Connect QuickBooks, answer 7 questions, and get a buyer's-eye valuation built from your actual books — what your business is worth, what a buyer would argue down (owner-as-Service-Writer, fleet concentration, EV-readiness, ASE Master Tech retention), and what to fix first. The free preview takes minutes; the full memo is $499.
Read-only access to your books. We never share with anyone.
A buyer's diligence team runs this analysis on every deal. Here's what they look for in a auto repair shop — and the diagnostic tells you exactly where you stand on each, from your own books.
If you greet customers, write estimates, and handle the front counter, you ARE the business. The owner-as-Service-Writer pattern is the single most common multiple compressor in independent auto repair. A buyer needs to see a documented Service Manager owning customer relationships AND a Shop Foreman owning the back-of-shop — without that split, search-fund and SBA-backed buyers discount hard.
Single-ticket break-fix shops trade at the bottom of the range. Buyers pay more for recurring revenue (fleet contracts, membership programs, tire-tied service). If your revenue is 90%+ retail single-tickets, the buyer prices the unpredictability AND the customer-acquisition cost into the discount.
Fleet contracts are the highest-multiple revenue type — BUT a single fleet customer at 25%+ of revenue is the largest concentration risk in the trade. Municipal and corporate fleet contracts have rebid cycles every 2-3 years, and the customer knows it. If you can't show contract diversification, the buyer prices the rebid risk hard.
ASE Master certification (8 of 8 A1-A8 + L1 advanced electronic) is scarce — there are fewer Master Techs nationwide than there are independent shops that need them. If your shop depends on a single Master Tech with no successor, a buyer prices the key-person risk. Without documented stay bonuses and cross-trained backup, that single tech's departure can crater the deal.
EVs and hybrids are 10%+ of new vehicle sales and growing. A shop with no EV-certified tech (ASE EV1 emerging cert) + no HV-glove + isolation-tester equipment is a shrinking-market shop. Buyers price this as headwind — the customer base ages out as vehicles transition. Even minimal EV capability (one certified tech, baseline tooling) is becoming table stakes.
Multi-year fleet contracts (municipal, utility, last-mile delivery) at $750-2,500/mo per vehicle are the highest-multiple revenue type. Mature fleet-heavy shops trade at the top of the range; single-ticket break-fix shops trade at the bottom. Path: structured outreach to fleet managers (city, county, utility, delivery), case studies, references.
Service Manager runs the front (customer relationships, estimates, upsell), Shop Foreman runs the back (tech assignments, quality, training). Owner steps out of both. This is the single biggest multiple lever — buyers are pricing whether the business survives your exit, and the answer needs to be documented org structure with names + tenure + comp records.
Tire-tied shops carry 30-50% higher per-customer lifetime value. Tires need replacement every 30-60K miles AND alignment + balance with each rotation — every tire visit surfaces brake wear, fluid changes, suspension issues. Sending customers to Discount Tire / Tire Rack means losing those discovery touchpoints.
EV-repair-capable shops are now a differentiator in most metros. Even minimal capability — one tech certified, HV gloves, isolation tester — flips your shop from 'shrinking-market' to 'future-ready' in a buyer's underwriting. Specialty EV shops (Tesla-focused, Rivian, EV-only) carry an even larger multiple premium.
The KPIs that move buyer multiples the most. The diagnostic scores your business against each, computed from your actual books.
Benchmarks are blended industry composites (lower-middle-market transaction data, trade-association reports, main-street marketplace insights), service businesses $1M–$10M revenue, 2026-Q1. Directional, not a precise bar — your memo measures you against your own books.
The full memo is delivered as three files, so you can read it, edit it, and model with it.
A polished, forwardable 5–10 page memo you can hand to a buyer, a lender, or your accountant the same day.
The same memo as an editable working copy, so you can adapt the story as your business changes.
A working model — EBITDA bridge, add-back schedule, working capital, financeability — with real formulas you can flex.
