Moving & Shipping Business Valuation Benchmarks

Business owners, prospective buyers, and industry investors rely on a diverse set of financial benchmarks to assess the value of a business. We have compiled data from current BizBuySell listings and sold businesses to provide insight into the business for sale market and important benchmarks for pricing and evaluating moving and shipping companies relative to industry standards.

See also: Trucking Company Valuation Metrics

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Highlights of Moving & Shipping Businesses Sold on BizBuySell

Shipping and moving companies listed and sold on BizBuySell range from small, local movers, haulers, and parcel delivery businesses to larger businesses shipping packages and moving property across the U.S. They all share a similar business model involving a staff of drivers, laborers and logistics and management staff.

Moving & Shipping Business Transaction Trends

Median sale price of moving and shipping businesses listed and sold on BizBuySell peaked in 2020, driven by increased revenue and earnings of listed businesses. It's likely that this increase was driven by the large number of people who moved throughout the U.S. in response to pandemic related work-from-home trends. In the years following, median prices have moved back down to pre-covid levels. In 2024, median price dropped nearly 45%, as many smaller moving and shipping businesses sold at lower valuation multiples.

Moving & Shipping Business Valuation Multiples

Valuation, or pricing, multiples are financial tools that allow for comparisons between businesses that have different levels of sales and financial performance. They represent the sales price of a business relative to its revenue or earnings, and given enough individual business sales data, they represent what the market is willing to pay for a business given its revenue and earnings.

Valuation Trends

Business values and associated multiples fluctuate over time, influenced by a variety of macroeconomic factors such as interest rates, inflation, consumer spending, and overall economic growth. Moving and shipping business valuation multiples had been fairly consistent until increasing interest rates in 2022 and 2023 put pressure on selling prices, reducing sales prices. In 2024, average valuation multiples reached recent lows as many smaller businesses sold.

Earnings Multiples

Earnings multiples represent the value of a business relative to its owner’s discretionary earnings or "cash flow". Arguably the most important valuation metric - as seller's discretionary earnings will often dictate how much a buyer is able to borrow to finance the business acquisition - business valuations tend to hinge on a reasonable earnings multiple.

Revenue Multiples

Revenue multiples represent the value of a business relative to its overall sales or revenue. In conjunction with an earnings analysis, revenue multiples are commonly used to value a business based on its overall sales.

How to Interpret These Multiples

Recent Listings vs. Sold Businesses

We calculate and provide valuation multiples from two sources: Current and recent listings of moving and shipping businesses for sale, and our database of "comparable" businesses sold on BizBuySell. Multiples based on listing data are always higher due to owners setting asking prices above what their businesses might typically sell for. This occurs either intentionally as a negotiation strategy, or incidentally due to business owners’ common tendency to overvalue their own businesses.

Multiples based on comparable businesses - "comps" in business broker parlance - are much more useful as they represent the prices at which businesses ultimately get sold. Business brokers and valuation professionals will always turn to local comps when pricing businesses for sale or evaluating businesses for acquisition. We provide both sets of data at the national level to offer general context.

Quartiles, Median, and Average

No two businesses are identical, and as such, valuation multiples exist in a range. We have carved out four common values within this range: Lower quartile represents the value under which the lowest 25% of valuation multiples fell. Upper quartile represents the value above which the highest 25% of multiples fell. Median is the middle of the range, and average is the mean of the set. Mean is almost always higher than the median, driven by a minority of high volume, high value businesses sold at multiples above the upper quartile.

Businesses with consistent financial performance, above average revenue and earnings, demonstrable growth potential, low owner involvement, unique competitive advantages, and a seller willing to finance will command a multiple at or above the upper quartile. Lower volume businesses with thin profit margins, full-time owner involvement, and many direct competitors will trade at or below the lower quartile. Most businesses will fall somewhere in the middle.

Based on this data, half moving or shipping businesses are valued and sold between 1.81 and 3.09 times their annual seller discretionary earnings, with 25% of well-run, larger companies trading above this range, and 25% of smaller, less desirable businesses trading below.

Financial Benchmarks

To determine how a business compares in terms of sales volume and financial performance relative to industry peers, it’s necessary to have some insight into industry standards. "Benchmarking" describes the practice of comparing a business’s financial performance to typical industry standards to determine where a business falls relative to other businesses in the same industry. These benchmarks can help guide business owners and buyers towards appropriate valuation multiples from the range above.

To that end, we have aggregated financial ranges of moving and shipping business sold on BizBuySell that can be useful for comparing a given business to the market.

Moving & Shipping Revenue and Earnings Trends

Moving and shipping businesses sold on BizBuySell reported a spike in revenue and earnings in 2020, likely driven by increased sales from the many people who chose to move when work-from-home became the norm during the pandemic. In the years since, median revenue and earnings have normalized around pre-pandemic levels, though 2024 saw many smaller moving and shipping businesses selling, bringing the medians to a low.

Earnings Ranges

Discretionary earnings (used interchangeably with the terms "cash flow" and seller's discretionary earnings or SDE) is often the crux of business valuations, so it is important to benchmark it relative to other similar businesses traded on the business for sale market. Below you will find discretionary earnings ranges of moving or shipping businesses sold over the past five years, as well as recent business for sale listings.

Revenue Ranges

Revenue volume plays a large role in business valuation, as it measures the size of the potential income opportunity for new ownership. It's not uncommon for buyers to select an earnings multiple range based on overall revenue volume. The table below includes revenue ranges of moving or shipping businesses sold over the past five years and recent companies listed for sale.

How Revenue and Earnings Level Affects Business Values

Obviously, higher levels of earnings lead to higher valuations, even given the same multiple. However, valuation multiples also tend to rise with business sales volume. Moving or shipping companies that consistently generate higher sales (and maintain benchmark profit margins) tend to sell for earnings multiples on the higher end. So, a shipping company generating over $1.2MM in revenue may sell for an earnings multiple of 3.1 or higher, while a smaller business with sales below $400k may trade below 2 times its owner's discretionary earnings.

This tendency for higher sales volumes to fetch higher valuation multiples is largely driven by the economics of business acquisition financing. Businesses with greater revenue and earnings give buyers more cushion to cover debt service obligations and still have enough left over to pay the new owner a reasonable income.

Transport Sector Comparisons

For a more complete understanding of the market and valuation standards, consider comparisons within the broader transportation and storage category when benchmarking moving and shipping companies. The chart and table below include key metrics from sales of select transportation businesses on BizBuySell.

Among businesses listed under transportation, moving and shipping business values fall in-line given their median revenue. Buyers of these businesses will generally pay higher multiples for businesses that generate above average sales - the bigger the better.

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