Business Valuation Guide
Most lawn care businesses sell for 2.0x to 3.4x Seller's Discretionary Earnings, with the midpoint near 2.7x. A lawn care business with $250,000 of SDE would typically fall between $500,000 and $850,000.
Lawn care is priced on the route and the contracts, not the mowers. A dense book of recurring maintenance customers in a tight geography is a genuine asset. The same revenue spread thinly across a wide area, on handshake terms, is worth considerably less.
Start with Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE): net profit plus the owner's pay and perks, interest, depreciation and one-time costs.
Then apply the industry multiple. For lawn care businesses that band runs 2.0x to 3.4x, and where a specific business lands inside it is decided by the factors below. Typical SDE margin for this category runs around 15% of revenue, which is a useful sanity check: if your margin is far off that, the multiple moves with it.
Above roughly $1M to $2M of EBITDA the buyer pool changes. Individual buyers give way to private equity platforms and strategic acquirers, and pricing restates onto an EBITDA multiple of 4x to 6.5x rather than a multiple of SDE.
Other landscaping and lawn care operators buying routes, regional home services groups, and individuals buying their first service business.
A typical sale runs 4 to 8 months from going to market to closing, assuming your financials are ready when you start. Sell in or just before the growing season, when the route is full and the contracts are signed. A lawn care business marketed in the dead of winter shows a buyer its worst possible snapshot.
Most lawn care businesses sell for roughly 2.0x to 3.4x Seller's Discretionary Earnings, plus equipment. Contracted recurring customers in a dense route sit at the top of the band; scattered per-visit work sits at the bottom.
Route-only sales are common and priced differently, often as a multiple of monthly recurring revenue rather than annual earnings, because the buyer takes the customers but not the trucks, staff or overhead. It usually nets less than a full business sale but closes much faster.
Spring or early summer, with contracts signed and the route running. Buyers can see the business working and lenders can see current revenue. Listing in winter means presenting your weakest months as the most recent evidence.
There is no single average, because price tracks earnings rather than revenue. At the midpoint multiple of 2.7x SDE, lawn care businesses at $500,000 of SDE sell around $1,350,000, and at $1,000,000 of SDE around $2,700,000. Typical SDE margin in this category runs near 15% of revenue, so a lawn care business doing $1,000,000 in revenue would often carry about $150,000 of SDE and land near $405,000.
SDE multiples of 2.0x to 3.4x apply to owner-operated lawn care businesses. Once earnings pass roughly $1M to $2M of EBITDA the buyer pool shifts to private equity and strategic acquirers, and pricing restates onto an EBITDA multiple of 4x to 6.5x. The two are not comparable: SDE includes the owner's compensation and EBITDA does not, so the same business shows a higher SDE multiple than EBITDA multiple.
Typically 4 to 8 months from going to market to closing, assuming financials are ready. Sell in or just before the growing season, when the route is full and the contracts are signed. A lawn care business marketed in the dead of winter shows a buyer its worst possible snapshot.
SDE times the industry multiple. For lawn care businesses that multiple is 2.0x to 3.4x, so $250,000 of SDE points to $500,000 to $850,000. Recorded sales of similar businesses serve as a cross-check, and the equipment and inventory value usually sets the floor.
Yes, at the top of this page. It applies the 2.0x to 3.4x band for lawn care businesses, adjusted for owner hours, margin and years in business, and returns a range rather than one number.
To decide whether to sell a lawn care business, a market valuation: what a buyer would likely pay. A certified appraisal is usually needed only for divorce, estate, tax, litigation or a buyer's SBA loan, and costs far more.
Multiples reflect broker transaction data including the BizBuySell Insight Report and aggregated 2024-2025 USA small business sales, and mirror the bands used by the Exit Ready valuation calculator. They are planning estimates, not a formal appraisal, and not investment advice. Market multiples move; this page was last updated 2026-08-19.