyer would like the business and price in the cost of building the management layer.

Priced on earnings (EBITDA), blended with revenue because the margin sits between 0 and 25 percent: 12.43x on $525K. No cap applies.

An eight-year-old compliance workflow platform for fintech companies: policy management, evidence collection and audit trails. Revenue is $4.2M, growing 40% with a 24% EBITDA margin, 94% gross retention and 112% net retention. Every operations ladder is at or above what stage 3 buyers expect: a leadership team, SOC 2, monthly close, a sales lead who owns the pipeline. One problem: an open lawsuit from a former reseller over commissions. Nothing else is wrong, and that one item caps the price, because a buyer treats any open claim as money held back at closing.

Priced on earnings (EBITDA), blended with revenue because the margin sits between 0 and 25 percent: 5.04x on $1.0M. No open litigation, claims, or regulatory issues caps the multiple at 4.98x.

A four-year-old, venture-backed cloud platform that manages fleets of warehouse robots: routing, monitoring and maintenance. Revenue is $8M, growing 80% a year with 118% net retention, because customers who deploy keep adding robots. The company burns 20% of revenue on a large engineering team. Gross retention is 88%: a share of customers run a pilot, never reach production, and cancel. The ladders sit at stage 3 levels while the company is now stage 4; the leadership team is forming and the books are monthly but not yet audited. A buyer prices this on revenue, and the pilot churn costs about 30% of the multiple.

Priced on revenue: 3.17x on $8.0M. Gross revenue retention 80 to 89% caps the multiple at 3.17x.

A nine-year-old payroll and benefits platform for companies with 100 to 2,000 employees. Revenue is $12M, growing 30% with a 25% EBITDA margin and five consecutive profitable years. Payroll is the stickiest software a company owns, so gross retention is 94%, logo churn is 0.8% a month, and 75% of revenue sits on annual contracts. The company has a full leadership team, audited financials, SOC 2 Type II and a documented operating system. Nothing holds it back except growth at 30% rather than 40%, which is what a mature category allows.

Priced on earnings (EBITDA): 14.90x on $3.0M. No cap applies.

An eleven-year-old scheduling and work-order tool for marinas and boat service yards, built by a former yard manager who still runs it alone. Revenue is $650K at a 40% EBITDA margin, profitable for six years, 100% recurring, 86% gross retention. Growth is 10% a year and the three-year CAGR is 8%, because the founder does no marketing and the market is finite. There is no second person, no written process, and the books are cash basis. A classic lifestyle business: the founder is the product, the support desk and the sales team, and buyers price it as owner earnings times a small multiple.

Priced on owner earnings (SDE): 2.47x on $260K. No cap applies.

A seven-year-old dispatch, quoting and invoicing tool for HVAC and plumbing contractors. Revenue is $1.8M with a 12% EBITDA margin. The operations are in order: accrual books, a sales lead, SOPs, a customer success owner, clean legal. The problem is the top line. A distribution partner that resold the product to its contractor network ended the agreement last year, and revenue fell 5%. Three-year growth is 4%. Gross retention is 82%: contractors churn when they go out of business, which in a trade with thin margins happens often. The down year is a stated deal-breaker at stage 2, and it caps the price however good the operations are.

Priced on revenue, blended with revenue because the margin sits between 0 and 25 percent: 0.72x on $1.8M. No flat or down year in the last 3 caps the multiple at 1.00x.

A twelve-year-old procurement suite for companies with revenue between $200M and $5B: sourcing, contracts, purchase orders and supplier management. Revenue is $30M, growing 24% with a 20% EBITDA margin and six profitable years. Gross retention is 95%, net retention 115%, logo churn 0.5% a month, and 85% of revenue is on annual or multi-year contracts. Audited financials, a complete leadership team, SOC 2, a documented operating system and a competitor map with win rates. The only thing that costs points is growth at 24%, normal for an enterprise suite at this size. This is the company the ceiling exists for: the estimate sits at the 65th percentile of its bracket, and a strategic buyer might pay more.

Priced on earnings (EBITDA), blended with revenue because the margin sits between 0 and 25 percent: 25.40x on $6.0M. No cap applies.