Six factors that move your multiple

Two practices with identical revenue can be worth materially different amounts. These are the levers, roughly in order of how much they matter — and how much runway you need to move each one.

1. Recurring revenue mix

High impact · 1–3 years to shift. The single largest determinant. Moving transactional relationships onto advisory agreements changes the underlying asset, not just the reported revenue.

2. Client concentration

High impact · 2–4 years. Deliberately growing the middle of the book reduces the discount buyers apply for binary risk.

3. Growth rate

Moderate to high · 1–2 years. Sustained organic growth is the clearest evidence the practice is not purely founder-dependent.

4. Client age profile

Moderate · slow to change. Adding younger households lengthens the revenue duration a buyer is underwriting.

5. Operational documentation

Moderate · months. Processes that live only in your head are key-person risk. Written procedures are cheap to create and read as professionalism in diligence.

6. Transition willingness

Moderate · immediate. A seller who will stay through a genuine handover reduces retention risk, and buyers pay for that directly.

The first four are structural and need runway. The last two cost almost nothing and can be improved before a conversation ever starts — which is why sellers who plan three years ahead consistently do better than those who decide in a quarter.

See also: how buyers price a practice · published benchmarks.

Advisor Practice Valuation is an authorized lead-generation partner of buyAUM. buyAUM compensates us only if a transition is completed. Sellers are never charged a fee at any stage. Valuation output is an educational estimate, not an appraisal, forecast, or offer.