Australian small businesses typically sell for 2x to 6x normalised EBITDA, with the multiple determined by industry, business size, and how much the business depends on the owner to function. A cafe in Fremantle and an IT managed services firm in Perth can both generate $500,000 EBITDA — but one might sell for $875,000 and the other for $3 million. The industry you’re in is the single biggest variable in your sale price, before any other factor is considered.
Here is what the numbers actually look like across the sectors Miro Capital works in.
What Is an EBITDA Multiple?
An EBITDA multiple is the number a buyer applies to your normalised profit to arrive at a business sale price. EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation. For most privately-held Australian businesses with revenue between $1M and $20M, it’s the profit figure buyers use to determine value.
The formula is straightforward: normalised EBITDA × industry multiple = indicative sale price. A business generating $800,000 in normalised EBITDA at a 4x multiple is worth $3.2 million. The work sits in two places — calculating your normalised EBITDA accurately (which means removing personal expenses, one-off costs, and non-cash charges, covered in detail in the EBITDA add-backs guide) and understanding what multiple your industry and size actually commands.
Lower multiples reflect higher risk: owner dependency, project-based revenue, customer concentration, or an industry where buyers are scarce. Higher multiples reflect the opposite.
EBITDA Multiples by Industry in Australia
The ranges below apply to privately-held Australian businesses. They’re starting points — individual businesses vary within each range based on size, growth, and the factors discussed further down. But every buyer starts here.
| Industry | Typical EBITDA Multiple |
|---|---|
| Hospitality (cafes, restaurants) | 1.5x – 3x |
| Retail | 2x – 3.5x |
| Trade businesses (electrical, plumbing, construction) | 2.5x – 4x |
| Manufacturing and industrial | 2.5x – 5x |
| Transport and logistics | 3x – 5x |
| Professional services (accounting, law, consulting) | 3x – 5x |
| Financial services (mortgage broking, financial planning) | 3x – 5.5x |
| Mining services | 3x – 6x |
| Technology and IT services | 4x – 7x |
| Healthcare (medical, dental, allied health) | 4x – 7x |
| Childcare and education | 4x – 7x |
These ranges assume a going-concern sale with a reasonable handover period and accounts that have been professionally prepared.
Trade and Construction: Solid Businesses, Constrained Multiples
Trade businesses — electrical contractors, plumbers, builders, landscapers — are some of the most profitable and hardest-working businesses in Australia, and some of the most consistently undervalued at sale time. Most sell between 2.5x and 4x EBITDA.
The constraint is owner dependency, which is the thing buyers in this sector encounter most often. I spoke to an owner of a Perth electrical contracting business last year — $650,000 normalised EBITDA, four crews running independently, a loyal base of commercial clients. He achieved 3.8x. His counterpart in a similar suburb, similar revenue, who was personally on the tools most days and kept client relationships in his phone, sold at 2.6x. The difference was $780,000 in sale price — same industry, same EBITDA, same city, entirely explained by whether the business could continue without its owner.
The way to push a trade business toward 4x: documented systems, a supervisor or foreman who can run operations day-to-day, and service or maintenance contracts that give a buyer forward revenue visibility rather than a blank page after settlement.
Professional Services: The Recurring Revenue Premium
Accounting practices, law firms, consulting businesses, and financial planning firms typically trade between 3x and 5.5x EBITDA. The premium over trade businesses reflects recurring client relationships and the stickiness of professional engagements — clients don’t switch accountants or lawyers lightly.
The critical variable is client portability. A firm where clients are attached to the practice’s systems and interact with multiple staff members will get a materially better multiple than one where every client relationship runs through the principal’s mobile. Our guides on accounting practice valuations and financial planning businesses cover the sub-sector specifics.
One rule of thumb worth knowing: if the key client relationships live in the owner’s phone rather than the firm’s CRM, buyers apply a portability discount — and it’s not a small one.
Healthcare and Allied Health: Premium Multiples, Specific Risks
Healthcare businesses in Australia — general medical practices, dental practices, physiotherapy clinics, and specialist groups — consistently attract multiples of 4x to 7x, with well-performing operations sometimes reaching 8x or above (which is more than most owners expect when they first start asking around).
