How much is my business worth if I plan to sell it within the next year?

By Michael D. Rubin, CEO & Founder · September 2026 · 825 words

If you plan to sell within a year, your business is worth roughly what your recent adjusted earnings support, multiplied by what buyers pay for a company like yours: most often three to seven times adjusted EBITDA for a business with $3 million to $100 million in revenue. On that timeline, value is largely set by the results you already have. What you can still control is how clearly those results are presented and how many buyers compete for them.

The practical move is to get a range now, so you know whether the timeline works and what to focus on in the months that remain.

What buyers will look at on your timeline

Adjusted EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, restated to remove owner perks and one-time costs. A buyer closing a deal within the year will focus on the trailing twelve months, meaning the most recent twelve months of results, and on the two or three years before that. They want earnings that are steady or rising and a current year that is on track.

A sale typically takes three to nine months from engagement to funds wired. If you want to close within a year, the company needs to be on the market within the next few months, which means your current-year numbers will be reviewed while you are still producing them. A dip during the sale is one of the most common reasons buyers reprice, so the next few quarters matter more than any before them.

What you can still change in twelve months

These steps fit inside a year and affect how buyers read the numbers they will see:

• Clean up the books. Monthly statements that reconcile to your tax returns, with owner and one-time expenses clearly identified.
• Document your add-backs. Owner pay above market, personal expenses run through the company, a one-time lawsuit or repair, each with a paper trail.
• Keep performance steady. Do not cut marketing or maintenance to inflate profit; buyers notice, and it backfires.
• Put key agreements in writing. Customer contracts, supplier terms, leases and key-employee arrangements.
• Step back where you can. Hand customer relationships and routine decisions to a manager, so the business is not seen as dependent on you.

What to leave alone

Twelve months is too short for big bets, and some changes can actively hurt. A new location, a major equipment purchase or an acquisition shows up as cost before it shows up as profit, and buyers will not pay for results that have not arrived yet. Deeper changes such as building a management team, diversifying customers or shifting toward recurring revenue are worth doing, but they usually take longer before buyers credit them. If your timeline can flex, pre-exit consulting over the 12 to 24 months before a sale is the right tool for that work.

Why a range matters more than a single number

An opinion of value should be a range from low to high, with the reasoning behind it. Where you land depends on factors you can explain to buyers now: growth, customer mix, margins, management depth and the state of your records. The most reliable way to reach the top of the range is competition, meaning several qualified buyers submitting letters of intent at the same time. Our long read on what your business is worth explains how the range is built.

If the range comes back below what you need, you have learned it with time to decide: sell now, or wait and improve first. Our guide on when is the right time to sell helps with that choice.

A simple way to estimate your own starting point

You can rough out a range yourself before anyone else looks. Take last year's pre-tax profit, add back interest, depreciation and amortization, then add back expenses a buyer would not carry, such as your personal vehicle or a one-time settlement, and subtract anything the business underpays, such as below-market rent to yourself. Multiply the result by three and by seven. As an illustration, adjusted EBITDA of $1.2 million gives a range of $3.6 million to $8.4 million.

That spread is wide on purpose. It shows how much depends on the factors buyers weigh, and it is only a starting point: the figure is enterprise value, before debt is paid off, before taxes and fees, and before any part of the price is paid later through an earnout (payments that depend on future results) or seller financing.

How MDR & Associates helps on a one-year timeline

Start with a free valuation snapshot for a quick range. From there, a free, confidential discovery meeting and opinion of value follows once we have reviewed three years of financials. If we believe the company can be sold for maximum value within your timeline, we will say so and lay out the schedule. If we do not, we will tell you that too, and explain what would change the answer.

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