A CPA firm in 2026 sells for about one times its annual gross fees, and about two times its owner’s discretionary earnings. The sold-deal data on BizBuySell for accounting and tax practices closed from 2021 through 2025 puts the median at 1.02x revenue, with the middle half of deals between 0.92x and 1.17x, and at 2.04x seller’s discretionary earnings, middle half 1.61x to 2.66x. The 2025 averages were higher than the five-year figures, 1.11x revenue and 2.34x earnings. Broker guides draw the same picture from the edges: Accounting Practice Sales calls 80% to 120% of gross the realistic range, CT Acquisitions puts practices under $2 million at 0.85x to 1.15x and practices under $500,000 at 0.7x to 0.9x, and Poe Group Advisors puts well-structured firms at 1.1x to 1.3x with 1.4x rare. Above roughly $2 million to $3 million in fees the method changes: consolidators price on EBITDA, at 4x to 7x, and pay part of it in earnouts and rollover equity.
I am a practicing CPA and the founding CPA of Wilshire Intelligence Network, which buys established CPA and tax practices across California. I sit on the buyer’s side of these conversations, and this article is how I read the published numbers when I price a practice. Every figure below is dated and linked at the end. Two things the headline multiple does not tell you, and which decide the money, are covered in their own sections: what the multiple is applied to, and how the price is paid.
- 01Sold deals, 2021 to 2025: median 1.02x revenue (middle half 0.92x to 1.17x) and 2.04x owner earnings (middle half 1.61x to 2.66x). The 2025 average was 1.11x revenue, the highest of the five years.
- 02By size: under $500,000 in fees, 0.7x to 0.9x; $500,000 to about $2 million, 0.85x to 1.15x, with well-run firms at 1.1x to 1.3x; above $2 million to $3 million, 4x to 7x EBITDA from consolidators.
- 03By service line: monthly bookkeeping, payroll and client accounting fees are priced at 1.5 to 2 times the multiple of seasonal tax preparation. More than half of fees landing between January and April draws a discount.
- 04California, October 20, 2026: the first page of Accounting Practice Sales’ California listings asks 1.01x to 1.94x gross, median 1.27x. Asking is not selling; nationally, listings sit at 1.15x and closed deals at 1.02x.
- 05Terms move the money more than the multiple. One times gross paid in cash and one times gross paid as 20% down plus 20% of collections for four years are different prices for the same practice.
The published numbers, and what each one measures
Four sources publish prices for CPA and accounting practices, and they measure different things. BizBuySell reports the deals closed through its marketplace. The three brokers and intermediaries report what they see in their own files, written as guidance for sellers. Read together they agree on the center and disagree only at the edges.
| Source | What it reports | Multiple of gross | Multiple of earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| BizBuySell, sold deals 2021 to 2025 | Closed sales of accounting, CPA and tax practices; median revenue $400,000, median owner earnings $208,303 | Median 1.02x; middle half 0.92x to 1.17x; 2025 average 1.11x | Median 2.04x SDE; middle half 1.61x to 2.66x; 2025 average 2.34x |
| BizBuySell, current listings | Asking prices on the same marketplace | Median 1.15x; middle half 1.02x to 1.27x | Median 2.32x SDE |
| Accounting Practice Sales | The largest broker in the niche; its guide to sellers | 80% to 120% of gross, with one times gross as the starting point everyone assumes | Notes that other service businesses sell at 1.5x to 2x discretionary cash flow, and that accountants price on gross instead |
| CT Acquisitions, re-read October 20, 2026 | Buy-side intermediary; its 2026 valuation guide | 0.85x to 1.15x under $2 million to $3 million; 0.7x to 0.9x under $500,000; below 0.8x when the seller reviews every return or the top clients exceed 25% of fees | 4x to 7x EBITDA above the threshold, from PE-backed consolidators, with earnout and rollover equity |
| Poe Group Advisors, updated March 9, 2026 | Broker; its guide to practice value | 1.1x to 1.3x for well-structured firms; 1.4x or higher in rare cases; below 1x for smaller or less desirable practices | Not used; Poe prices on gross and notes that profitability shapes the buyer’s view rather than the formula |
The two BizBuySell rows are the ones to keep in mind when a listing or a broker quotes you a number. Asking prices on the marketplace run at 1.15x gross and 2.32x earnings; closed prices run at 1.02x and 2.04x. The gap is not only negotiation. The practices that close are not the same set as the practices that list, and the sale-to-ask ratio on the deals that do close is 0.97 over five years and 0.99 in 2025. A practice priced where buyers are gets close to its asking price, and a practice priced where sellers hope sits on the market. The median time on the market in 2025 was 169 days.
