Market data
The lower middle market, by the numbers
Owners get told a great deal about what their business could be worth. Far less of it comes with a source attached.
Owners get told a great deal about what their business could be worth. Far less of it comes with a source attached. These pages are the working numbers behind the advice on this site: what businesses are selling for, what capital costs, why deals fall apart, and what it costs to run the thing in the meantime.
Every figure carries the sentence it was taken from, the page it was read on, and the date it was current. Where we could not verify something, it is recorded as a gap rather than filled in with an estimate. Each figure lives on exactly one page, so nothing is repeated to pad a page out.
137 figures · 9 sources · last reviewed 2026-09-10
01
What businesses sell for
Median prices, cash flow multiples and the size bands where the maths changes, plus what service, manufacturing, restaurant and retail businesses are actually trading at right now.
26 figures · 4 sources Read it
02
What money costs
SBA terms in full, who gets approved and who does not, what owners are paying on short-term debt, and the seller financing gap that quietly decides which deals close.
37 figures · 6 sources Read it
03
Running the business
Labour, healthcare, tariffs and sentiment. The cost base sitting underneath every multiple on this site.
36 figures · 7 sources Read it
04
The ownership transfer
Who is selling, who has done the preparation, and the distance between the two.
13 figures · 3 sources Read it
05
How deals close, and why they fall apart
Where deals die after the letter of intent, how long a sale takes by sector, and who is on the other side of the table.
25 figures · 4 sources Read it