Free confidential appraisal · Queensland
What is my business worth?
Not a number off a website calculator. The way a buyer and a buyer's accountant will actually work it out, line by line, so you can see where your price comes from and what would move it.
Free confidential market appraisal. No charge before we meet or after. Last updated 15 September 2026.
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A small or medium Australian business is priced on its adjusted earnings multiplied by a figure that reflects how safe and transferable those earnings are. Adjusted earnings are the reported profit plus the owner’s wage, personal expenses, interest, depreciation and any one-off costs. The multiple is where judgement and evidence do the work.
- Almost every small and medium business in Australia is priced as a multiple of adjusted earnings, not as a percentage of turnover.
- Adjusted earnings means the real trading profit with your wage, one off costs, personal expenses and non cash items added back.
- The multiple reflects how safe, stable and transferable those earnings are to a buyer, which is why two businesses with identical profit can sell for very different amounts.
- Stock is usually counted and paid for at settlement on top of the price.
The short answer, in six lines
Everything below expands on one of these, with the register or the regulator named so you can check it yourself.
At a glance
- The earnings base decides it
- Which earnings figure is multiplied changes the answer more than the multiple does. On illustrative round figures, a business generating $500,000 a year before the working owner takes anything, where a market rate manager would cost $130,000 a year including superannuation, has seller’s discretionary earnings of $500,000 and EBITDA of $370,000. That is a 26 per cent gap in the base, so 2.5 times SDE and 3.4 times EBITDA are the same price.
- An appraisal is not a valuation
- APES 225 Valuation Services was issued by the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board on 25 October 2024 and is operative for valuation services commencing on or after 1 January 2025. Paragraphs 5.2(p) and 5.2(q) require a limited scope valuation report and a calculation report to state on their face that a valuation engagement may have produced a different result. Section 26(1)(b) of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) authorises a licensee to buy, sell, exchange or let businesses, and says nothing about valuation.
- What the ATO weighs
- The ATO market valuation guidance, last updated 22 June 2026, states that “Valuations undertaken by professional valuers are more credible than those provided by someone who isn’t a professional valuer”. It also states that generally, if you engage and properly instruct a professional valuer, you will not be liable for penalties if the ATO later finds the valuation deficient. The underlying test of market value is Spencer v The Commonwealth (1907) 5 CLR 418.
- The tax can outweigh the price
- Division 152 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 contains four small business CGT concessions. Entry is through an aggregated turnover of less than $2 million a year or the $6,000,000 maximum net asset value test in section 152-15. The retirement exemption lifetime limit is $500,000 per individual, and the CGT cap for superannuation contributions is $1,935,000 for 2026-27.
- Australian multiple data is thin
- Grant Thornton’s Dealtracker, published April 2025, analysed 1,591 Australian transactions over the 18 months to 31 December 2024. About 461 of them, 29 per cent, disclosed a value, and only about 82, roughly 5 per cent, disclosed enough detail to compute an EBITDA multiple. Those 82 are corporate and mid market deals, which is why no industry multiple range is published on this page.
- The population you sit in
- The Australian Bureau of Statistics counted 2,729,648 actively trading businesses at 30 June 2025, and 91.5 per cent of them turned over under $2 million in 2024-25. There were 370,500 business exits in 2024-25, an exit rate of 13.9 per cent, against 437,150 entries. The ABS counts closures and sales together and does not separate them, so that figure measures turnover in the population, not businesses sold.
How businesses are actually priced
Owners assume their business is worth a percentage of turnover, or whatever the bloke down the road reckons he got. Neither is how it works. Almost every small and medium business in Australia is priced the same way: take the true earnings, then apply a multiple that reflects the risk a buyer is taking on. Get both parts right and you know your number. Here is the whole method in four steps.
Start with the profit
Not the number that keeps your tax bill down. The real trading profit of the business, taken from clean financials that reconcile to your accounting system and your bank.
Add back what is really yours
Your wage, personal expenses run through the business, one off costs and non cash items get added back to reveal the true earning power. This adjusted figure is often called adjusted net profit or seller's discretionary earnings, and it is higher than the profit on your tax return by the amount of the add-backs, which is why the two figures should never be compared straight.
Apply the multiple
The adjusted earnings are multiplied by a figure that reflects how safe, stable and transferable they are. A business that runs without the owner, with contracted income and clean books, earns a higher multiple than one that is really just the owner working hard.
