Where do you find good businesses for sale?

Which channels produce deals, and what does each one cost you?

There are six channels, plus one you can pay for. Each trades speed for competition. None is free. You pay in money, in time or in the quality of what you see.

• Online marketplaces (BizBuySell and similar). Thousands of listings, searchable by industry, state and price. Cost: your time, and competition from every other buyer with an email account. Best for learning what businesses sell for and for meeting brokers.
• Seller's brokers, contacted directly. A broker represents the seller and is paid by the seller, typically 10–12% on Main Street deals under $1M. Brokers often call buyers they already know before a listing goes public. Cost: the time it takes to become one of those buyers.
• M&A advisers and small investment banks. They handle larger companies, usually with real financial statements and a formal sale process. Cost: you need proof of capital and a credible team before they take you seriously.
• Professional referrals. SBA lenders, CPAs, estate and business attorneys, and wealth advisers hear about owners who want out before anyone else does. Cost: relationship time, and you get only what they choose to pass along.
• Industry contacts. Suppliers, equipment dealers, distributors and trade associations know which owners are tired, ill or near retirement. Cost: you need to be credible inside the industry.
• Direct outreach to owners (off-market). Letters, calls and emails to owners who have not listed. Cost: volume. Most owners will not reply, and most who reply are not ready to sell.
• Buy-side brokers (the paid option). You hire someone to search for you. They usually charge a flat fee or a 2–5% success fee, and you pay it, not the seller.

Why do so many listings look like junk?

New buyers spend a week on BizBuySell and decide the market is broken. It is not broken. It is sorted. Here is what is going on.

• Selection. An owner with a strong, well-run business often has buyers before a listing is needed: a competitor, a key employee, a private equity add-on program. What reaches a public listing includes those that did not sell privately.
• The cash flow number is SDE, not profit. Seller's discretionary earnings add back one owner's salary and benefits. A listing showing $165K of SDE, the BizBuySell median, is roughly what one person earns by working in the business full time. If you plan to hire a manager, much of that goes to the manager.
• Add-backs are the seller's view. Personal cars, family on payroll, "one-time" expenses. Some are real. Many will not survive a lender's review. Read our guide to which add-backs to question.
• Asking prices are not sale prices. The all-sector BizBuySell average from 2021 to Q1 2026 was 2.57x SDE, and 2.7x in Q1 2026. Asking multiples above that need a reason.
• Good listings go fast. A clean listing at a fair price draws many inquiries and goes under letter of intent quickly. What sits for months is what you mostly see.
• Terms are thin. Only 20.4% of US listings offer seller financing, while 61% of surveyed buyers say they want it. Expect to find it more often in conversation than in the listing.

None of this means marketplace deals are bad. It means the good ones need speed, and speed needs preparation: your financing pre-qualified, your buy box written, your proof of funds ready.

If you are buying your first business

Start with marketplaces and brokers, for three reasons. You learn pricing fast. You meet the brokers who will later call you first. And you build the habit of saying no quickly. In parallel, tell your banker, your CPA and two or three attorneys exactly what you are looking for. Add direct outreach once your buy box is narrow enough to build a list from it.

Plan on months, not weeks. IBBA advisers report that Main Street deals take 6–10 months from the broker's engagement to closing, and that clock starts after the seller decides to sell. Stanford's 2026 study found that traditional search funds typically take about 20 months to acquire, and about half of funds launched from 2021 to 2024 had bought a company by the end of 2025.

If you already own a business

Your best sources are different. Competitors, suppliers and customers in your own industry already know you. Owners nearing retirement may prefer to sell to someone who will keep their staff. IBBA's Q2 2026 survey found retirement was the top reason owners sold, cited by 45% of sellers in deals under $500K and up to 72% in $1–2M deals. An existing owner buying in the same or a related industry may also qualify for the SBA's Business Expansion category, where the coverage test is 1.15x instead of 1.25x. See how to finance a second business.

Worked example: screening a listing in ten minutes

A listing asks $700,000 for a business showing $250,000 of SDE. The figures below are illustrative; the rules are from the SBA's SOP 50 10 8.1.

1. Asking multiple: $700,000 ÷ $250,000 = 2.8x SDE. That is slightly above the 2.57x long-run average and close to the 2.7x Q1 2026 average. Check the industry: HVAC averaged 2.79x, restaurants 2.15x.
2. Project cost: $700,000 plus an assumed $50,000 of working capital, fees and closing costs = $750,000.
3. Minimum equity injection for an Initial Acquisition: 10% × $750,000 = $75,000. It cannot be reduced, and a full-standby seller note or passive investors can cover at most half of it.
4. Loan: $675,000. At 10% (prime of 7% plus 3%, as of September 2026; check current prime) over 10 years, payments are about $8,920 a month, or about $107,000 a year.
5. Coverage before you pay yourself: $250,000 ÷ $107,000 = 2.3x.
6. Coverage after an assumed $100,000 salary for you or a manager: $150,000 ÷ $107,000 = 1.4x. That clears the 1.25x minimum with a modest cushion.
7. Verdict: worth a call, if the SDE survives diligence. If $40,000 of add-backs fall away, coverage drops to $110,000 ÷ $107,000 = 1.03x and the bank will not lend on this price.

Run this before you sign an NDA. It takes ten minutes, and it kills most listings honestly.

Where these numbers come from: median sale price, median cash flow and SDE multiples are BizBuySell data from 2021 to Q1 2026 as compiled by Beancount. Buyer preferences are from the BizBuySell buyer guide. Seller-financing frequency is from BigIdeasDB. Broker fees are from Investors Club and BizBuySell on buy-side brokers. Seller motives and timelines are from the IBBA Market Pulse Q2 2026. Search timelines are from the Stanford 2026 Search Fund Study. Equity injection and coverage rules are from SBA SOP 50 10 8.1, summarized by Cantrell Firm; rates are from NerdWallet. SOP 50 10 8.1 applies to loans that receive an SBA loan number on or after October 1, 2026 (SBA Information Notice 5000-880695).

Related questions

Are off-market businesses cheaper than listed ones?

Not reliably. You face less competition, but an owner who has never been through a sale may have an inflated price in mind and no prepared financials. You often do the work a broker would have done. The advantage is time and exclusivity, not a guaranteed discount.

Should I sign an NDA for every listing?

Sign NDAs for listings that pass your ten-minute screen. Standard broker NDAs are normal and rarely worth negotiating at the first stage. Signing dozens for businesses outside your buy box wastes your time and the broker's.

Is it worth hiring a buy-side broker?

It can be if you have more money than time, or if you want a specific niche in a specific region. You pay the fee, usually a flat amount or 2–5% on success. You still have to make every decision yourself.

How many listings should I expect to review?

Many more than you think. Most will fail a quick screen on price, coverage or fit. The count matters less than the speed and consistency of your screen. See how many businesses to look at before buying.

What comes next

The best businesses often never reach a listing, so the next question is how to find off-market businesses for sale. If you may buy more than one company, judge every source by whether it can feed a second and third deal, because the buyers who end up with the most valuable companies decide what the first business goes into before they buy it.

Related articles

• How do you find off-market businesses for sale?
• How do you set acquisition criteria (a buy box)?
• Do I need a business broker to buy a business?
• How much cash do I need to buy a business?
• How do you build a holding company for acquisitions?

Meraki Dealmakers is a service of Meraki Partners, LLC, an advisory firm. It is not a broker-dealer, investment adviser, business broker, law firm or accounting firm. This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice.