EBITDA Multiples by Deal Size in 2026: What Lower Middle Market Businesses Sell For

The short answer: EBITDA multiples rise with deal size. Across Vanla Group’s 17 published closed deals priced on EBITDA, the median multiple was 3.6x EBITDA for sales under $2M, 4.0x from $2M to $5M, 4.5x from $5M to $10M and 5.5x for sales of $10M and up. In the wider market, businesses earning over $1M list at a median of about 3.9x EBITDA after adjusting asking prices down to likely sale prices.

If you want a number for your own business, the Exit Readout shows a price range, the buyers who fit and our comparable closed deals, with no email needed.

What multiples did Vanla’s closed deals sell for?

These are the closed transactions we publish on our transactions page, grouped by sale price. Each multiple is the EBITDA multiple recorded for the deal, as shown on our transactions page.

A few things stand out:

• Each step up in size raised the median, by 0.4x to a full turn of EBITDA, and the jump was largest above $10M.
• The four healthcare deals sold for 4x to 6x, with a median of 5x.
• Four of the 17 sold above asking price, which usually takes more than one qualified buyer at the table.

Seventeen deals is a small sample, but the wider market shows the same pattern. In the IBBA Market Pulse survey of 203 closed deals in the first quarter of 2026, the median was 4.0x EBITDA for sales of $2M to $5M and 4.5x for $5M to $50M, the same as our medians for those sizes. The listing data below fills in the rest.

What are EBITDA multiples by industry in 2026?

These figures come from 21,894 live business-for-sale listings on BizBuySell, swept in September 2026. The multiples are stated for businesses earning over $1M. Asking prices run above sale prices, so every multiple has been reduced by 10%. Most listings report SDE, so EBITDA multiples are converted from SDE using the 1.2x gap measured across the same listings. The middle half is the range between the 25th and 75th percentile.

The spread inside each industry is wider than the gap between industries. A well-run home services company with recurring maintenance agreements can sell above a manufacturer that depends on one customer. Industry sets the starting range. Your business decides where in it you land.

Why do larger businesses sell for higher multiples?

1. A different buyer pool. Smaller businesses mostly sell to individual buyers using SBA loans, who are price sensitive and limited by what a bank will lend. Above roughly $5M, private equity groups and strategic acquirers compete, and they can pay more.
2. Less risk per dollar of earnings. Larger companies usually have a management team, more customers and more predictable cash flow. Buyers pay for that predictability.
3. Less owner dependency. In a $2M sale the owner often is the business. In a $20M sale the owner is usually one part of a team, so the business is easier to hand over.
4. Room to grow through acquisitions. Platform buyers pay more for a business they can build on.

What moves your multiple within the range?

• Up: recurring or contracted revenue, a management team that runs the business without you, no customer above 10% to 15% of revenue, steady growth, clean financials that tie to your tax returns, and documented systems.
• Down: owner dependency, customer concentration, declining revenue, messy or unreconciled books, deferred equipment or facility investment, and key staff without agreements.

Small moves in the multiple are large sums at closing. A business with $1.5M of EBITDA is worth $6.0M at 4.0x and $6.75M at 4.5x. Half a turn, earned by fixing one or two items on the down list, is $750,000 more to the seller.

Should you use EBITDA or SDE?

Smaller owner-operated businesses are often valued on seller’s discretionary earnings (SDE), which adds the owner’s full salary and benefits back to profit. Because SDE is a bigger number, SDE multiples look lower than EBITDA multiples for the same business. As a business grows past the point where the owner’s pay is a small share of earnings, buyers switch to EBITDA. Always compare like with like. Our guide to what your business is worth covers both.

How to estimate your own multiple

1. Find your industry’s middle half in the table above.
2. Move toward the top if you have recurring revenue, a strong team and no concentration problem. Move toward the bottom if the business depends on you or one customer.
3. Adjust for size using the deal-size table: smaller deals land lower, larger ones higher.
4. Multiply your adjusted EBITDA by that figure for a rough enterprise value, then subtract debt to see equity value.

The Exit Readout does this for you using the same data, and adds the buyers who fit and our closed deals in your industry. It takes about a minute and needs no email.

About this data

The deal-size figures cover the 17 closed transactions published on Vanla Group’s transactions page that sold on an EBITDA multiple, as of October 2026, from $1.3M to $28M in sale price, across healthcare, engineering, manufacturing, services, ecommerce and retail, in the United States and Canada. Medians are the middle value in each group. The size pattern is checked against the IBBA Market Pulse, 2026 Q1, a survey of 203 closed deals. The industry figures are asking-price multiples from Vanla’s market comps, reduced by 10% to approximate sale prices and stated for businesses earning over $1M. Most listings report SDE, so EBITDA multiples are converted from SDE using the 1.2x gap measured across the same listings. Neither is a promise of what a specific business will sell for.