Add the assets that come with it
Stock is usually counted and paid for at settlement on top of the price. Plant, equipment and vehicles are dealt with in the structure of the deal, either included or handled separately depending on what suits.
The gap between what it earns and what it looks like it earns
In that hypothetical the business looked like it made $200,000. Done properly, the earnings a buyer would price were $330,000. On the same multiple that is a $390,000 difference, and it came entirely from presenting the numbers correctly.
What moves your multiple
Two businesses with identical adjusted earnings can sell for very different prices, because the buyer is really pricing risk. The lower the risk that the earnings walk out the door after settlement, the higher the multiple. These are the levers that move it most.
How much the business depends on you
If the business runs without the owner, the buyer is purchasing an asset. If it stops when you take a holiday, they are buying a job, and they pay far less for a job. This is the biggest single lever for many owners.
How safe the future income looks
Contracted work, repeat customers, recurring revenue and a spread of clients all tell a buyer the earnings survive the handover. One client at 60 per cent of revenue does the opposite.
How clean and clear the books are
Financials a buyer's accountant can verify quickly, with documented add backs, build trust and shorten due diligence. Messy or unverifiable numbers get discounted or kill the deal outright.
The trend
Buyers buy the future. Steady or growing earnings attract a premium. A business sliding backwards attracts bargain hunters, which is why timing the sale matters.
The industry and the moment
Some sectors are simply in demand. Right now in Queensland, established businesses in trades, transport, construction and resources services are being actively sought by buyers growing through acquisition.
Appraisal, not valuation. The difference matters.
As a licensed business broker, Tony provides a market appraisal, which is an informed opinion of the likely selling price based on the market, comparable sales and your numbers. It is free. A formal valuation, the kind used for court, tax or family law matters, is a separate exercise carried out by a registered valuer or qualified accountant. For working out what your business would sell for, the market appraisal is the right tool.
What your appraisal looks at in your industry
A number pulled from a generic calculator is close to worthless, because the levers that matter are different in every industry. A transport buyer scrutinises contracted freight and driver retention. An earthmoving buyer weighs the fleet against the enterprise. An e-commerce buyer lives in your repeat purchase data. Your appraisal is grounded in what buyers in your specific sector actually pay for, which is exactly what each of these guides covers.
An appraisal grounded in your industry
Tony Pope is a licensed business broker who brings more than twenty years working alongside the e-commerce and retail, transport, earthmoving, construction, mining services and interiors industries he now helps owners exit. That means your appraisal is not a number from a calculator. It is built on what buyers in your specific market actually pay for.
When the time comes, the difference is between hoping the right buyer wanders past and running a proper, confidential, competitive process where buyers are sought out, qualified and put in competition with each other.
Check it yourself
Primary sources, none of them affiliated with me and none of them endorsing this site. Where anything here differs from an official source, the official source is right.
Who wrote this, and what he is and is not qualified to do
Tony Pope holds Queensland Office of Fair Trading licence 4963575, issued July 2026, and is a member of the Australian Institute of Business Brokers. Section 26(1)(b) of the Property Occupations Act 2014 (Qld) authorises the holder of that licence to buy, sell, exchange or let businesses, as agent for others for reward, and section 26(1)(c) to negotiate those things. That is what an appraisal is: agency work, done to bring a business to market. He is not a valuer. He is not a member of CPA Australia, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand or the Institute of Public Accountants, he is not bound by APES 225, and he cannot produce a Conclusion of Value or a Calculated Value.
Questions owners ask about value
How is a business valued in Australia?
Small and medium businesses are priced as a multiple of adjusted earnings. You start with the profit, add back the owner's wage, one off costs and personal expenses to find the true earnings, then apply a multiple reflecting how risky and transferable those earnings are. A licensed broker provides a market appraisal, an opinion of likely selling price. A formal valuation for legal or tax purposes is a separate exercise by a registered valuer or qualified accountant.
What is the difference between an appraisal and a valuation?
A market appraisal is a licensed broker's opinion of likely selling price, based on the market, comparable sales and your numbers, and it is free. A valuation is a formal figure from a registered valuer or qualified accountant, usually for legal, tax, family law or dispute purposes. To know what your business would sell for, the appraisal is the right tool.
What are add backs and why do they matter?
Add backs are legitimate adjustments that reveal true earning power: the owner's wage, personal expenses run through the business, one off costs and non cash items. Documented, defensible add backs lift the earnings your price is built on, so they directly raise value. Undocumented ones get struck out in due diligence, so they must be evidenced, not just claimed.
