ValuePulseAIWorked example · nothing withheld
Below is a complete Value Audit and Exit Memo for one example business, generated by the same engine and rendered by the same code that produces a paid report. No screenshots, no “illustrative” figures, nothing blurred out. The only thing this example is missing is your numbers — and that is the only thing you are actually paying for.
A fictional business, in the $5,000–$10,000 MRR band. Six fields, ninety seconds, no account. Everything on the rest of this page is arithmetic on these six figures and the published comps on the method page.
The free Ballpark Score
$181,000–$216,500
Midpoint $198,500 · 1.8x annual revenue · 2.5x owner earnings of $80,088 a year.
This part costs nothing and always will. It is included in every paid product too, so buying one is never the long way round.
13 checks, ranked by what each one costs this example business — not by severity theatre. Each carries what a buyer does with it in a negotiation, the fix, and an honest effort estimate. The three questions we deliberately do not ask are in here as well, marked as not measured rather than guessed.
Already priced above, in churn and growth
You are adding 3.1% a month and losing 4.2%. Net, the base is shrinking by 1.1% a month.
BuyerThis is the first calculation a buyer does and the fastest way to lose a process. A shrinking base turns a multiple negotiation into a distress negotiation.
FixStop the leak before you sell anything. Every point of churn you remove is worth more than a point of new revenue, because it lifts the whole base.
−$32,500
Your largest customer is 38% of revenue — $3,572 a month.
BuyerA buyer prices the business as if that customer leaves the month after close, because for them it might. Expect either a lower headline number or an earn-out that holds back part of the price until the account renews.
FixGet the account under 20% of revenue before you open a process — either by growing the rest of the book or by splitting that customer into separate contracts and entities where that is genuinely true. If you cannot, get a signed multi-year renewal with a notice period; a contracted account is discounted far less than a month-to-month one.
EFFORT · ONE TO THREE QUARTERS
Sequenced: churn, then concentration
A 38% customer sitting on top of 4.2% monthly churn.
BuyerIndividually these are two discounts. Together they read as one story: the revenue is both concentrated and leaky, so a buyer's downside case is losing the big account in a base that is already shrinking. That is where earn-outs come from.
FixFix the churn first — it is faster — then use the improved retention as the argument for why the large account is not the risk it looks like.
−$49,500
4.2% monthly revenue churn against a 3.2% reference for a business your size. At that rate the average customer is worth 24 months of revenue.
BuyerChurn is the single number a buyer models hardest, because it sets how much of what they buy still exists in year three. Above the reference they will either cut the multiple or ask for the revenue to be re-based on retained cohorts.
FixBring churn to 3.2% and you defend $49,500. The fastest lever at this size is failed payments — dunning and card-updater recovery typically claw back a meaningful slice of involuntary churn in weeks. Then cancel-reason data on the voluntary half.
EFFORT · TWO TO EIGHT WEEKS FOR THE FIRST POINT
Derived from churn — no separate dollar impact
At 4.2% monthly churn the average customer stays about 24 months.
BuyerA lifetime this long means a buyer is purchasing revenue, not a treadmill.
FixHave the number ready by plan; buyers ask whether the average hides one terrible cohort.
Process, not product
At $112,800 annual revenue you are in the $5,000–$10,000 MRR band.
BuyerBelow roughly $120,000 of annual revenue most acquisition funds are out and you are selling to individual operators, who negotiate harder on terms and often want seller financing.
FixExpect to reach buyers one at a time rather than run an auction, and get your paperwork ready before you start — an individual buyer walks away from friction faster than a fund does.
One to two quarters
We ask six questions and this is not one of them. It is often the largest single swing in a micro-SaaS deal.
BuyerTwo documented examples from FE International's and SaaS-valuation write-ups: a $200,000-revenue tool where the founder worked 60-hour weeks drew offers at 3x owner earnings, while a $50,000-revenue plugin needing almost no maintenance sold at 4x. Same market, one variable.
FixWrite down every task only you can do, then remove yourself from three of them and document the rest. Hours per week, on paper, is a number buyers pay for.
Two to three quarters
If your distribution or your product lives inside someone else's platform — an app store, a marketplace, one search engine, one social channel — a buyer treats that as an existential risk rather than a discount.
BuyerPublished guidance on small software deals puts the discount for a single-platform dependency at 30–50%. We do not apply it, because we do not ask; assume a buyer will.
FixGet a second acquisition channel to 20% of new revenue before you sell, even if it is worse than the first one. The point is not efficiency, it is survivability.
Weeks
Month-to-month revenue and annual-contract revenue are not worth the same money, and we do not ask which you have.