Independent auto repair has been actively consolidated by PE-backed platforms since 2020. The biggest activity is in the $1-5M EBITDA range — Mavis Tire (backed by Bain/BayPine), Monro Muffler (public), Driven Brands (public), Christian Brothers Automotive (franchise model), and regional consolidators across most major metros. Search funds and independent sponsors compete in the same band for shops they intend to professionalize. Smaller shops ($300K-1M EBITDA) typically transact to SBA-financed individual buyers (often techs buying their employer or career-changers entering the trade). The memo maps which buyer types fit a company your size and how each tends to structure the deal.
Sign in through Intuit. Read-only — every call we make is a read, never a write. About 5 minutes.
Quick context a buyer would ask about that your books don't show. About 3 minutes.
Your buyer-readiness score, normalized EBITDA, value range, and top red flags — instantly, no signup.
The full memo and all three deliverables, delivered within 24–48 hours.
The $499 memo bundles a documented add-back defense, a quality-of-earnings-style workup of the issues a buyer's team raises, and three deliverables (PDF, Word, Excel).
A formal Quality of Earnings from a CPA firm runs $25,000–$75,000 and adds proof-of-cash testing we don't do. This is the owner-facing version — the same questions, answered from your own books, at a price that makes sense before you've sold. We won't pretend it's more than that; the honesty is the point.
Most Auto Repair businesses in the $1M–$10M revenue range trade at roughly 2.0× to 6.4× normalized EBITDA, with a typical deal near 3.3×. Smaller, owner-dependent shops sit at the low end; larger, manager-run businesses with recurring revenue reach the top. Your actual number depends on your books — that's what the diagnostic computes. The range blends recent lower-middle-market closings, main-street marketplace sales, and the Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report.
The same way a buyer's diligence team does: we start from your real earnings, normalize them for owner add-backs and parts-inventory adjustments, separate revenue by service category (general repair, tires, fleet, PPI, specialty), age your fleet AR separately from retail, and apply a defensible EBITDA multiple grounded in recent SMB auto-repair transactions. We don't guess off a revenue rule of thumb — every number ties back to your QuickBooks data.
Fleet contracts as % of revenue (25%+ is the bar), a Service Manager + Shop Foreman layer separating the owner, tire service + alignment capability, EV / hybrid repair capability (at least one ASE-EV certified tech), and multiple ASE Master Techs (not just one). The diagnostic scores where you sit on each and shows what moving up would be worth.
Yes, but at the lower end of the trade range. The buyer pool for single-bay independent shops is mostly SBA-financed individual buyers (often techs buying their employer). Multi-bay shops with fleet contracts get the PE consolidator buyer pool, which pays meaningfully more. The lever to move from one tier to the next is documented over 12-24 months — adding a bay, building a fleet book, hiring a Service Writer.
Yes, at launch. We connect to QuickBooks Online read-only to build the analysis from your actual transactions — that's what makes it buyer-grade instead of a guess. QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, and FreshBooks are on the post-launch roadmap.
No — and we won't claim it is. A formal QoE from a CPA firm runs tens of thousands of dollars and includes proof-of-cash testing we don't do. This is the owner-facing version: it bundles a defensible valuation, a documented add-back defense, and a quality-of-earnings-style workup of the same issues a buyer's team will raise — so nothing in real diligence surprises you.
The free preview is instant once your QuickBooks is connected. The full $499 memo is delivered within 24–48 hours.
That's the best time to run it. The things buyers discount in auto repair — owner-as-Service-Writer, missing fleet contracts, no EV capability — take 6 to 24 months to fix. Seeing them now is what lets you go to market once, from strength, instead of discovering them mid-diligence.
Yes. We connect to QuickBooks read-only — every call we make is a read, never a write. Your data is encrypted, never used to train AI, and never shared with brokers or buyers. You can disconnect QuickBooks and delete everything at any time.
Connect QuickBooks, answer 7 questions, and see your buyer's-eye preview — no signup, no email.
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