What’s your salon worth? Run the numbers.
Your last twelve months
Optional add-backs
The multiple
Multiples vary by market, growth, owner-dependency, and buyer. This range is a starting point, not an appraisal. The defaults are a national small-business range, not a cat-grooming figure: BizBuySell’s 2025 Insight Report recorded a 2.61× average SDE multiple across 9,586 closed sales, and undocumented, owner-dependent shops typically land well below it (1.0–1.8×) while documented, transferable ones land at or modestly above it (2.6–3.2×).
Your number
| Net profit (revenue − operating expenses) | $32,500 |
| + Owner’s salary | $38,000 |
| + Owner’s perks | $9,000 |
| + One-time expenses | $0 |
| + Interest, depreciation & amortization | $0 |
| = SDE | $79,500 |
Valuation range
Your business generates $79,500 in SDE. At a 1.0×–3.2× multiple, that’s a valuation range of $79,500–$254,400. Owner-dependency and clean books are the two biggest levers on which end you land.
How the math works
Net profit = annual revenue − operating expenses, with operating expenses entered exactly as they sit on your books — your own salary and perks included.
SDE = net profit + owner’s salary + owner’s perks + one-time expenses + interest, depreciation & amortization. Each add-back is cash the current owner takes out, or a cost the next owner would not pay the same way, so it goes back into the pile a buyer is actually buying. Salary and perks are the big two; the rest are optional and default to zero.
SDE margin = SDE ÷ revenue. It shows how much of every dollar through the door ends up as cash flow for whoever owns the shop.
Valuation = SDE × a multiple, shown three ways — low, mid and high — because the multiple is a market judgement, not a fact about your business. The defaults bracket the national small-business average (2.61× per BizBuySell’s 2025 Insight Report) with the bands an undocumented shop and a well-documented shop typically land in. Change them to whatever your market, broker or comparable sales suggest.
Your SDE tells you what the business is worth today.
The Edge’s Exit-Ready Playbook shows you the two levers — owner-dependency and buyer-clean books — that raise the multiple, plus the three-year runway for pulling them.
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The next step
Exit-Ready Playbook
The owner-dependency audit, a real SDE number, buyer-clean books, and a three-year runway.
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Common questions
What is SDE?
Seller’s Discretionary Earnings is the total cash flow a business produces for one owner-operator. It starts from net profit and adds back the owner’s salary, the personal expenses run through the business, one-time costs that will not recur, and interest, depreciation and amortization. It is the number brokers, buyers and lenders price a small business against, because it shows what the next owner would actually have available, not what the current owner chose to pay herself.
What is the difference between SDE and EBITDA?
EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) assumes the business pays a market-rate manager to run it, so the owner’s salary is treated as a real cost. SDE adds that salary back, because in an owner-operated salon the buyer is going to be the one standing at the table. SDE is the right measure for a one-owner grooming business; EBITDA is for businesses large enough to be run by hired management. SDE will always be the larger of the two.
What multiple do grooming salons sell for?
There is no publicly available cat-grooming-specific figure. The closest sourced benchmark is BizBuySell’s 2025 Insight Report, which recorded an average sale multiple of 2.61 times SDE across 9,586 closed small-business sales of every kind. Treat that as a sanity check, not a formula. An undocumented, owner-dependent shop typically sells well below it, often in the 1.0 to 1.8 range, while a documented shop with clean books and tested transferability can land at or modestly above it. That is why the multiple here is an adjustable range rather than a fixed number.
Does my salary count against my valuation?
No, and that is the most common reason owners undervalue their own salon. Your salary is booked as an expense, so it lowers net profit. SDE adds it back, because a buyer is paying for the total cash the business throws off, which includes what used to be your paycheck. The same goes for the vehicle, phone and other personal costs you run through the business. The only catch is that every add-back has to be documented: a receipt, a mileage log or a payroll record, not an estimate.
Why does the tool insist operating expenses include my salary?
To stop a double count. If you enter operating costs that already exclude your pay and then add your salary back on top, SDE comes out overstated by the full amount of your salary, and the valuation range inflates with it. Enter expenses exactly as they appear on your books, where your salary and perks are already inside the total, and let the add-back stack pull them back out once.
How often should I recalculate SDE?
Once now, then every year. The number itself matters less than the trend: watching your SDE move over two or three years tells you whether the business is getting healthier or just busier, and gives a buyer or broker the multi-year history they will ask for anyway. Nothing you type here is stored, so keep your own copy of the inputs each time.