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The Valuation Tax Calculator

Founder dependency is priced by buyers whether or not it is discussed. Set four inputs and answer one question about what would wait if you disappeared for three weeks. You will get a range for what that structure is costing you, and what a partial move is worth. No email required.

Annual revenue$20.0M

$5M$300M

Adjusted EBITDA margin15% · $3.0M

3%40%

Sector

We publish 5.5x for DMV professional services. That is the default below.

Typical multiple in your market5.5x

3.0x12.0x

If you were unreachable for three weeks, name the decision that would wait.

Nothing material would wait.The team would decide, act, and brief you when you were back. Pricing, hiring, and client escalations all have an owner who is not you.A few approvals would sit.Day-to-day delivery continues, but certain pricing calls, exceptions, or sign-offs queue up until you return.Client relationships and deals in flight would stall.Key accounts expect you personally, and anything mid-negotiation pauses. Delivery holds, but growth does not.Almost everything routes through me.Client relationships, pricing, hiring, and delivery decisions all need you. Three weeks would be visible in the numbers.

Your valuation gap

$2.3M to $4.5M

This is the value a buyer tends to hold back because the company depends on you, not because of anything in your performance.

Adjusted EBITDA: $3.0M
As a transferable asset at 5.5x: $16.5M
With you in every decision: $12.0M

You do not have to close all of it. Moving from full dependency to what a buyer would call moderate is worth

$1.5M to $3.0M

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How this is calculated, and what it cannot tell you.

The discount is applied in turns of EBITDA, which is how buyers actually think about it. FISART, looking at closed transactions across thirteen service industries, found owner-dependent businesses selling at a one to two turn EBITDA discount against management-run peers in the same tier. That band anchors the most dependent answer on this page. Lighter answers scale down toward no discount.

The partial figure uses the same research. Moving from full dependency to what a buyer would call moderate is worth half a turn to a full turn, which is why the number is worth knowing long before there is a transaction on the table.

The multiple is your input rather than our assertion. We publish one sourced sector multiple, 5.5 times for DMV professional services, and we do not hold defensible figures for the others. Where we do not know, the calculator asks instead of guessing.

What it cannot do is value your company. A real read takes interviews, a look at who holds which relationships, and a climate pulse across the team. That is The Diagnostic, and it starts at eight thousand dollars.

Valuation figures are lower middle market benchmarks drawn from Value Builder System research, FISART transaction analysis, and GF Data via Middle Market Growth. They describe the market, not a projection for any particular company. This calculator produces an estimate for conversation, not a valuation, an appraisal, or financial advice.

The Valuation Tax Calculator

Estimate your valuation gap

How this is calculated, and what it cannot tell you.