BuyerMonthly subscribers churn several times faster than annual ones, so a buyer discounts a month-to-month base and pays up for contracted revenue with notice periods.
FixOffer annual at two months free and count how many take it. Every conversion is retention you did not have to engineer.
None
3.1% month over month, about 44% a year at this rate.
BuyerGrowth at this rate widens your buyer pool to people who pay for the trajectory, not just the cash flow.
FixKeep the trend legible: month-by-month MRR, new versus expansion versus churned, no restated months.
None
86% gross margin. On $112,800 of annual revenue that leaves $97,008 before your own operating costs.
BuyerAbove 80% you look like software to a buyer. Below it, they start asking which line is service revenue in disguise.
FixKeep hosting and third-party API cost per customer in a table you can hand over.
None
31 months live.
BuyerYour history is an asset. Buyers want to see revenue hold across renewal cycles, and yours has.
FixKeep the full history exportable. Buyers ask for it in week one of diligence.
Positioning, not engineering
Annual growth of 44% plus an owner-earnings margin of 71% gives 115 against the 40 buyers use as shorthand.
BuyerYou clear the shorthand test, which gets you past the first filter without an argument.
FixState it plainly in your materials; it is a one-line credential.
The one that matters most
Fix customer concentration and you defend $32,500.
Your own Audit is this document with your six numbers in it. The flags, the dollar figures and the ranking all change, because they are computed from what you enter — that is the whole point.
One-time. No subscription exists, so nothing renews.
15 sections in the order acquirers read them. Below are the first 5 exactly as they are delivered — including the named blanks, because a memo that invents facts about a business is worse than no memo at all. The one thing we will not write for you is the description of the product; a buyer can tell.
Northwind Clinic Systems is a bootstrapped software business generating $9,400 in monthly recurring revenue — $112,800 annualised — at an 86% gross margin, 31 months after its first paying customer.
Revenue is growing 3.1% month over month, approximately 44% annualised, against monthly revenue churn of 4.2%. Owner earnings, on a stated 15-point operating allowance against gross margin, are approximately $80,088 a year.
The indicative value range is $181,000–$216,500, being 1.8x annual revenue and 2.5x owner earnings. The basis for that range, including every adjustment applied, is set out in section 14.
The seller is offering a 100% asset sale. 3 material risks are disclosed up front in section 12 rather than left for diligence to find.
To complete
A scheduling and reminder tool for independent physiotherapy clinics. It replaces the paper diary and the reminder phone calls; clinics with two to six practitioners pay monthly per practitioner.
Trading history: 31 months of paid revenue. Past the two-year mark buyers treat as the preferred entry point.
To complete
Buyers price technical risk as an operating cost: what will it take them to run this without you. Answer that here, plainly, including the parts you would rather not mention.
To complete
All revenue disclosed here is recurring: $9,400 per month, $112,800 annualised.
Contract mix is material to value — monthly subscribers churn several times faster than annual ones, and a buyer discounts a month-to-month base accordingly. Disclose the split.
To complete
Revenue: $9,400 MRR, $112,800 ARR at current run rate.
Gross margin: 86%, leaving $97,008 a year of gross profit before operating costs.
Owner earnings: approximately $80,088 a year on a 15-point operating allowance. This is a stated proxy, not an accounting figure — replace it with your actual seller's discretionary earnings before you send this memo.
To complete
The remaining 10 sections in your copy
Section 12 is the risk list you wrote yourself, which is the cheapest protection there is against a re-trade. Section 14 states the valuation basis adjustment by adjustment, so the number survives a challenge. Section 15 is a plain note on what to redact before you send it to a stranger.
Both the Audit and the free score are included when you buy the Exit Memo — you do not pay twice, and you do not have to start with the cheapest thing.
One-time. Yours permanently, at a link that needs no password.
Ninety days on the ValuePulse Acquirer List. You choose what is hidden, you see the card before it goes out, and buyer replies come to you. No commission, no escrow, no mandate — we never touch the deal. If no acquirer opens your card in the first thirty days, email us and we refund the $99 in full. No form, no argument.
Scheduling and reminders for independent physiotherapy clinics. Two to six practitioners, billed per practitioner, live 31 months.
Not published yet.
This is a preview card, so it shows no reference or live date. On a real listing every field above can be withheld individually — the MRR collapses to the band, the category and the stack to “withheld” — and the largest-customer figure is always shown as a range, never an exact share.
Nothing to lose
Six fields, no signup, no card. If anything in a paid report reads wrong for your business, write to us — we would rather correct a figure than have you take a wrong number to a buyer, and we will refund it if we cannot.