Three more figures from the same data set the scale for most of the practices I talk to. The median practice that closed in 2025 had $440,000 in revenue, $246,797 in owner’s discretionary earnings, a 56.1% margin, and a price of $500,000. That price was up from $332,500 in 2024, a year in which a run of smaller, very profitable practices sold and pulled the median down, and it is the highest of the five years.
Price your practice both ways
Buyers under about $2 million in fees price on gross; lenders and consolidators price on earnings. The two methods should land in the same place for a practice with normal margins, and when they do not, the difference tells you something. Enter your fees and your owner’s discretionary earnings, which is profit before your own compensation, benefits and any personal expenses run through the practice. The practice earnings calculator builds that figure line by line; the practice valuation calculator prices each service line separately. This is the short version.
Revenue method, 0.92x to 1.17x gross
Earnings method, 1.61x to 2.66x SDE
Both methods agree between $870,000 and $1,110,000. A margin of 56% is the sold-deal median; the earnings method prices above the revenue method, which is the usual shape for a practice with staff who prepare and an owner who reviews.
Revenue method: fees times the sold-deal middle half, 0.92x to 1.17x. Earnings method: owner’s discretionary earnings times the sold-deal middle half, 1.61x to 2.66x. Practices under $500,000 in fees price at 0.7x to 0.9x gross in the broker guides, and practices above $2 million to $3 million are priced on EBITDA by consolidators; neither adjustment is applied here. An estimate from published medians, not an appraisal or an offer.
Multiples by size
Size changes the buyer, and the buyer changes the method. The bands below are the ones the published guides use, and they match what I see.
| Annual fees | Who buys | How it is priced | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $500,000 | An individual CPA or a small local firm, usually through a broker and an SBA loan | 0.7x to 0.9x gross (CT Acquisitions). Earnings multiples closer to 1.6x or less for practices under $200,000 in sales (BizBuySell). | The owner is the production capacity. Below 0.8x is common when the seller is the lead reviewer on every return or the top clients exceed 25% of fees. |
| $500,000 to about $2 million | Individual CPAs, local and regional firms, capital-backed buyers with a CPA successor | 0.85x to 1.15x gross as the base band (CT Acquisitions); 1.1x to 1.3x for well-structured firms (Poe); 2.6x earnings and above for practices with sales over $700,000 (BizBuySell). | Staff prepare, the owner reviews, and the fees renew. The widest pool of buyers, so the widest range of terms. |
| Above $2 million to $3 million | PE-backed platforms and consolidators | 4x to 7x EBITDA (CT Acquisitions), after replacing the owner’s compensation with market pay; 60% to 80% cash at closing, 15% to 25% rollover equity, an earnout for the rest. | Priced as a cash-flow business, not a client list. Attest work moves into a separate CPA-owned entity under the alternative practice structure. |
CT Acquisitions works one example that shows why the method matters. A firm with $1,500,000 in revenue and $600,000 in owner earnings before owner pay, where market pay for the replacement CPAs is $225,000, has normalized EBITDA of $375,000. On the revenue method it is worth $1,275,000 to $1,725,000. On the EBITDA method, at 4x to 7x, it would be worth $1,500,000 to $2,625,000, and the guide’s note on that row is that the EBITDA method is rarely offered at this size. The consolidators who price on earnings do not usually buy a $1.5 million practice. The individual CPAs and local firms who do buy it price on gross.
Poe adds a point about the buyer pool that is easy to miss. A $300,000 practice attracts the widest set of buyers, including first-time owners, and that competition can hold its multiple up. A $2 million practice has few buyers who can finance it without outside capital, and without a consolidator or a capital-backed buyer in the room the multiple compresses.
Multiples by service line and season
The multiple is applied to all fees, but buyers do not price all fees the same. Monthly bookkeeping, payroll, client accounting services and outsourced CFO work renew without a decision by the client every spring; a tax return is a decision every spring. CT Acquisitions puts outsourced CFO and client accounting revenue at 1.5 to 2.0 times the multiple of seasonal tax-preparation revenue, and reports that firms with 50% or more recurring monthly revenue trade at a 0.5x to 1.5x EBITDA premium over seasonal firms of the same size. Our practice valuation calculator prices each line at its own band, built from those sources:
| Service line | Multiple of that line’s fees | What the buyer is pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Individual tax returns | 0.95x to 1.25x | Annual, high retention if the office and the preparer stay, concentrated in ten weeks. |
| Business and entity returns | 1.05x to 1.40x | Annual, usually attached to a bookkeeping or payroll relationship, higher fee per client. |
| Bookkeeping, payroll, client accounting, outsourced CFO | 1.20x to 1.70x | Monthly, contracted, spread across the year, embedded in the client’s operations. |
| Attest: reviews, audits, compilations | 0.95x to 1.25x | Recurring but license-bound; a non-CPA or PE buyer must hold it in a separate CPA-owned entity. |
| Recurring advisory and planning | 1.15x to 1.60x | Retainer-based, follows the relationship, depends on who delivers it. |
| One-off projects, litigation support, consulting | 0.45x to 0.85x | Does not repeat. Buyers price it as this year’s revenue, not as a stream. |
Season is the other half of the same point. CT Acquisitions’ guide treats tax-season concentration as a structural discount: more than 50% of annual revenue between January and April costs 0.5x to 1x EBITDA against a comparable firm with smoother revenue, 35% to 50% costs 0.25x to 0.5x, and below 35% costs nothing. The same guide’s practical advice is the one I give to owners who are 18 to 36 months out: every $100,000 of new recurring monthly revenue improves the multiple by roughly 0.05x to 0.1x, and two years of adding monthly clients moves a practice from the bottom of its band to the top. A $600,000 bookkeeping practice with 90% of clients on monthly engagements can out-price a $600,000 tax practice, and regularly does.
