Would a buyer actually close on your brand?

The DTC profitability calculator tells you what the business earns today. This scorecard answers the harder question: would the deal survive diligence, and what should you fix in the 12 months before you sell? Ten questions across what every consumer-brand buyer diligences, scored out of 100.

10 questions~90 secondsNo email to see your score

✓ See your 0-100 score and verdict instantly. No signup to view your result.

By Taylor Sicard · co-founded WIN Brands Group, an acquirer of consumer brands · sourced and closed a several-hundred-million DTC acquisition for an S&P 500 portfolio · has sat on both sides of brand diligence

WOULD YOUR BRAND SURVIVE DILIGENCE

The exit-readiness score comes from ten questions, each worth a fixed number of points, summed into a score out of 100 that estimates how a consumer-brand buyer would read the business before pricing it. EBITDA margin and repeat revenue carry the most weight at 12 points each, because they are the two lines a buyer reprices first. The output is a band plus a ranked fix list, and most of the gaps take about 12 months to close.

Weights, out of 100: EBITDA margin 12, repeat revenue 12, scale 10, growth 10, channel concentration 10, paid dependency 10, founder dependency 10, owned audience and trademarks 10, cash conversion cycle 8, quality of financials 8.
Bands: 80 and up is exit-ready, 60 to 79 is sellable with a discount written into the LOI, 40 to 59 means buyers look and then reprice you, under 40 is not sellable yet.
Per-factor flag: 80% or more of a question's available points reads green, 40% to 79% is a watch, under 40% is a fix.
Inputs: trailing-12-month revenue, revenue growth, EBITDA margin, share of revenue from returning customers, largest channel share, paid share of new customers, cash conversion cycle, financial hygiene, whether the brand runs 90 days without you, owned list and registered marks.
Common mistake: spending the year before a sale on the top line. Margin, repeat revenue, and founder dependency move the price further, and each needs two or three quarters of trend before a buyer will underwrite it.

Worked example. An $8M brand growing 15%, at 5% to 10% EBITDA, 35% of revenue from returning customers, 70% through one channel, 60% of new customers from paid, a 45-day cash cycle, mostly-clean financials, partial delegation, and one of the two moat items. Points: 7 + 6 + 6 + 7 + 4 + 4 + 6 + 4 + 5 + 5 = 54 out of 100. That is the buyers-look-then-reprice band, with 46 points on the table and channel concentration the heaviest single gap.

Source: Taylor Sicard, Taylor Sicard Consulting · Benchmarks reviewed July 2026 · Benchmarks and their sources: Consumer brand acquisition multiples, by category.

The thinking behind the score

What brand buyers actually diligence, and what they pay for.

Consumer Commerce

Making a DTC brand sellable

The sell-side playbook: what to fix, in what order, in the year before a process.

Read post →

Consumer Commerce

The red flags buyers look for

The diligence list from the buy side, written by someone who has run it.

Read post →

Consumer Commerce

Raise or sell?

Both get priced off the same numbers. How to tell which door you are actually walking through.

Read post →

Method

How the exit-readiness score is calculated

Ten questions carry a combined 100 points: the economics a buyer underwrites (scale, growth, EBITDA margin, repeat revenue), the dependencies that shrink the business they are buying (channel concentration, paid-media reliance, founder dependency), and the operational hygiene that decides whether diligence goes smoothly (cash conversion cycle, auditable books, owned audience and trademarks). Margin and repeat revenue weigh heaviest at 12 points each, because they are the two numbers a consumer-brand buyer reprices first. Your breakdown also names which buyer type your profile fits best, since the same gap costs a strategic, a holdco, and a private equity buyer very different amounts.

Score 80+Diligence will confirm what the buyer hoped, and you control the timeline.

60 to 79Sellable, but every gap on the list becomes a discount in the LOI.

Under 60Fix the list first: a year of work here is worth more than a year of growth.

The score measures what moves a valuation, and it does not produce one. For context, lower-middle-market consumer deals routinely close at 4x to 6x EBITDA, the broad consumer industry has traded around 9.8x EV to EBITDA, and a profitable category leader at mid-eight-figure revenue can see 10x to 14x from a strategic buyer. Category changes the band before anything else does, with beauty at roughly 3x to 5x revenue and mid-teens EBITDA while apparel's average has slid to about 8.2x EBITDA. The 2026 multiples by category has the full table. Underneath all of it, the median eight-figure DTC brand runs 7 to 8% EBITDA, which is roughly the line for being a serious target at all. A strong scorecard is what earns the top of your category's band, and a weak one is exactly where the multiple gets cut in diligence.

Score in hand, run the P&L itself in the profitability calculator, and if your repeat-revenue answer was a guess, compute the real number in the LTV and repeat rate calculator. Both sit in the free DTC calculators suite and share the same operator benchmarks. The consumer brand exits tracker logs the deals themselves as they close, with price, multiple and buyer wherever each was disclosed.

Questions

Common questions

What makes a DTC brand sellable?

Margin and repeat revenue, first. A buyer is pricing the profit that survives after your ad account stops working the way it does today, so EBITDA margin and the share of revenue that comes back on its own carry more weight than the top line. After those: channel concentration, founder dependency, a clean cash cycle, and books someone can audit. Two brands at the same revenue sell for very different numbers on those six alone.

What multiple do DTC brands sell for?

Most consumer brands trade on a multiple of EBITDA rather than revenue, and the band is wide. Lower-middle-market deals routinely close at 4x to 6x EBITDA, the broad consumer industry has traded around 9.8x EV to EBITDA, and a profitable category leader at mid-eight-figure revenue can see 10x to 14x from a strategic buyer. Category sets the band before your own numbers do: beauty runs at roughly 3x to 5x revenue and mid-teens EBITDA, while apparel's average multiple has slid to about 8.2x. The ten factors in this scorecard are what move you inside your category's band.

What kills DTC deals in diligence?

Margin that turns out to be discount-dependent, repeat revenue thinner than the dashboard suggested, one channel carrying most of the growth, and inventory that eats every dollar the P&L says you made. None of those end the conversation; they reprice it, and hardest when the buyer finds them instead of hearing them from you.

How long before selling should I prepare my brand?

Twelve months minimum, and eighteen is better. Margin and repeat rate both need two to three quarters of trend before a buyer will underwrite them, and channel concentration takes longer than that to actually change. Learning the list the week a banker calls leaves you no time to move a single number on it.

Does a DTC brand need to be profitable to sell?

Not strictly, but unprofitable brands sell on someone else's terms. A brand losing money at scale gets priced as a turnaround, usually on revenue with an earnout attached. Positive EBITDA is what moves you from being bought to being able to say no, and that option to walk away is what holds the price up.

Should I sell to a strategic, a holdco, or private equity?

They run different math. A strategic pays for what your brand does for their portfolio: category position, shelf space, an audience they do not have. A holdco pays for cash flow that keeps running without you. Private equity pays for durable growth with reporting clean enough to underwrite. Your breakdown names the buyer type your profile fits best, because the same gap costs you different amounts depending on which door you walk through.