How to Value Your Website Before Selling?

Are you considering selling your website and want to know how much you may be able to get for it when you sell?

Perhaps someone has made an offer for your website, or you have just lost passion for the website itself or the market you’re involved in. Or it could be that you’re just happy to cash out and do something else with your money.

Whatever your motivation you need to know how to value your website and come up with what it’s worth before selling so you don’t get ripped off and leave money on the table.

Why Do Websites Have Value?

But before we get into the nitty-gritty of valuation formulas and multiples, let’s canvas why websites have value in the first place.

Value by terms of definition is the monetary worth of something. The reason that a website has value is that a potential buyer can make a profit from it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Buyers are solely motivated by return on investment, so anyone out there thinking “but my website has so much potential” strike those thoughts from your vocabulary. Normally what you think your website is worth and what someone is willing to pay for it are two completely different things.

Some website owners and bloggers struggle with the idea that just because you’ve put all this effort into creating content and doing SEO, your website inherently has value. I’m sorry to tell you this, but in terms of valuation 1 + 1 doesn’t equal 2. All the assets of your website (your domain, content, marketing, SEO, systems) are designed to create profit and it is that profit that buyers base their calculations on.

What Is Value In The Eyes Of Website Buyers

Website buyers typically pay a multiple of earnings for a website. That is they pay a multiplication of how much net profit the website makes per year.

For example, if your website makes $100,000 per year. A buyer may adopt an earnings multiple of 2X thus they will offer you $200,000 for the website.

Generally, the higher the risk the website holds, the lower the multiple they will offer.

Below is a list of items that will lower the risk of a website and thus attract a higher multiple offers from buyers:

Increasing growth
Stable earnings
Automated systems
Diversified traffic streams
Diversified income streams
Unique Selling Position

Valuations Methods

There are a few different types of valuation methods that buyers will use to value your website.

Revenue Multiple – You have most probably heard the statistic that most businesses sell for 2-4 times earnings. Basically, a buyer will take the current net profit of the website for the past twelve months and then multiply it with an earnings multiplier to get a final valuation figure.
Comparable Sales – Buyers will use this method if there is sales data available for similar websites. They will then adopt a similar valuation and make an offer based on that.
Asset Value – sometimes buyers will ignore the revenue of a website and instead look at the assets of the site (the customer list, or email database) and make a calculation on that instead. They do this because they may be able to leverage those assets better than the existing owner with a new product or making alterations to the system etc.

How To Determine What Your Website Is Worth

Now that you’ve gained insights into the perspective of potential buyers, you’re better equipped to calculate the value of your website.

Utilizing a free website grader tool can also offer invaluable insights into your website’s worth. It’s important to bear in mind that any valuation is essentially an estimate, reflecting what a prospective buyer is likely to offer.

At the end of the deal, the real value of your website is what is sitting in your bank account once you’ve closed the deal.

First, you need to determine your net profit. You calculate this by taking your total sales/earnings and then subtracting all your expenses from that figure, which will give you your net profit. Do this for the last twelve months’ earnings, known as trailing twelve months’ earnings (TTM).

Then you need to apply a multiplier to your TTM earnings.

Generally, newer sites will sell for 1-2X earnings. More established sites 2-4X earnings. And high-risk sites might only go for 1X earnings. Websites can sell out of those ranges however they are normally an exception to the rule.

This data is based on over $1,000,000 worth of transactions over the past few years.