What the multiple is applied to
Accounting Practice Sales makes a point in its guide that I repeat on every first call: there is 100% and there is 100%. Before the multiple means anything, four definitions have to be agreed, and deals have failed at the signing table because they were not.
- Billings or collections. Accrual gross and cash gross differ by the receivables and the work in process. Buyers price on collections; sellers quote billings. Agree which, in writing, before anyone says a number.
- Which twelve months. The last calendar year, the trailing twelve months, a three-year average, or the twelve months after closing all appear in practice. A practice that grew 10% last year is worth 10% more on trailing twelve than on last calendar year; a practice that lost a large client is worth less. The period is a negotiation, not a convention.
- What is included. The asset sale of a practice transfers goodwill: the client files, the client list, the non-compete and the right to the name, plus furniture, equipment and software. Cash and receivables usually stay with the seller, work in process is prorated, and the seller clears the debt. Used furniture rarely moves the price. If the buyer wants the receivables, that is a separate line at a separate price.
- Earnings, if earnings are used. Seller’s discretionary earnings adds back the owner’s compensation, benefits, personal expenses and one-time items. EBITDA, which consolidators use, subtracts market pay for the owner’s role instead of adding it back, which is why a $600,000 SDE becomes a $375,000 EBITDA in the example above. Know which one the offer is built on.
Why one times gross is four different prices
Accounting Practice Sales describes four ways a practice is paid for, and the premium to the seller is inside the structure, not the multiple. Poe makes the same point with a single example: $400,000 all cash at closing, $400,000 with $100,000 down and the balance financed over two years, and $400,000 as 20% down plus 20% of collections for four years are three different prices with the same headline. Here is what each structure pays on a practice with $1,000,000 in fees priced at 1.0x, assuming 85% of fees are retained after the sale, which is the average the succession surveys report.
| Structure | How it works | Paid at closing | Paid in total at 85% retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | 100% at closing, from the buyer’s funds or a third-party lender on a ten-year schedule. | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000, on closing day |
| Fixed seller-financed price | Price fixed at closing; the seller carries a note, say 50%, over three to five years at a stated rate. | $500,000 | $1,000,000 plus interest, over the note’s life, if the buyer performs |
| Look-back pricing | Cash at closing, then the price is adjusted after twelve or twenty-four months to the fees the transferred clients actually paid, dollar for dollar or on a formula. | $1,000,000, part of it held back or refundable | $850,000 on a dollar-for-dollar look-back |
| Collection pricing | The traditional broker structure: 20% down, then 20% of collections each year for four years. | $200,000 | $880,000 over four years if collections hold at $850,000, less if they fall further, more if the buyer grows them |
The collection structure transfers the retention risk to the seller for four years and leaves the seller with no control over the clients’ experience of the new owner. The look-back limits that risk to one or two seasons. Cash removes it, and the price a cash buyer pays is lower than the price a collection buyer quotes for the same practice, because the cash buyer is carrying the risk. Two offers at the same multiple are never the same offer, and an offer at a lower multiple with more cash at closing is often the larger one. The after-tax proceeds calculator runs any structure year by year, after federal and California tax, which is where the comparison should be made: a $1,000,000 cash sale nets a married couple about $722,000 under the rules I set out in how the sale of an accounting practice is taxed, and a note or an earnout spreads that across the years it is paid.
What California listings ask this month
On October 20, 2026, the first page of Accounting Practice Sales’ California listings carried nineteen practices in the state with gross fees from $103,200 to $1,728,659. The asking prices ran from 1.01x to 1.94x gross, median 1.27x and mean 1.34x. Fourteen of the nineteen asked between 1.1x and 1.45x. The two above 1.8x were a $103,200 bookkeeping and payroll practice and a $420,000 virtual tax practice, which is the usual pattern: the highest asking multiples sit on the smallest and the most portable practices. On September 23 the same page carried eighteen practices at 1.01x to 1.51x, median 1.24x.
