Seller's Discretionary Earnings — the metric most online business marketplaces actually price against. Add back owner compensation and one-time costs to see your true earning power, then get an estimated valuation range.
Enter net profit above to see your SDE and estimated valuation range.
Why it matters
Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE) is net profit plus every expense that's specific to the current owner and wouldn't necessarily transfer to a buyer — owner salary, personal benefits run through the business, one-time costs, and depreciation.
Most sub-$5M online business sales — the range covered by Flippa, Empire Flippers, Quiet Light, and most Acquire.com deals — are priced as a multiple of SDE, not EBITDA or revenue. It answers the question a buyer actually cares about: how much could I pay myself running this?
The multiple you get depends heavily on how verifiable your numbers are. A seller with a ProofCap-verified plausibility score can usually defend the high end of their range; screenshots and self-reported spreadsheets get discounted toward the low end.
Whether you're selling or buying, ProofCap connects directly to the seller's billing platform and GA4 to confirm the numbers behind an SDE estimate are real. From $297.