Three things drive this premium above other service industries. First, revenue is partially government-funded or insurance-backed, which makes cash flows more predictable than most SME sectors. Second, demand is need-based and relatively resistant to economic cycles. Third, corporate healthcare groups actively compete with private buyers for quality practices, and competition between buyers is the fastest way to lift a multiple.
The risks that compress healthcare multiples: overreliance on a single practitioner (especially the vendor), regulatory exposure — Medicare billing audits are a real due diligence concern — and lease tenure on clinic premises. Our medical practice valuation guide and dental practice guide go deeper on those sub-sector ranges.
Technology and IT Services: Recurring Revenue Is the Story
IT managed service providers, software businesses, and technology consultancies command some of the highest multiples in the SME market: 4x to 7x, and higher still for genuine SaaS businesses with monthly recurring revenue.
The distinction buyers make is between project revenue and recurring revenue. An IT company running one-off implementation projects is a different risk profile from one with managed services contracts renewing annually. The MSP model typically attracts a 0.5x to 1.5x premium over a project-based IT business with the same EBITDA. A rule of thumb for this sector: every 10% shift from project revenue to recurring revenue is worth roughly 0.3x to 0.5x on your multiple.
Strategic acquirers — larger IT groups expanding their geographic footprint or adding technical capability — are active in the Australian market, and that buyer competition keeps multiples healthy. Our IT services valuation guide covers this in detail.
What Pushes Your Multiple Up or Down
Within every industry range, individual businesses vary by 1x to 2x based on five factors:
Owner dependency is the single largest discount. If the business cannot operate for two weeks without you present, a buyer prices that transition risk into the multiple.
Revenue quality is the second. Recurring contracts, retainer arrangements, and subscription-type income command a premium over transactional or project revenue, because they give a buyer confidence in forward earnings.
Business size matters more than most owners realise. A $200,000 EBITDA business trades at the bottom of its industry range; the same business at $1.5M EBITDA trades near the top. Buyers apply a size discount to smaller businesses because they are harder to finance through banks and have less management redundancy.
Customer concentration is the fourth. If your largest customer represents more than 25% of revenue, expect a meaningful discount — buyers price a single customer as a single point of failure.
Growth trajectory closes the list. A business growing at 15% per year will get a higher multiple than a flat business with the same current EBITDA, because the buyer is paying for where earnings are going, not just where they’ve been.
The Size Effect: Where Buyers Change
The step-change from under to over $1M EBITDA is particularly significant in the Australian market. Below that threshold, you’re mostly selling to individual buyers funding the deal partly from savings and partly from bank debt. Above it, you attract small private equity groups and strategic acquirers — a wider, better-capitalised buyer pool — and multiples reflect that.
As a rough guide:
- Under $500k EBITDA: 1.5x–3x, mostly individual buyers
- $500k–$2M EBITDA: 3x–5x, mix of individual buyers and small strategic acquirers
- $2M–$5M EBITDA: 4x–6x, private equity and strategic buyers actively competing
- Above $5M EBITDA: 5x–8x+, institutional buyers, structured sale process
Getting a business from $800k to $1.2M EBITDA before going to market isn’t just a $400k income improvement — it’s a multiple re-rating that can add millions to the sale price.
How to Use This Before You Sell
Knowing your industry’s multiple range is step one. Step two is calculating your normalised EBITDA accurately — stripping out owner-specific costs, one-off expenses, and non-cash charges so the number reflects what the business genuinely earns under a new owner.
Normalised EBITDA × the right multiple gives you a directional value. If you want a more precise figure, our free valuation calculator takes about four minutes and gives you a range based on your specific numbers.
If you’re considering a sale in the next 12–36 months, the better question isn’t “what is my business worth today?” but “what do I need to change to move toward the top of my industry’s multiple range?” That’s where value creation happens — before the sale process starts, not during it.
Get in touch to talk through where your business sits and what’s realistic for your sector.