Salon Valuation Calculator
What a buyer would pay for your salon, worked out the way a business broker does it — earnings times a multiple, plus your equipment and stock.
Your salon's numbers
Total takings for the last full year, before any costs.
The profit figure on your tax return, before the add-backs below.
Everything you paid yourself — salary, draws, distributions.
Your car, phone, travel, family wages above market rate, one-off costs.
A paper cost, not cash out the door, so a buyer adds it back.
Your loans do not transfer, so this comes back too.
What the fit-out would realistically fetch, not what you paid.
Retail and back-bar stock, valued at what you paid for it.
What a buyer will ask about
Estimated sale price
$173,950 – $222,450
Most likely around $198,200
Seller's discretionary earnings
$97,000
23.1% of revenue
Multiple applied
1.60×
from a 2.0× starting point
Equipment and stock
$43,000
added on top of goodwill
What moved the multiple
- Typical small salon2.00×
- You do services full-time-0.40×
- Applied multiple1.60×
What would raise this number
Each of these is something a buyer prices in. The figures are what that change alone would be worth on today's earnings.
- Train staff to cover your column so the salon earns without you+$67,900
- Lift repeat business above 65% of revenue+$29,100
- Have an accountant prepare the last two years+$19,400
- Renew the lease before you go to market+$19,400
This is an estimate to argue with, not an appraisal. A real sale price depends on your books, your lease, your staff contracts and who is buying. Before you sell, have an accountant or a business broker who knows salons look at the actual numbers.
How salons are actually valued
Small salons are almost never valued on revenue. They are valued on seller's discretionary earnings — SDE — which is your net profit with your own pay, your personal expenses, depreciation and loan interest added back in. An owner-operated salon deliberately understates profit for tax, so a buyer rebuilds the real earning capacity first.
That SDE is multiplied by a figure that reflects how risky the earnings are. Small salons typically trade between about 1.5 and 3 times SDE. The single biggest factor is whether the business still earns money when you are not standing in it: a salon that depends on the owner's own clients is closer to a job than an asset, and it is priced like one.
Equipment, fit-out and stock are then added on top, valued at what they would realistically fetch rather than what they cost. Property, if you own it, is valued separately and is not part of this figure.