Built on Acquire.com, Empire Flippers, Baton and broker data, read October 2026

Recurring Revenue Businesses for Sale and Subscription Businesses for Sale With Verified MRR

A recurring revenue business for sale is one whose customers pay on a schedule, monthly or yearly, under a subscription or contract, so most of next year's revenue is already booked the day you buy. SaaS, subscription apps, membership sites, subscription boxes and managed service contracts all qualify. Buyers pay more for that predictability, but only for the share of revenue that keeps renewing.

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MRR, churn and growth verified before listing · data room on request · no buyer success fee · from $99 a month

Recurring revenue checker MRR, churn and price

Asking price

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)

New MRR added a month

Largest customer, % of revenue

Monthly revenue churn

The percentage is today's MRR still paying after 12 months with no new sales.

Asking price over ARR

MRR in 12 months

at this churn and new MRR

MRR lost to churn each month
Net new MRR a month
Average customer lifetime
MRR left after 12 months, no new sales

Value the business

Educational arithmetic on the numbers you enter · not a valuation opinion

Verified MRR / ARR Published multiples Vetted, capital-qualified buyers Escrow-backed closes AI-SaaS-native

The price is still mostly set on profit. Acquire.com's January 2026 multiples report found SaaS businesses on its marketplace sold at a median of 3.9x profit in both 2024 and 2025. What recurring revenue changes is how much of that profit you can trust, and churn is the number that tells you. The checker on this page takes the MRR, churn and new sales a listing claims and shows how much of today's revenue is still paying in twelve months.

Buyouts is a marketplace for AI SaaS businesses with MRR, ARR, growth and churn verified against the billing data before a listing goes live. Buyer membership costs $99, $299 or $899 a month and there is no buyer success fee.

The listings, metrics and deals shown across this site are illustrative product UI. Figures on this page are educational, labeled where they are our own arithmetic, and are not a valuation opinion or investment advice.

Recurring revenue is a claim about next year. Verified MRR and churn are what let you pay for it without guessing.

Read firsthand 19 October 2026

Where recurring revenue businesses for sale are listed and what they sell for

Each source measures something different: closed deals on one marketplace, an asking-price board, a broker's inventory and a rule of thumb. None of them checks churn for you.

Swipe to see every column →

Source	What it shows	Multiples it reports	What it leaves to you
Acquire.com multiples report, Jan 2026	Closed SaaS deals on its marketplace in 2024 and 2025	Median 3.9x profit; 3.7x under $100K net income, 3.9x from $100K to $1M; 81 days average time on market	Churn and founder dependence, which it names as what buyers check
Empire Flippers subscription category	14 subscription listings on 19 Oct 2026, a six month earnings history required	Listed from 1.3x to 4.2x, asking prices on the page	Whether the revenue is contracted or repeat; the page does not split them
Synergy Business Brokers recurring revenue page	A broker inventory of 74 cards, 23 available and 7 under offer on 19 Oct 2026	Not published as a multiple	Most cards are service and route businesses, not software
Baton buyer guide, Mar 2023	A rule of thumb for small businesses	"Two to four times the seller's discretionary earnings"	It is a general range, not specific to recurring revenue
Buyouts	AI SaaS listings with MRR, ARR, growth and churn checked against billing data before listing	Each listing shows its own ask against verified ARR	A narrow category: AI SaaS and software only

Acquire.com puts the gap between the two ways of pricing plainly: public SaaS revenue multiples fell from an average of 17x in 2022 to roughly 5.5x by the end of 2025, while small private SaaS kept selling at about 3.9x profit, because "buyers still anchor valuation on profit unless a business is operating at exceptional scale with strong growth and retention." A small subscription business priced on an ARR multiple borrowed from public markets is priced on the wrong number. Acquire.com also found that at fair market value roughly 60% of its active buyers engage seriously, and at 5% to 10% above market that drops to around 30%.

Our own math, labeled as such

Five recurring revenue listings, run through the checker

Our arithmetic with the checker on hypothetical listings, not real businesses. Churn is monthly revenue churn; MRR in 12 months compounds churn and new MRR month by month.

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Listing	Churn and new MRR	Revenue after 12 months	What it tells you
$900,000 ask, $25,000 MRR, 3.0x ARR	3% a month, $1,500 new a month	69% of today's MRR still paying with no new sales; $32,654 MRR with them	Healthy if the new sales do not depend on the founder
The same ask and MRR	1% a month, $500 new a month	89% still paying; $27,840 MRR	Slower growth, far stickier. Often the better buy at the same price
The same ask and MRR	6% a month, $1,500 new a month	48% still paying; flat at $25,000	Running to stand still. The price should follow what survives
$600,000 ask, $15,000 MRR, 3.33x ARR	2% a month, $600 new a month, 35% from one customer	78% still paying; $18,229 MRR	Good churn, one contract carrying the business. Read that contract
$1,200,000 ask, $40,000 MRR, 2.5x ARR	4% a month, $1,200 new a month	61% still paying; $36,127 MRR	Shrinking. Net new MRR is negative, so today's MRR is the peak

Compare the first two rows. They have the same price and the same MRR today, and the one with lower growth keeps 89% of its revenue a year out against 69%. A buyer who looks only at growth picks the first. A buyer who looks at churn knows the second needs less selling just to stay level, which matters most when the founder who did the selling leaves at closing.