Go deeper
The long form, where it belongs
The full detail is on the pages below, each on its own page.
Check it yourself16 primary sources
The terms a buyer, a valuer and your accountant will use14 definitions
Plain definitions of the words a buyer, a financier or a regulator will use. Where a term has a statutory anchor, it is named.
APES 225 Valuation Services: an engagement to perform a Valuation and provide a Valuation Report “where the Member is free to employ the Valuation Approaches, Valuation Methods, and Valuation Procedures” that a reasonable and informed third party would perform. It produces a Conclusion of Value. This is the engagement type that carries no scope warning on its face.
APES 225: the same work, but “where the scope of work is limited or restricted” so that the member cannot employ the approaches a reasonable and informed third party would perform. It produces a Conclusion of Value with the restriction disclosed. Paragraph 5.2(p) requires the report to state that a Valuation Engagement may have produced a different result.
APES 225: an engagement “where the Member and the Client or Employer agree on the Valuation Approaches, Valuation Methods and Valuation Procedures” that will be used. It produces a Calculated Value. Paragraph 5.2(q) requires the report to state that a Valuation Engagement may have produced a different result.
APES 225: “an estimate of value of a business, business ownership interest, security, intangible asset, or other asset or liability that results from a Valuation Engagement or a Limited Scope Valuation Engagement”. A calculation engagement cannot produce one.
APES 225: the estimate of value resulting from a Calculation Engagement, which “may either be a single amount or a range”. It is the output of procedures you agreed in advance, so it is only as complete as the procedures you agreed to.
APES 225: “any written or oral communication by the Member containing a Conclusion of Value or a Calculated Value”. Note the word oral. A figure given over the phone by a member bound by the standard is a Valuation Report for the purposes of the standard.
The ATO defines it as “the estimated monetary worth of an asset on the open market at a particular time”, based on what willing parties would agree at arm’s length. The authority is Spencer v The Commonwealth (1907) 5 CLR 418, where Griffith CJ asked what a buyer “would have had to pay for it on that day to a vendor willing to sell it for a fair price but not desirous to sell”. Neither hypothetical party is you, and neither is any actual buyer.
EBITDA plus one working owner’s total remuneration and personal benefits, also called adjusted net profit or owner’s benefit. No Australian statute and no Australian accounting standard defines it, which is precisely why the base has to be written down in the document. APES 225 paragraph 5.2 requires a Valuation Report to communicate the approaches and methods used.
APES 225 paragraph 6.1 requires a member to prepare working papers documenting the work performed, “including the basis on which, and the method by which, any calculations, determinations or estimates” were made. The standard does not list permitted add backs. It requires that the basis for each one is recorded, which is what separates a schedule that survives a bank or ATO review from one that does not.
Division 152 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, as explained by the ATO: a CGT asset used, or held ready for use, in a business carried on by you, your affiliate or an entity connected with you, or an intangible asset inherently connected with the business. An asset whose main use is to derive rent, interest, an annuity or royalties is generally not an active asset.
Section 152-15 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997: you satisfy it if, just before the CGT event, the sum of the net value of your CGT assets, those of entities connected with you, and those of your affiliates and entities connected with your affiliates does not exceed $6,000,000. Subsections 152-20(2), (3) and (4) exclude some assets from that net value. The section was last amended by Act No. 41 of 2011, effective 27 June 2011.
The ATO: a significant individual in the company or trust, or the spouse of a significant individual where that spouse has a small business participation percentage greater than zero. A significant individual holds a small business participation percentage of at least 20 per cent. The concept only matters where you sell shares or trust interests rather than business assets.
Section 38-325 of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999, interpreted by GSTR 2002/5 issued 16 October 2002: a supply under an arrangement in which the supplier supplies all of the things necessary for the continued operation of the enterprise and carries on the enterprise until the day of the supply. It is GST-free where the supply is for consideration, the buyer is registered or required to be registered, and the parties have agreed in writing that the supply is of a going concern.
International Valuation Standards, IVS 102 Bases of Value: the fundamental assumptions on which a reported value rests. Different bases, for example market value against investment value, produce different numbers for the same asset. That is why a report has to state the basis it used. The 2024 edition of IVS took effect 31 January 2025 and is adopted by professional bodies rather than by force of Australian law.
Find out what your business is worth
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Ask what it is worth
Free, in writing, and nobody finds out you asked. Tell me the trade and the suburb and I will do the rest.
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