How to buy a SaaS business
A first-time buyer's guide to acquiring profitable SaaS: sourcing, diligence, negotiating, financing, and 30/60/90 post-close.
- Set your box before you browse: category, MRR range, tech stack, hours/week, price ceiling.
- Verified metrics + a Loom walkthrough should be your minimum bar to send an LOI.
- Budget 10–15% of purchase price for transition costs the seller won't mention.
Sourcing: where profitable SaaS actually gets sold
Marketplaces (SellBuyStartups, Acquire, MicroAcquire), brokers (FE International, Empire Flippers for larger), and off-market via Twitter/founder networks. Off-market gets you better prices but 4x the sourcing time.
Diligence: what to actually check
Financial: reconcile Stripe against P&L, month by month. Look for one-off spikes, discount codes hiding real ARPU, and free plans padding the user count. Technical: run a security scan, check dependency versions, ask for a Loom of the deploy pipeline. Legal: verify the seller actually owns the IP and every contractor signed an assignment.
Financing: your options in 2026
Cash (up to ~$300k for most solo buyers). Seller financing (10–40% deferred, standard for micro-deals). SBA 7(a) for US buyers with a business plan and 10% down. Acquisition-specific lenders (Boopos, Flippa Capital) for e-commerce and SaaS up to $2M.
FAQs
TTM revenue is $120k; SDE probably $75–90k; at a 3.4x median multiple that's $255–306k. Add or subtract based on churn and growth.
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