What the numbers say at the small end
The band structure our engine uses starts at $1,000 MRR, because that is where the published comparable data starts. Flippa, 20 Feb 2026 puts owner-operated software under $1M ARR at roughly 2.0x–4.0x owner earnings, and that range does not collapse at the bottom — it simply sits at the lower end of it. A $10,000 MRR business is not a different asset class from a $3,000 MRR one; it is the same asset with a wider buyer pool.
| Your size | Baseline multiple | Example value on clean metrics |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000–$5,000 MRR | 2.4x | $40,500–$67,500 |
| $5,000–$10,000 MRR | 2.8x | $301,000 |
| $10,000–$25,000 MRR | 3.2x | $1.0M |
Owner-earnings multiples by band, anchored on the published ranges and applied to worked examples with clean metrics. Comps updated 31 Aug 2026. Your own number depends far more on churn and concentration than on which row you are in.
The real floor is transferability, not revenue
A buyer at this size is often buying themselves a small business to run, or bolting yours onto something they already own. Either way the question is the same: what does it cost them to operate it without you in the building? A business at $3,000 MRR that runs on documented infrastructure, with customers who never speak to the founder, is straightforwardly sellable. A business at $10,000 MRR where every enterprise customer renews because they like you personally is the harder sale, and it is bigger.
- 01Could someone else deploy it, on their own account, from what is written down?
- 02Do the customers relate to the product or to you? Check who is on the renewal emails.
- 03Is any part of it in your personal name — a domain, an app store account, an API key on your card?
- 04Does the revenue arrive without anybody doing anything, or does somebody chase it?
- 05If you went quiet for a month, what breaks first?
The fee structure is the thing that actually bites
This is where small genuinely hurts, and it has nothing to do with what the business is worth. A percentage-based fee behaves very differently at the bottom of the range: on our $40,500 example, a flat $10,000 minimum is 25% of the sale price. That is not anybody behaving badly — screening a small deal costs a marketplace roughly what a large one does — but it is the arithmetic that decides whether listing makes sense for you or whether a direct sale does.
Where small businesses actually sell
Two routes dominate below $100,000. The first is an inbound buyer you already know — a competitor, a customer, someone who uses the product and has wondered about owning it. This is the most common outcome at this size and it carries no fee at all, which is exactly why it is worth knowing your number before the conversation starts. The second is a marketplace, where you are paying for reach and screening; read the published fees against your own price first, because the flat minimums are what decide it.
When it genuinely is too early
Three honest cases. Under about twelve months of trading history, a buyer cannot tell durable revenue from a launch spike — on our example, going from nine months to 24 is worth $60,000 by itself, so waiting is paid work. Second, if churn is high enough that the customer base turns over inside a year, you are selling a marketing channel rather than an asset, and it will be priced as one. Third, if the revenue is one customer, you are selling a contract, and the buyer knows it can leave.
What to do instead of guessing
The reason this question gets asked at all is that the alternatives to asking it are bad: a free calculator returns a range with no reasoning, and a broker's free valuation comes from someone whose income depends on the answer. Run the free Ballpark Score, see the number and the two metrics moving it most, and then decide whether the answer is "sell", "fix two things first" or "come back in six months". All three are legitimate outcomes and only one of them needs you to spend anything.