A software founder walking a buyer through a monthly recurring revenue chart on a laptop in a small office

Recurring revenue is only worth a premium if it keeps recurring after you own it

A listing that says "recurring revenue" is making a promise about the future: that the customers paying this month will still be paying next year, without the founder chasing them. That promise is what a buyer pays for, and it is the part a screenshot of a dashboard cannot prove.

So the questions that decide the price are plain ones. How much of the revenue is on a contract or a subscription, and how much is repeat business that could stop tomorrow? What share of last year's customers are still paying? Does one account carry the business? A seller who can answer from the billing system is selling recurring revenue. A seller who answers from memory is selling a story about it.

Side by side

Verified recurring revenue against taking the listing at its word

A fair look at what each does well. Both are useful. Here is where they differ.

Feature	Buyouts	Taking "recurring revenue" at face value
MRR and ARR	Checked against the billing system before listing	Stated by the seller, sometimes with a dashboard screenshot
Churn	Shown on every listing	Often missing, or given as a single good month
Contracted against repeat revenue	Subscription software only, so revenue is billed on a plan	Mixed: route, service and product businesses listed together
Kind of business	AI SaaS and software	Everything from laundromats to subscription boxes
Cost to the buyer	$99 to $899 a month, no success fee	Free to browse on most boards; some marketplaces charge for access
Off-market deals	On the $899 Acquirer plan	Usually through a broker relationship

Comparison reflects general, publicly understood positioning. Capabilities change, so check each marketplace for the latest. Trademarks belong to their owners.

Why founders and buyers pick Buyouts

One deal room built specifically for AI SaaS

What counts as recurring revenue when you buy a business

Recurring revenue is revenue a customer has agreed to keep paying: a monthly or annual subscription, a service contract with a term, a membership that renews until cancelled. Repeat revenue is different. A restaurant's regulars and a supplier's loyal accounts come back, but nothing obliges them to, and a new owner can lose them in a season. The distinction matters because the premium buyers pay is for predictability. A SaaS product billed monthly on a card, with customers who have to take an action to leave, is close to the pure case. A marketing agency on monthly retainers with 30 day notice is recurring on paper and repeat in practice. When a listing says "recurring revenue", ask what share is on a subscription or contract, what the notice period is, and how much renewed last year.

How recurring revenue businesses are valued

Small recurring revenue businesses are mostly priced on profit, not on revenue. Acquire.com's January 2026 report puts the median at 3.9x profit for SaaS sold on its marketplace in 2024 and 2025, and its 2025 findings put the usual range at 3x to 5x net income across deal sizes. Baton's rule of thumb for small businesses generally is two to four times seller's discretionary earnings. ARR multiples come into it at the top end, for businesses with scale, fast growth and strong retention, where a buyer pays for revenue they expect to turn into much larger profit. For a subscription business making a few hundred thousand a year, the honest frame is a profit multiple adjusted for quality: lower churn, longer contracts, less dependence on the founder and less concentration in one customer each move it up the range. Our <a href="/alternatives/saas-valuation-calculator">SaaS valuation calculator</a> runs both methods side by side so you can see how far apart they land on the same listing.

Churn decides what the recurring revenue is worth

Churn is the share of revenue that cancels each month. It compounds. At 1% a month you still have about 89% of today's revenue a year from now with no new sales at all. At 3% you have about 69%. At 6% you have under half, and the business has to replace that loss every month just to stay level. That is why two listings with the same MRR and the same asking price can be very different purchases. The checker on this page shows it directly. Ask the seller for twelve months of MRR broken into new, expansion, contraction and churned revenue, and for a cohort view if they have one. A seller with real recurring revenue can produce it from the billing system in an afternoon. Watch for the opposite trap too: very low churn on a very young customer base. Six months of history cannot show annual renewals, which is one reason Empire Flippers requires at least six months of earnings before it lists a business at all.

Where to find subscription businesses for sale

The general boards carry recurring revenue businesses mixed in with everything else. Empire Flippers runs a subscription category, with 14 listings on the day we checked. Flippa has a subscription filter. Acquire.com is mostly SaaS. Brokers such as Synergy Business Brokers keep recurring revenue inventory pages, and those lean toward service and route businesses: pest control, pool service, managed IT. For software specifically, the hard part is not finding listings, it is trusting the numbers on them. That is the problem Buyouts is built for. Every AI SaaS listing shows MRR, ARR, growth and churn checked against the billing data before it goes live, and buyers can request the data room. Buyer Access is $99 a month, Buyer Pro $299 with a 24 hour head start on new listings, and Acquirer $899 with off-market deals and a managed close.

