How to Value a Micro-SaaS: Methods, Multiples and Worked Examples
Last updated · Acqora Research
To value a micro-SaaS, multiply either its annual recurring revenue or its seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) by a multiple that reflects size, churn and risk. Small products usually change hands at roughly 2x to 4x. As of October 10, 2026, listings on Acqora ask a median of 3.5x annualized revenue.
What does micro-SaaS valuation actually measure?
A micro-SaaS is a small software product that customers pay for on subscription, usually run by one person or a very small team. Valuation is the process of turning its income into a price a buyer will pay. It does not produce one true number. It produces a range, and where you land inside that range depends on how risky the income looks.
Two vocabulary terms do most of the work. Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the subscription revenue you can expect each month, and annual recurring revenue (ARR) is MRR times twelve. Seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) is the profit a single working owner takes home: net profit plus the owner's salary and any personal expenses run through the business.
Everything below is about asking prices and published guidance, not closed deals. Sale prices are not published here, so the live numbers in this guide describe what sellers want, which is usually the top of what a buyer will pay.
Which valuation method should I use?
Pick the method that matches what a buyer is really buying. A buyer of a $400-a-month tool is buying a small income stream and a few hours of weekly work. A buyer of a $15,000-a-month product is buying a growing revenue base. The first is priced on earnings, the second on revenue.
SDE multiple
Add the owner's pay to net profit, then multiply. If the business earns $30,000 a year in revenue, spends $12,000 on hosting, tools and contractors, and the founder pays themselves nothing, SDE is $18,000. Buyer guides from Livmo put SDE multiples for products under $100,000 ARR at about 2x to 3x, rising to roughly 2.5x to 4.5x between $100,000 and $500,000 ARR.
The most common mistake is forgetting to add the owner's salary back. A founder who clears $30,000 in profit after paying themselves $80,000 has $110,000 of SDE, not $30,000.
Revenue (ARR) multiple
Multiply annual recurring revenue by a multiple. This suits businesses with real growth, a team or low founder involvement, because profit is less informative when the owner reinvests heavily. Livmo cites about 2x to 3.5x ARR for products between $500,000 and $1 million in ARR, and BigIdeasDB, which analyzes listings on Acquire.com, reports 2x to 3.5x ARR for micro SaaS.
These ranges come from different samples and different dates, so use them as a sanity check rather than a formula.
Comparable listings
The most practical check is to see what similar products ask. Find three to five listings with similar revenue, age and category, and note their asking multiples. The table in the next section does this at the marketplace level, and the live micro-SaaS for sale page lets you filter further.
Pre-revenue products
With no revenue there is nothing to multiply. Buyers price the code, the domain, any audience and the cost to rebuild. Microns describes the Berkus method for this stage, which scores a handful of risk factors, and gives a rough benchmark of $500 to $1,500 for a pre-revenue product. Treat that as a floor-level guide rather than a promise.
What multiples do micro-SaaS businesses ask for?
We queried every SaaS listing marked for sale on October 10, 2026. Of 265 listings with an asking price, 115 report revenue above zero. The asking multiple is asking price divided by 12 times reported monthly revenue.
The median across all 115 is 3.5x, and the middle half runs from 1.8x to 9.1x. That spread is wide because very small products often carry prices that look high as a multiple but are tiny in dollars. The table breaks it out by size.
| Reported monthly revenue | Listings | Median asking price | Median asking multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $500 | 63 | $7,300 | 7.3x |
| $500 to $999 | 13 | $25,000 | 2.8x |
| $1,000 to $1,999 | 9 | $32,500 | 1.4x |
| $2,000 to $4,999 | 12 | $70,000 | 2.2x |
| $5,000 and up | 18 | $699,500 | 3.4x |
| All with revenue | 115 | $15,000 | 3.5x |
Why the pattern is not a straight line
Multiples fall from the smallest band to the middle of the table and then rise again. Part of this is a floor effect: a seller with $200 a month still wants a few thousand dollars for the work, which is a high multiple. Part is sample size, since some bands hold only nine to thirteen listings and a single outlier moves the median. Read the shape, not the decimals.
The higher multiple at $5,000 a month and up fits the buyer guidance above: larger, growing products get priced on revenue and trajectory rather than on a few hours of weekly income.
What makes a micro-SaaS worth more or less?