Set those against the national data. Listings on BizBuySell ask a median of 1.15x; closed deals pay 1.02x. California asking prices run above the national listing median, and I have seen no sold-deal source that shows California closing above the national closed median. What California does have is a deeper pool of buyers for practices between $500,000 and $2 million, which holds the band up, and a 90-day client notice rule that sets the closing calendar, which is in how to sell a CPA practice in 2026. A seller who prices a Los Angeles or Bay Area practice at 1.25x because a listing down the street asks 1.25x is pricing at the asking median, and the asking median is the price of the practices that are still for sale.
What pulls the multiple down
The published guides agree on the list, and so do I. Each item below is a line a buyer prices before terms are discussed.
- The owner is the practice. If you prepare or review every return, the buyer is paying for a workload that leaves with you. CT Acquisitions puts the compression below 0.8x. The cure is staff who prepare, a second reviewer, and a season or two in which you are visibly not the bottleneck.
- Concentration. Top clients above 25% of fees compress the multiple for small practices, and the buyer will tie a holdback to the largest accounts. Our calculators lower the band at 20% to 40% and again above 40%.
- Season. Half or more of fees between January and April is the discount in the section above.
- Declining fees. Two down years turn a revenue multiple into a negotiation about which year counts.
- Records. Incomplete or disorganized books cost more than the fee to fix them, because a buyer who cannot verify the numbers prices for the doubt.
- The lease. A long or expensive lease transfers with the practice or has to be bought out of the price.
- Staff without agreements. Key staff with no retention incentive and no written agreement are a risk the buyer prices.
- An unrealistic transition. A seller who plans to stay indefinitely, or who wants to leave at closing, both lower the number; the first because the buyer cannot take over, the second because the clients have not met the buyer.
How WIN prices a practice
Wilshire Intelligence Network buys established CPA and tax practices across California and pairs each one with a practicing CPA who becomes its owner. We price from the same published bands, by service line, and we put the result in writing with terms within 24 hours of a first call, because a multiple without terms is not a number you can compare. The equity capital is committed before we make an offer, so there is no SBA loan and no financing contingency; terms follow the deal, with cash at closing, a retention-linked holdback or a seller note where the deal calls for one, and optional rollover equity. There is no commission and the practice is never listed. The firm keeps its name, its office and its people, and you stay two or three seasons at meaningful compensation or step back sooner.
If you want to see where your practice falls before that call, the practice valuation calculator prices each service line at the bands above, and the three-minute quiz ends with a written valuation from our team.
Sources
- BizBuySell, Accounting & Tax Practice Business Valuation Benchmarks: sold-deal and listing multiples of revenue and discretionary earnings, 2021 to 2025, with the yearly series, median sale price, revenue, earnings, days on market and sale-to-ask ratio; read October 20, 2026.
- CT Acquisitions, CPA Firm Valuation in 2026: revenue bands by size, compression factors, the EBITDA band for consolidators, buyer-type terms, the seasonality discount, the recurring-revenue premium and the $1,500,000 worked example; page dated June 10, 2026, re-read October 20, 2026.
- Accounting Practice Sales, One Times Gross: Is That the Law? and Show Me the Money: How Accounting and Tax Practices Are Sold: the 80% to 120% range, the definitions of gross, what transfers in the sale, and the four payment structures; read October 20, 2026. California listings, first page, as viewed September 23 and October 20, 2026.
- Poe Group Advisors, What Is the Value of an Accounting Practice?: the 1.1x to 1.3x range, the buyer-pool point by size, the three $400,000 offers and the list of negative factors; last updated March 9, 2026.
- Client retention after a sale: 75% to 80% on average (AICPA succession survey figure as quoted by ABA Advisors); 90% or better with a transition plan (Midwest Business Brokers).
- Wilshire Intelligence Network, practice valuation calculator: service-line bands and adjustments; after-tax proceeds calculator: the $1,000,000 worked case; For practice owners: process and terms.
This article is general information for practice owners and is not tax, legal or valuation advice. Multiples describe published sold-deal medians, marketplace asking prices and broker guides at the dates shown, not the value of any specific practice. Asking prices quoted from listings are the sellers’ asking prices on the dates viewed and say nothing about the prices at which those practices will close.
Denis is a practicing tax and accounting professional and the principal of VistaTax, a California practice serving individuals and closely held businesses: individual and business tax preparation, tax planning, bookkeeping, financial reporting and payroll. As WIN’s founding CPA he anchors the licensed side of the structure and sits at the table for every transition. More about WIN’s team.