Exit at PE multiples.
Not broker rates.
Individual MSPs sell at 3–7× EBITDA. PE platforms command 8–12×. We build the platform — from your businesses — while you keep running yours.
One platform buyers compete for.
Same business. 30–90% more.
Move the slider to your EBITDA. The higher multiple applies to your own EBITDA — individually valued, negotiated, and distributed, not a pooled average.
Illustrative model only — not a valuation, appraisal, or offer. Your valuation is determined individually on your own EBITDA, not a pooled multiplier. We’ll model your specific numbers in 30 minutes, no obligation.
Clean it up for two years, or sell into today's multiple?
Either can be right. What decides it is whether your EBITDA grows faster than the multiple falls. Set your plan and see which side wins.
That's a 16.7% EBITDA margin.
Margin points you add by exit — tighter delivery, repriced contracts, trimmed overhead.
Nobody knows this number. That is the whole point of the exercise.
Sell now
Sell in 2 years
Every year you wait is a year the multiple, your largest client, and the market can move against you. None of that risk is in the figures above — the model assumes your plan lands exactly as drawn.
How far can the multiple fall before waiting stops paying?
Every point is what waiting two years is worth against selling today, in today's money, if the multiple you get then turns out to be the one on the axis. Where the line crosses zero is the whole decision.
Show the numbers
| Multiple you get then | Value of waiting |
|---|
Both columns are shown before advisory fees, which apply on either path. Illustrative model only — not a valuation, appraisal, forecast, or offer. Multiples move with the credit cycle, buyer appetite, and your own revenue quality; no one can tell you what yours will be in three years.
Buyers pay premiums for diversification.
A machine, not a relationship
Buyers pay up for predictable, recurring revenue. An MSP with 60%+ of income under contract is worth far more than one that lives on projects and break-fix work.
A national footprint
Complementary MSPs across non-overlapping markets create diversification against regional risk — a premium buyers pay for and brokers can’t manufacture.
A story buyers can sell
A platform gives a buyer a real growth story to take to their own investors. One MSP — however well-run — is still a small business, and it’s priced like one. Marketed alongside a qualified group, you help form that platform — while your valuation and your proceeds stay your own.
You keep running your business. We build the platform around it.
Through 12–15 months of prep you operate exactly as today. We standardize reporting, package the platform story, and run the competitive process — no obligation until you’ve reviewed the deal structure and your individual valuation.
Three phases. Twelve months. One group sale.
Join the program
Complementary MSPs are assessed for fit across revenue, MRR, geography, and client mix. You review the full deal structure and your individual valuation before committing.
Build the platform
We standardize reporting, package the platform story, and position the group for institutional buyers — while you keep running your business exactly as today.
Sell together
Multiple institutional buyers, real leverage. Each owner is valued, negotiated, and paid individually — your outcome is your own, determined by LevelUp+IT, not a pooled or shared result.
Program participation does not guarantee an offer. Assessment, onboarding, and diligence qualify an MSP to be marketed alongside a group — they do not obligate any buyer to make an offer, or any offer to be made on any particular terms. Whether an owner receives an offer, from which buyer, and at what valuation is determined only after the diligence and onboarding elements of the program are complete, and depends on diligence findings, buyer appetite, and market conditions. Valuations and distributions are determined individually. Nothing on this page is a promise of any outcome.
A group of owners can run their own sale. Most don't finish.
Two reasons, and the second one is the killer. The first is the bill, which arrives whether or not a deal closes. The second is everything a group has to agree on before a buyer ever sees a number.
Plus a success fee of 3–6% of the price if a sale closes. Ranges are typical for middle-market sell-side work; your own quotes will differ, and a group deal usually prices at the top of each range because there are more sellers to paper.
LevelUp+IT charges one program fee per company, quoted in writing before you sign, plus a success fee only if a sale closes. The readiness work in the rows above — the books, the data room, the diligence pack — is what the program fee buys, run once across the group instead of bought five times over.
Where the money goes
Most of this bill multiplies by the number of owners, because buyers price each company separately and diligence each one separately.
And then there's everything you have to agree on.
A club with no professional lead has to reach consensus on every line below. Each one is a place a group has come apart, usually in month eight, usually after the money has been spent.
