For an owner-operated "Main Street" business — one that sells for under roughly $2M — your Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE) multiple probably falls somewhere between 1.2x and 6.5x. The starting point for where you land on this range is almost entirely dependent on your industry (other factors, like owner independence and revenue growth, then increase or decrease that industry multiple starting point). A hair salon and a self-storage facility with identical profit can be worth two to three times apart, before you even factor in your own business's specifics.
That's how important the industry is.
I previously wrote a piece on how to value your small business, where I explained why SDE is the only method small business owners — i.e. those worth under $2 million — should consider. I even made a video on it. SDE is simple enough to calculate: it's essentially net profit plus anything extra you took out of the business for yourself, times an industry multiple. What that industry multiple actually is can be the hardest part to work out.
To help you navigate this, here's the actual range for 16 Main Street categories, pulled from closed-transaction data — plus the three things that move you within your own industry's band.
The Multiples, by Industry
These are SDE multiple ranges for owner-operated small businesses — the low end reflects a weaker, more owner-dependent operator; the high end reflects a stronger, more transferable one.
| Industry | SDE Multiple Range |
|---|---|
| Restaurants & Food Service | 1.5x – 3.0x |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 1.2x – 2.4x |
| Cleaning Services | 1.7x – 3.2x |
| Plumbing | 1.8x – 3.2x |
| Cafes & Bakeries | 2.0x – 3.8x |
| Retail Stores | 2.0x – 3.0x |
| IT Services / MSP | 2.0x – 4.2x |
| Landscaping & Lawn Care | 2.0x – 3.4x |
| General Contracting & Construction | 2.0x – 3.4x |
| General Small Business | 2.0x – 3.2x |
| HVAC | 2.2x – 3.6x |
| Professional Services | 2.3x – 3.8x |
| E-commerce | 2.5x – 4.0x |
| Laundromats | 3.0x – 4.5x |
| Self-Storage | 4.0x – 6.0x |
| Car Washes | 4.5x – 6.5x |
Source: BizBuySell's quarterly closed-transaction reports, the largest published dataset of sub-$2M Main Street sales, cross-checked against IBBA/M&A Source broker-surveyed deal data. These are Main Street, SDE-basis multiples — not the EBITDA multiples you'll see quoted for private-equity-scale deals, which run on a completely different basis and aren't comparable to a business your size.
Why the Range Is So Wide Between Industries
Three patterns explain most of the spread:
Recurring revenue beats one-off transactions. Self-storage and car washes sit at the top because customers pay repeatedly with minimal ongoing labor from the owner. A restaurant lives or dies on foot traffic walking in that day — there's no contract, no subscription, nothing locking a customer in tomorrow.
Owner dependence drags multiples down. Beauty and personal care sits at the bottom of the range largely because so much of the value is tied to one specific person's hands and relationships — a buyer isn't confident the clients stay once the owner leaves. Cleaning and plumbing sit low for a related reason: solo-operator businesses with no management layer are harder to hand off.
Asset-light, systemized models sit in the middle-to-high range. IT services and e-commerce can scale without the owner's physical presence in the way a salon or restaurant can't, which is part of why they command a premium over food and personal-care categories.
Where You Land Within Your Own Range
Finding your industry's band is step one. Step two is figuring out where in that band your specific business sits — and that comes down to three things.
The size of your SDE. Bigger, more financeable deals attract a broader buyer pool, which pushes you toward the top of your range. A $40,000-SDE business and a $300,000-SDE business in the same industry don't land in the same place, even with identical qualitative strengths.
How dependent the business is on you. If the business runs the same whether or not you show up, that's worth real money to a buyer. If everything routes through you personally, a buyer is pricing in the risk that the business is really just a job.
Where your revenue is heading. Growing revenue nudges you up. Declining revenue gets discounted harder than the raw numbers suggest, because a buyer is pricing in the trend continuing, not just where you are today.
None of these nudges are large enough to jump you into a different industry's range entirely — they move you within your own band, not out of it.
An Example
Say you own a general contracting business with $200,000 in SDE, growing revenue, and low owner dependence — you've got a foreman who runs jobs without you. General contracting's range is 2.0x–3.4x. With that SDE size and those qualitative strengths, you'd likely land in the upper-middle of the range, closer to 3.0x than 2.0x.
Estimated Value ≈ $200,000 × 3.0 = $600,000
The same $200,000 SDE in a beauty and personal care business, with the exact same growth and independence, would land meaningfully lower — because the whole range it's drawing from starts and ends lower.
What This Doesn't Tell You
Industry multiples explain the biggest driver of the gap between two businesses with the same profit. They don't account for your specific lease terms, your customer concentration, your equipment condition, or a dozen other things a real buyer diligences before signing anything. Treat this as the range your business is probably drawing from — not a certified number.
Profit Lights provides an educational estimate only and does not provide a certified, professional, accounting, tax, legal or investment valuation.
Get Your Number
Great — so did you want a free and easy tool to actually work this all out for you? If you do, run your actual revenue, profit, and a few basics through my free valuation tool and get an estimated range in about 60 seconds.
The valuation tool also gives you insight into which of the three factors above are helping your number and which are holding it back. That'll help you increase your business's value over time.
Profit Lights provides an educational estimate only and does not provide a certified, professional, accounting, tax, legal or investment valuation. Actual business value may vary significantly based on financial records, assets, liabilities, location, market conditions, deal structure, buyer demand and other factors.
About Me
I'm Michael Philippou, co-founder of Big Love, a plant-based ice cream business in Santa Monica that I've been running with my wife Victoria for over ten years. Before ice cream, I was a lawyer. I write about the real, unpolished lessons of running a small business — no gurus, no hype, just what's actually worked and what hasn't. Watch more on YouTube (Real Business Real Lessons) or follow along on LinkedIn.
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