Buying · 8 min read

How much should you pay for a side project?

Sellers anchor high — that's their job. Here's how to work out what a project is actually worth to you, and turn that number into an offer that gets accepted.

V The Vertos team Updated July 2026

Every listing has a price on it, and almost none of them is the number you should pay. The asking price is the seller's opening position — hopeful, and negotiable. Your job as the buyer is to build your own number from the fundamentals, so you're anchored to what the thing is worth instead of what the seller wishes it were.

The good news: valuing a small project isn't a dark art. It's one formula and a handful of adjustments. Here's the whole thing.

The formulaStart with profit times a multiple

Almost every small online business is priced the same way: its yearly profit multiplied by a number. That multiple is the whole negotiation, and for small projects it sits in a fairly tight band.

3 – 5×
The rough multiple of annual profit a profitable, recurring-revenue app trades at in 2026. A project netting $600/month (~$7,200/year) lands somewhere around $22k–$36k — before you adjust for risk.

That band is your starting point, not your answer. Where a specific project falls inside it — or below it — depends on how much risk you're taking on. Recurring, durable, verifiable, easy-to-run projects earn the top of the range. Everything shaky pulls the number down. Here's what moves it.

The adjustmentsWhat pushes the multiple up or down

▲ up
Recurring revenue & low churnPredictable, sticky income is the most valuable thing a small project has. Steady MRR with low churn earns the top of the range — you're buying next month, not just last month.
▲ up
A genuine growth trendUp-and-to-the-right, verified over several months, is worth paying up for. You're buying momentum, and momentum compounds after you take over.
▲ up
Diversified, durable trafficTwo or more stable acquisition channels de-risk the whole thing. The less it depends on one keyword or platform, the more it's worth.
▼ down
One-off or declining revenueA number propped up by a single launch, or quietly sliding month over month, is worth a real discount. Pay for what's durable, not for the spike.
▼ down
Concentration & transfer riskOne traffic source, one big customer, or ownership that's hard to move off the founder's accounts — each is a reason to pay less, because each is a way the thing can break after you own it.
▼ down
Anything you can't verifyIf the revenue or traffic can't be confirmed at the source, price it as if it's smaller than claimed. Unverifiable is a discount, every time.

You're not paying for what a project earned. You're paying for how confident you are it'll keep earning once it's yours. Certainty is the whole price.

No revenue yet?Pay for the head start, not the dream

Plenty of great buys have little or no revenue. You can't multiply zero, so a pre-revenue project is valued on its assets — the working code, the users or email list, the domain, and the sheer head start it gives you over building from scratch. The right question isn't "what could this make?" (that's the seller's dream); it's "what does owning this save me in time and money versus starting from nothing?" Pay for that, and you rarely overpay. These sell for less than revenue-generating projects, but a solid, transferable foundation is genuinely worth money to the right buyer.

The offerTurning your number into a yes

Once you have a number you believe in, the offer is about making it land as reasonable, not insulting:

1
Anchor to the mathState the multiple and the figures behind your price. "Based on ~$7k annual profit at a 3.5x multiple, given the single traffic source" reads as reasoned; a bare lowball reads as a tire-kicker and gets ignored.
2
Open with room, not at your ceilingCome in a little under your real max so there's space to meet in the middle. Just keep it credible — an offer so low it offends ends the conversation.
3
Use non-price leversCan't agree on price? Bridge it with terms. A short transition-support window, or a holdback — part of the payment released only after the revenue holds up post-transfer — lets you pay more with less risk, and gives a nervous seller a reason to say yes.
4
Close through escrowHowever you land on price, settle through escrow so your money is only released when the assets actually transfer. On Vertos, offers and escrow are built into the flow — you make the offer and the deal settles safely in the same place.

The bottom lineBuild your own number

The seller's price is a starting line, not a verdict. Multiply the real, verified profit by a multiple that reflects the actual risk, discount hard for anything you can't confirm, and value a pre-revenue project on the head start it buys you. Then make an offer anchored to that math and close it safely. Do that and you'll consistently pay a fair price — which, over a few acquisitions, is the entire difference between a portfolio that pays off and one that doesn't.

Found one worth buying?

Make your offer right on the listing, back it with a free AI code analysis, and settle through Stripe escrow — your money moves only when the project does.

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Price the risk, not the hope. That's the whole buyer's edge.
— The Vertos team

Sources & notes

Multiples are directional 2026 figures and vary widely by revenue quality, growth, and risk. Valuation multiples & deal structuring: Empire Flippers and FE International. General education for buyers, not financial advice.