01Whose multiple
Every owner believes theirs is the good book. Somebody has to say out loud which company is a 4× and which is a 6×, to the owner's face.
02What counts as EBITDA
Add-backs are where friendships end. The car, the spouse on payroll, last year's one-off. Each one is a negotiation with people you golf with.
03The working capital peg
The buyer sets one number for the whole group. Deciding who funds the shortfall is an argument among owners, not with the buyer.
04Who talks to the buyer
One voice or five. Five means a professional acquirer works out which of you is most motivated, and prices the group off that.
05Cash, note, or rollover
One owner needs cash at close. One wants rollover equity. The buyer offers a single structure and expects an answer.
06Escrow and indemnity
Joint and several, or several only? If one owner's contract blows up in year two, whose money pays for it?
07Reps and warranties
Everyone signs the same reps. Not everyone's records can support them, and the ones that can't don't volunteer it early.
08Who runs the earnout
If part of the price rides on future performance, someone has to control the business that has to hit it — and everyone else has to live with that.
09Life after close
Employment terms, non-competes, titles, who reports to whom. Every owner negotiates their own, then compares notes.
10Timing
One owner is ready now. One has a divorce pending. One wants three more years. The process moves at the speed of the slowest.
11Who pays when it dies
The bill above is real with or without a closing. Cost-sharing is easy to agree in month one and very hard in month nine.
12The one who says no
With no drag-along, a single holdout kills the platform for everybody. With one, somebody gets forced to sell. Both versions end in a fight.
Our answer to all twelve is the same one.
Nobody votes on anybody else's price. Each company is individually assessed, individually valued, individually negotiated, and individually paid. The group is what makes a buyer pay a platform multiple — it is not a committee that decides your number, and it is not a pot that gets divided.
Nobody is paid out of anybody else's proceeds.
The question a larger owner always asks: a smaller MSP joins, does my share get watered down? No — because there is no shared pot. Your price is your own EBITDA at the platform's multiple. Build a group below and watch what moves.
Past the $5M mark institutional buyers engage. The platform multiple rises with combined scale from there.
| Member | EBITDA | Alone | In the group | Uplift |
|---|
"Alone" is that company's own EBITDA at the broker multiple its own size commands — smaller books price lower, which is the whole reason the gap exists. "In the group" is the same EBITDA at the platform multiple, shown net of LevelUp+IT's 20% fee. The broker column is gross of the broker's own fee.
What your own exit is worth, as the group around you grows
Your EBITDA never changes on this chart — only the combined scale of the group you are marketed alongside. That is the entire mechanism, and it is why a smaller member is worth having.
Show the numbers
| Combined group EBITDA | Platform multiple | You are worth |
|---|
Illustrative model only — not a valuation, appraisal, or offer, and not a description of any specific group. Standalone and platform multiples here are stylised from the 3–7× and 8–12× ranges shown above; a real valuation turns on recurring revenue share, contract quality, client concentration, geography, and diligence findings, and is determined individually for each company.
Not every MSP. The right fit matters.
Enough scale to contribute to a platform story and clear PE due-diligence thresholds.
Recurring, contracted revenue is the primary value driver. Project-heavy books price lower.
Enough runway to prepare properly and run a competitive institutional process.
You want an exit — not a minority stake or partial recap.
Reviewed or audited books that survive institutional due diligence.
No direct market conflict with other program participants.
Run by MSP owners. Backed by the LevelUp+ team.
Leads all first-touch outreach. A practicing MSP owner, he knows the margins, client headaches, and the exit question from the inside — running the same math on his own exit.
brian@levelup.ceo
Investment banking, private equity, and acquisition finance. Leads deal structure, investor relations, and the group exit process that institutional buyers pay a premium for.
andrew@levelup.ceo
Law degree and accounting background. Has scaled businesses from startups to publicly traded — and handles the legal structure and compliance that make group exits execute.
andy@levelup.ceo
30+ years in IT services. Founder of SmartFirm IT, now leading Cyber Control Group. Evaluates the group exit from the owner’s seat — the right fit and the real questions.
dan@levelup.ceoLet’s run your numbers.
Tell us your revenue, MRR percentage, and rough EBITDA. We’ll model your preliminary valuation range — group exit versus solo broker sale, real numbers and real assumptions.
brian@levelup.ceo · andrew@levelup.ceo