Two businesses with the same revenue can sell for very different prices. These are the factors buyers weigh most, in rough order of impact.
| Monthly churn | Customers kept after 12 months | Customers lost in a year |
|---|---|---|
| 1% | 88.6% | 11.4% |
| 2% | 78.5% | 21.5% |
| 3% | 69.4% | 30.6% |
| 5% | 54.0% | 46.0% |
| 8% | 36.8% | 63.2% |
Churn
Churn is the share of customers who cancel in a period. Compounded over a year, small monthly differences become large ones, as the table below shows. A buyer who sees 5% monthly churn is buying a product that needs constant replacement customers just to stand still.
Revenue concentration
If one customer pays 30% of revenue, losing them cuts your income by almost a third. Livmo suggests a discount of half a turn to a full turn on the multiple once a single customer passes about 20%. Check this in the billing export, not in the pitch.
Founder dependence
Can the product run if the founder takes a month off? Documented support replies, automated deploys and a runbook all lower the work a buyer inherits, and buyers pay for that. A product that needs the founder's personal relationships is closer to a job than an asset.
Age and growth
Microns notes that buyers often prefer a business with at least two years of history. Steady growth supports a higher multiple, while a revenue curve that peaked and is sliding supports a lower one. Share twelve months of data, not just the best three.
Platform risk
A product that depends on one third-party API, a single app store or an acquirer-hostile marketplace carries extra risk. If a Chrome Web Store policy change or a model-provider price rise could end the business overnight, the multiple should say so.
How do I value a micro-SaaS? Two worked examples
These examples are illustrative, not real listings. Both use ranges from the sections above, so you can replace the inputs with your own.
Example 1: a $2,000-a-month product priced on revenue
Annualize first: $2,000 x 12 = $24,000 ARR. In the live data, listings between $2,000 and $4,999 a month have a median asking multiple of 2.2x, with the middle half between 1.3x and 3.6x. That implies a central ask of about $52,800 and a range of roughly $31,700 to $87,100.
Where to sit in that range depends on the factors above. Under 2% monthly churn, no customer over 10% of revenue and a documented setup, you can argue for the top half. Rising churn or a founder who answers every ticket pulls you toward the bottom.
Example 2: a $30,000-a-year product priced on SDE
Revenue is $30,000, costs are $12,000, and the owner takes no salary, so SDE is $18,000. At the 2x to 3x guidance for products under $100,000 ARR, the price range is $36,000 to $54,000. That is a revenue multiple of about 1.2x to 1.8x, which is low next to the asking medians above.
That gap is normal. Sellers ask high and buyers negotiate down, so a fair deal often closes below the asking median for the band.
How do I put a number on my own micro-SaaS?
Follow these steps in order, and write down the assumption you make at each one so you can defend it to a buyer.
- Pull twelve months of payouts from Stripe, Paddle or Lemon Squeezy and confirm what the revenue number includes. One-off payments and trailing 30-day charges are not MRR.
- Calculate MRR, ARR and SDE. Add back your own pay and any personal expenses, and subtract only real running costs.
- Measure churn, revenue concentration and the weekly hours you spend. These decide whether you sit at the low or high end.
- Find three to five comparable listings and note their asking multiples, then apply the median to your own figures.
- Set a range with an asking price near the top, and decide your walk-away price before you list.
- Prepare proof: processor access, a bank match, a code repository and a handover list. Verified numbers are what turn a high ask into a defensible one.
What mistakes do sellers make when valuing a micro-SaaS?
The first mistake is using venture-backed multiples. Public SaaS companies and funded startups trade at multiples that small, founder-run products rarely reach. The second is using profit when SDE applies, which undervalues the business, and the third is calling charge volume MRR. A buyer who finds that error in diligence will reprice the whole deal.
A fourth mistake is anchoring on a single sale story. One product that sold for 6x tells you very little. Look at the spread across many listings instead, and remember that asking prices are not sale prices.
Methodology
These figures come from a read-only query of the live listings database on October 10, 2026. The set is every startup in the SaaS category marked for sale with an asking price above zero, which gives 265 listings. The multiple analysis uses only the 115 with reported revenue above zero, and it divides asking price by 12 times reported monthly revenue.
Revenue is whatever the listing reports and may be trailing 30-day charges rather than true MRR. None of the 265 listings is verified against a billing provider, so these figures describe what sellers ask, not what buyers have paid. Only two listings report a profit margin, so no SDE multiples are calculated from Acqora data. Medians are used because outliers would distort averages, and bands with fewer than 15 listings should be read as directional.
External valuation ranges are quoted from the sources listed below, were produced from different samples and dates, and are cited as published guidance rather than verified transaction data.
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