Financing a recurring revenue business

An SBA 7(a) loan can finance a subscription business the same way it finances any other, up to $5,000,000, and the lender underwrites on historical cash flow from tax returns. For loans numbered from 1 October 2026, SOP 50 10 8.1 asks for debt service coverage of 1.25 times on a first acquisition and at least 10% equity. Recurring revenue helps the coverage case, but the lender still works from the profit you can document. Seller notes are common on online and software deals, usually on shorter terms than main street deals because revenue can move quickly. A seller who trusts the churn numbers is easier to talk into carrying part of the price, which is another reason verified metrics change the negotiation. See <a href="/alternatives/businesses-for-sale-with-seller-financing">businesses for sale with seller financing</a> for how a note sits next to an SBA loan.

Keep reading on the parts of a deal this page touches: the SaaS valuation calculator for an ARR or profit multiple, how to verify MRR before you buy, the cash flow screener for any listing, businesses for sale with seller financing, software companies for sale, online businesses for sale with verified numbers, off-market businesses for sale, the Empire Flippers valuation multiple, Acquire.com pricing for buyers and sellers, an SBA loan to buy a business.

Good questions

Recurring revenue businesses for sale, answered

A business whose customers pay on a schedule under a subscription or contract, monthly or yearly, until they cancel. SaaS, subscription apps, memberships, subscription boxes and service contracts all use it. The value to a buyer is that most of next year's revenue is already committed, provided churn is low and the contracts survive the change of owner.

Mostly on profit, adjusted for the quality of the recurring revenue. Acquire.com reported a median of 3.9x profit for SaaS sold on its marketplace in 2024 and 2025, with a usual range of 3x to 5x net income. Lower churn, longer contracts, low customer concentration and less founder dependence push a business up that range; ARR multiples apply mainly at larger scale.

Software sold by subscription is the clearest case, followed by subscription apps, membership communities, newsletters with paid tiers, subscription boxes, and service businesses on monthly contracts such as managed IT, pest control and pool service. The service businesses are often repeat revenue in practice, because customers can leave on short notice.

Because it makes next year predictable. A buyer of a recurring revenue business knows most of the revenue before the year starts, can finance against it more comfortably, and does not have to win every customer again. The preference holds only while churn stays low, which is why buyers ask for churn and cohort data before anything else.

There is no single standard, and published benchmarks disagree on whether they measure monthly or annual churn. As a screening rule in our checker we flag monthly revenue churn at 3% and above as a risk to price in and 5% and above as a business losing revenue faster than it is likely to replace it. Those thresholds are ours, not an industry rule.

The price is usually a multiple of profit, around 3x to 5x for small SaaS on Acquire.com's data, plus 7% to 14% on top for diligence, legal fees and working capital on our worked examples. With an SBA loan you need at least 10% of the project as equity at closing. Our cost to buy a business calculator adds it up for a specific price.

Empire Flippers has a subscription category, Flippa has a subscription filter, Acquire.com lists mostly SaaS, and brokers keep recurring revenue inventory pages that lean toward service businesses. Buyouts lists AI SaaS businesses only, with MRR, ARR, growth and churn verified before listing, from $99 a month and with no buyer success fee.

Ask for read access to the billing system, such as the payment processor or subscription platform, rather than screenshots or a spreadsheet. Reconcile twelve months of MRR to bank deposits, split it into new, expansion, contraction and churned revenue, and check that refunds and annual plans are counted correctly. On Buyouts that check is done before a listing goes live.

Often, because the revenue does not have to be won again on day one and a lender can see it in the history. The risks are founder-led sales that stop when the founder leaves, one customer carrying too much of the revenue, and churn hidden by a good recent month. Run the listing through the checker and ask for cohorts before making an offer.

More comparisons

See how Buyouts compares

vs Acquire.com

Acquire.com alternative

An AI-SaaS-native marketplace with verified metrics, published multiples and vetted buyers, not a generalist startup listing wall.

vs Flippa

Flippa alternative

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vs MicroAcquire

MicroAcquire alternative

An AI-SaaS-focused marketplace with verified metrics and real deal-flow tooling, not a generalist micro-startup feed.

vs Empire Flippers

Empire Flippers alternative

A self-serve, AI-SaaS-native marketplace with published multiples and escrow, not a content and eComm brokerage.

vs FE International

FE International alternative

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vs Quiet Light

Quiet Light Brokerage alternative

A self-serve, AI-SaaS-native marketplace with verified metrics and published multiples, not a mid-market advisory engagement.

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Listing figures are published by their sellers and self-reported · valuation content is educational, not a guaranteed sale price or return · trademarks belong to their owners