Decide · Enterprise desk · 3 minutes
Every owner runs this meeting alone at 2 a.m.: take the multiple now, compound it longer, or hire the manager and keep the equity without the hours. This instrument prices all three paths at the horizon — in money, in hours of your life, and in the one number nobody computes: what staying at the wheel actually pays you per hour.
Exit arithmetic under your assumptions — not advice, not a valuation opinion. Real processes involve diligence, earn-outs and lawyers, none of whom appear below.
SDE or EBITDA — the annual figure a buyer would multiply.
What businesses like yours change hands at, today.
All-in rate on the proceeds, wherever you're taxed.
Be honest — the honest answer is usually lower.
Fully loaded — salary, burden, incentive.
Board meetings, the numbers, the occasional fire.
When all three paths are read.
Nothing you type leaves this page. The instrument runs entirely in your browser; there is no account and no record.
Holding clears the most.
$173 / h
what staying at the wheel pays you, per extra hour, at these assumptions
| Sell now | Hold | Step back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wealth at the horizon, after tax | — | — | — |
| Your hours given, over the whole period | — | — | — |
| Wealth per hour of your life spent | — | — | — |
| If buyers pay | Richest path | Its horizon wealth |
|---|---|---|
| — | — | — |
| — | — | — |
| — | — | — |
Real sale proceeds arrive with haircuts: diligence findings, working-capital pegs, earn-outs that don't earn out. Processes commonly land 10–30% under the headline — re-run the sell path at your multiple ×0.8 before believing it.
Key-man risk cuts both ways: if the business is you, the multiple already knows it — and the step-back path's growth figure is the input most likely to be flattering itself.
Identity is off the balance sheet. Some owners sell, wander for a year, and buy the same problem back at retail. Price the paths, then ask which morning you actually want.
Everything below is calculated from your inputs. Growth rates, the multiple and the market return are assumptions you control; the scenarios stress the multiple ±1× regardless.
sell: W = SDE·mult·(1−tax) · (1+r)^n
hold: W = SDE·(1+g₁)^n · mult · (1−tax)
step: W = (SDE − mgr)·(1+g₂)^n · mult · (1−tax)
implied wage of staying = (W_hold − W_step) / Δhours
Δhours = (yours_now − yours_stepped) × 46 × n
Earnings are treated as reinvested — that is what the growth rates mean — so no distribution stream is double-counted. The gauge reads the implied wage of staying against the manager's hourly cost (their year over 1,840 hours), parity at 1×: below it, you are paying yourself less than the manager to do the manager's job.
Limitations. One exit multiple serves all paths and all dates; financing structures, partial sales, dividends along the way and the tax treatment of each are outside the model. This is the sketch you bring to the adviser, not the adviser.