What I Learned Analyzing 100 SaaS Exits

After manually reviewing 100+ SaaS acquisitions under $1M documented on FounderSold, several clear patterns emerged.

The Multiple Story

The median profit multiple for SaaS exits is 2.8×. But averages hide the distribution. The real story:

• Bottom quartile (≤ 2×): High churn, no clear moat, saturated market
• Median (2.5-3×): Steady growth, some defensibility, clean metrics
• Top quartile (≥ 4×): Strong retention, enterprise customers, proprietary distribution

What Actually Matters for Multiples

MRR is table stakes. Every buyer knows how to value revenue. What moves the multiple:

1. Net Revenue Retention (NRR), SaaS businesses with NRR > 100% got 1.2× more on average
2. Customer concentration, If your top customer is > 30% of revenue, expect a discount
3. Acquisition channel, SEO-driven growth commands premiums; paid channels get discounted
4. Tech debt, Solo founders who built without tests consistently got lower offers

The Platform Risk Tax

Businesses built on top of Notion, Airtable, or Slack APIs sold for 0.8× less than comparable independent SaaS. Buyers see platform dependency as existential risk.

Timing the Market

2023-2024 saw a 15% compression in multiples compared to 2021-2022. The frothy valuations of the bull market have normalized. Today's 2.8× median is probably the new baseline.

The Practical Takeaway

If you're building to sell, focus on: - Reducing churn before the exit process - Documenting acquisition channels clearly - Eliminating platform dependencies - Having 6+ months of clean financial records

The best exits in our database weren't the highest MRR, they were the cleanest businesses.

Explore the full dataset at FounderSold to see these patterns in real exits.