Read-only QuickBooks plus a few quick questions surfaces the master-electrician license transferability a buyer will need to underwrite, the GC or commercial-account concentration they'll size up, and the estimating discipline they'll grade your margin against. Preview is free; $499 for the full memo.
Enter two numbers for an instant Electrical ballpark. No signup — the real number comes from your books.
We answer each one from your books first — so you fix the story before a diligence team writes the number.
Electrical is more owner- and license-dependent than most trades. If the master electrician's license, the estimating, and the key commercial relationships are all you, a buyer sees a business that may not survive your exit — and a search-funder or SBA-backed individual buyer discounts hard for it. PE platforms with their own license-holders worry less, but they pay less for the privilege.
Electrical work skews toward projects and new construction, so recurring revenue tends to run lower than in HVAC or plumbing. That's not fatal — but a buyer prices a book that's all project work below one with service contracts, preventive-maintenance agreements, or monitoring revenue that repeats year to year.
If a handful of general contractors or commercial accounts drive most of your revenue, a buyer prices the risk of losing one — and project pipelines can be lumpy and relationship-bound. Demonstrating a diversified, repeatable source of work directly de-risks the deal.
On project-led electrical work, estimating discipline and change-order management drive the result. Margins below the benchmark signal pricing or job-costing leakage — buyers see both a risk and an opportunity, and the opportunity accrues to them unless you capture it before the sale.
Each lever is sized for a typical $2m–$4m revenue electrical contractor, project + service mix — about $500K EBITDA. Same number whether we frame it as “what a buyer discounts” or “what you keep by fixing it.”
Service contracts, preventive-maintenance agreements, and monitoring turn one-time project relationships into renewable revenue. Because electrical starts from a lower recurring base, even a modest service book stands out to a buyer and lifts the multiple.
adds about 0.2–0.4× to your multiple · usually takes 12–18 months
A second license-holder, documented estimating processes, and retention plans for your key field leaders convert 'key-man risk' into a manageable transition — exactly what search funds and individual buyers, who can't backfill from a bench, need to see.
adds about 0.3–0.5× to your multiple · usually takes 6–18 months
Standardized pricing, disciplined change-orders, and tighter material/labor tracking lift gross margin, and every sustainable point of margin flows to EBITDA — then gets multiplied at exit. On project work this is often the fastest dollar of value to capture.
adds about 0.2–0.4× to your multiple · usually takes 6–12 months
Typical impact ranges blended from lower-middle-market transaction data, sub-$50M M&A databases, and observed consolidator pricing in the $300K–$3M EBITDA band. Directional, not a guarantee — your memo computes your actual numbers from your books.
The metrics buyers grade electrical contractors on. The diagnostic fills the “your business” column from your actual QuickBooks data.
| Metric | Electrical benchmark | Your business | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recurring / contracted revenue | ~15% of revenue | Your data | Higher is better — the top multiple lever |
| Gross margin | ~28% | Your data | Pricing and job-costing discipline |
| EBITDA margin | ~10% | Your data | What flows to the bottom line |
| Healthy customer-concentration ceiling | top customer under 30% | Your data | Above it, buyers price the risk |
| Typical industry growth | ~5.2% / yr | Your data | Beating it can add to your multiple |
| Typical sale multiple | 2.5–8.0× EBITDA | Your data | Where the bidding starts; the levers above move you up |
Benchmarks are blended industry composites, service businesses $1M–$10M revenue, 2026-Q1 — directional, not a precise bar. Your memo measures you against your own books. Connect QuickBooks to fill in your numbers →
The diagnostic arrives as formats you can actually use, plus a private, scoped link to share a curated package with a specific buyer — you decide, card by card, what they see.
A branded slide deck, ready to present — for the buyer meeting, the lender, or the board.
A written diagnostic that holds up with buyers, yours to edit — plain-English summary, how we rebuilt your real earnings, every add-back listed.
Live formulas, not a dead printout — the path from raw profit to your real number, plus the cash-tied-up scenarios a buyer can stress-test.
Electrical consolidation is active but more selective than HVAC, with strong interest in shops that have recurring service revenue, data/low-voltage or commercial-maintenance lines, and licensed bench depth. PE-backed platforms buy professionalized add-ons; independent sponsors and search funds buy operator-led shops with a transferable license picture; strategics buy for crews and capabilities. The memo maps which buyer types fit a business your size and how each tends to structure the deal.
Read-only, through Intuit. We never write to your books. About 5 minutes.
Just what the books can’t show — agreements, key accounts, who runs the crews.
Buyer-readiness score, normalized EBITDA, value range and top flags — instantly.
The full engine, all three deliverables, the dashboard and the buyer deal room.
Start with the free preview. Pay once — $499 — only when you want the full memo. No subscription, no per-seat pricing.
Most Electrical businesses in the $1M–$10M revenue range trade at roughly 2.5× to 8.0× normalized EBITDA, with a typical deal near 5.0×. 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, blending recent lower-middle-market closings, main-street marketplace sales, and academic M&A survey data.
Electrical valuation differs from HVAC and plumbing because the project-versus-service mix is heavier — and buyers price the project-led side at a lower multiple than recurring service. The flow: reported earnings get normalized for owner add-backs, one-time items, and any pass-throughs that won't survive the sale (each adjustment traceable to a QuickBooks transaction). Then an electrical-specific multiple weighted by your project-versus-service revenue share. The factors a buyer will grade most closely on an electrical deal: master-electrician license transferability, GC and commercial-account concentration, estimating and change-order discipline that defends margin, and any service or maintenance recurring revenue base. Numbers tie to your books.
Recurring service or maintenance revenue, a transferable license picture and reduced owner dependence, a diversified customer base, and disciplined estimating that holds margin. The diagnostic scores each and shows what moving up is worth.
It's often the trickiest single item in an electrical deal. A buyer with their own qualifier (the licensed pro the business operates under) is fine — a PE-backed platform or an in-state competitor with a license-holder on bench. A search-funder or SBA-backed individual buyer needs you to stay on as employee post-close, hire a qualifier into the company, or have a senior tech sit the master exam before closing. Documenting a credible succession path 6–12 months pre-sale is the single biggest deal-stall preempt in electrical.
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