Ask ten founders what a small SaaS is worth and you'll get ten confident, contradictory answers. The frustrating truth is that the number isn't a mystery — the people who buy and sell these things for a living have published the ranges for years. Here's what the data actually says.
A quick ground rule before the numbers: nearly every digital business is priced the same way — profit × a multiple. The profit is usually SDE (seller discretionary earnings: net profit plus whatever the owner was paying themselves out of it). The multiple is the market's confidence score — higher for predictable, hands-off, recurring income; lower for anything fragile or founder-shaped. If you want the full mechanics, we broke them down in how much is your side project worth. This piece is about the benchmarks.
The numbersWhat each asset type trades at
Multiples move with the model, because different models carry different risk. Here's roughly where the 2026 market sits, small end (sub-$1M) of the range.
The highest multiple, because the revenue recurs. Under ~$1M ARR it's usually 4–6× annual SDE — read another way, about 2.5–4× ARR. Low churn and real growth push you to the top of the band.
$5k/mo SaaS, healthy margins ≈ $126k–$168kQuoted on a monthly multiple — about 35–45× average monthly profit (only ~3–3.7× a year). The number lives and dies on where the traffic comes from; diversified beats one algorithm every time.
$3k/mo profit ≈ $105k–$135kInventory, suppliers, and thinner margins pull it down. Roughly 1.5–3.5× annual SDE for sub-$5M stores; clean supplier terms and multiple sales channels lift you within that.
$40k/yr SDE ≈ $60k–$140kPriced on net profit and how sticky the users are. Subscription apps with real retention trade higher; one-time-purchase or ad-only apps trade lower and depend heavily on the store-ranking moat.
$2k/mo profit ≈ $48k–$96kValued like SaaS, then discounted for how easily the core could be copied. A thin "wrapper" on a public model gets the low end; proprietary data, workflow lock-in, and retention earn the SaaS multiple back. Buyers price the moat, not the model.
Moat > MRR when it's AINo profit to multiply, yet these sell every day — for the head start, not the earnings: rebuild cost, an audience or waitlist, strategic fit, and comparable sales. Often a few hundred to low-five figures.
Let an auction find the numberThe pattern is hard to miss: recurring software beats content beats commerce, and it's not close. It's the same reason a landlord pays more for a building with a signed ten-year lease than an empty one — predictable, transferable money is simply worth more per dollar.
The fine printFour things that swing the real number
Two projects with identical profit can sell for double or half of each other. The gap is risk — and most of it is visible in the numbers.
A multiple isn't a grade on what you built. It's a measure of how confidently the next person can own it without you — and that's the part you can actually improve before you list.
The caveatRanges, not promises
Every number here is a starting line, not a guarantee. Published multiples describe the middle of a market; your churn, growth, traffic mix, and how cleanly the thing transfers will move your real figure more than the category ever will. And at the small, early-stage end, the honest answer to "what's it worth" is often "what a buyer will pay" — which is exactly why open offers and short auctions work so well down here. Set a fair number, invite the market in, and let it tell you.
See what yours is worth.
Let real buyers price it.
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— The Vertos team