---
title: "Max offer calculator for buying an online business"
url: https://firstpassmemo.com/tools/max-offer-calculator/
updated: 2026-10-15
publisher: FirstPass Memo (hello@firstpassmemo.com)
---

Free calculator

# Max offer calculator: what multiple should you pay?

The FirstPass Memo max offer calculator turns a listing's monthly profit, age, revenue concentration, owner hours and trend into a rule-of-thumb price range in months of profit, plus the most you should offer at your own target payback. Small online businesses ($10k–150k) usually ask 20–45 months of profit; the risk factors below decide where in that band a listing belongs.

Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us or anyone else.

The calculator needs JavaScript, which runs only on this page. The rules are listed below.

## How it works

Starting point (months of profit): content 30, SaaS 40, ecommerce 30, FBA 28, newsletter 32, YouTube 26, app 30 Under 1 year −8 · under 3 years −3 · 5+ years +3 One source ≥70% −8 · 40–70% −4 Owner hours >20/wk −6 · 10–20 −3 Falling profit −8 · growing +2 Range = midpoint ± 6 months (floor 10) · Max offer = the lower of the top of the range and your target payback

The starting points sit near the medians we see on public marketplace listings priced $10k–150k (October 2026 benchmarks (https://firstpassmemo.com/data/)). The adjustments are deliberately blunt: they show which facts move a price, not what a specific business is worth.

## Worked example

A composite, not a real listing: a 2-year-old content site making $3,000 a month, 80% of revenue from one affiliate programme, 5 owner hours a week, flat profit. The starting point is 30 months; age takes off 3 and concentration 8, so the midpoint is 19 months ($57,000) and the range $39,000–$75,000. A listing asking 36× monthly profit ($108,000) is well above it.

## Related

- Free 33-rule red-flag checker (https://firstpassmemo.com/checker/): paste the listing and see which numbers do not add up.

- True payback calculator (https://firstpassmemo.com/tools/payback-calculator/)

- Listing-to-checklist tool (https://firstpassmemo.com/tools/listing-to-checklist/)

- How many times profit do online businesses sell for? (https://firstpassmemo.com/answers/how-many-times-profit-do-online-businesses-sell-for/)

- All calculators (https://firstpassmemo.com/tools/)

This calculator does arithmetic on the figures you enter. It is not investment, legal, tax or valuation advice, and it does not check whether a seller's figures are true.

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FirstPass Memo is informational screening, not investment, legal, tax, accounting or valuation advice, and not an audit. Seller figures are not independently verified. HTML version: https://firstpassmemo.com/tools/max-offer-calculator/