Small Business Appraisal Cost: How Much Does a Business Appraisal Cost and What Does a Business Valuation Cost?

A small business appraisal costs between about $2,000 and $10,000, with most straightforward engagements landing in the $3,000 to $8,000 range. Cost rises to $10,000 to $30,000 for a mid-market company and $15,000 to $60,000 when the appraisal is for litigation or divorce. The single biggest lever on price is not the size of your business, it is the type of engagement you buy: a limited calculation engagement runs roughly $1,500 to $8,000, while a full valuation engagement ending in a conclusion of value generally runs $5,000 to $15,000. An SBA lending appraisal, the most commoditized product in the market, is usually the cheapest formal option.

Before you spend anything, it is worth understanding what you are actually buying, because the words on the quote matter more than the number.

How much does a small business appraisal cost?

Budget $2,000 to $10,000 for a small business appraisal. Complex engagements involving multiple entities, unusual capital structures, or contested valuations can reach $100,000. The range is wide because appraisal is a professional service priced by scope and hours, not a product with a list price.

The cleanest way to read a quote is by engagement type, because the professional standards define exactly two of them and the difference drives most of the price gap.

Engagement type	What you receive	Typical cost	Turnaround
Calculation engagement	A calculated value, using approaches and methods agreed with you in advance, with lighter documentation	$1,500 to $8,000	Standard work under 10 business days
Valuation engagement	A conclusion of value, with all approaches considered, full documentation, and testimony-grade support	$5,000 to $15,000	Up to 20 business days

The distinction is not a marketing tier. It comes from the NACVA and AICPA professional standards, and it has consequences: a court may give a calculation of value less weight than a conclusion of value, precisely because the analyst agreed to limit the procedures. If the number is going somewhere contested, paying for the cheaper engagement can cost you the argument.

How much does it cost to get a business appraised?

Getting a business appraised costs $2,000 to $10,000 for most small companies, and the price is set by who performs it and to what standard. A credentialed appraiser preparing a documented report sits at the top of that range. A broker opinion of value is frequently provided at no charge, but it is tied to a listing agreement and is not accepted by lenders, courts, or the IRS.

Who performs it	What it is worth for	Typical cost
Credentialed appraiser (CVA, ABV, ASA)	Courts, the IRS, SBA lenders, insurers, contested transactions	$2,000 to $10,000, more if complex
Valuation service firm, standard report	Planning, negotiation, an informed asking price	$1,500 to $4,000
Valuation service firm, certified report	Lending and formal transactions	$7,000 to $8,000
Business broker opinion of value	A market read, offered in exchange for the listing	Often no charge
Valuation software subscription	Your own decision making and exit planning	Monthly subscription

How do you get a business appraised?

Decide the purpose, choose the engagement type that purpose requires, shortlist credentialed appraisers, and hand over three to five years of clean financial statements. The purpose comes first because it determines everything else: an appraisal for an SBA loan, an appraisal for a gift tax filing, and an appraisal for a divorce are different products at different prices, even for the same company.

1. Establish the purpose and the valuation date. Value is always as of a date and for a stated use. An appraiser who does not ask you this on the first call is a warning sign.
2. Pick the engagement. A calculation engagement for planning and negotiation, a valuation engagement when a third party with authority will read the report.
3. Check credentials. The designations that carry weight in the United States are the CVA from NACVA, the ABV from the AICPA, the ASA from the American Society of Appraisers, The CBA from the Institute of Business Appraisers is still held by experienced appraisers, but NACVA closed the program in 2016 and no new ones are issued.
4. Prepare the financials. Three to five years of statements and tax returns, with add-backs already documented and personal expenses already separated.
5. Get more than one quote. Fee dispersion in this market is enormous and nobody publishes a rate card.

Most owners run an earnings-based estimate before step one, to find out whether the transaction they are contemplating is even worth the cost of a formal engagement.

How much does a business valuation cost?

There is no published fee schedule anywhere in this profession. NACVA and the AICPA set standards for how the work is performed and what the report must contain, but neither body regulates fees. Every price you see online originates from an individual firm's marketing page, which is why quotes vary so widely for what sounds like the same thing.

Here is what firms actually publish, gathered from valuation firms, CPA practices, and M&A advisors:

Purpose	Typical published range	Turnaround
SBA 7(a) loan valuation	$1,500 to $5,000	About 7 to 14 days, rush available
Small business, under 5M in revenue	$3,000 to $8,000	2 to 4 weeks
Calculation engagement	$1,500 to $10,000	1 to 3 weeks
Full valuation, conclusion of value	$5,000 to $25,000 and up	3 to 6 weeks
Mid-market, 5M to 50M in revenue	$10,000 to $30,000	4 to 6 weeks
Estate and gift tax	$7,500 to $20,000 and up	3 to 6 weeks
Litigation or divorce	$15,000 to $60,000, plus hourly testimony	Weeks to months
ESOP, initial	$15,000 to $40,000	Several weeks
Broker opinion of value	Often free, tied to a listing agreement	Days to weeks

Notice the honest thing about that table: the ranges overlap and they are wide. Two credentialed firms can quote $1,500 and $15,000 for the same company, and both can be quoting in good faith, because they are proposing different depths of work.

What is the difference between a calculation engagement and a full valuation?

This is the distinction that explains most of the price gap, and it is worth getting exactly right because it is defined in the professional standards rather than invented by marketers.

Under the AICPA's valuation standards, a valuation engagement is one where the analyst is free to apply whatever valuation approaches and methods they judge appropriate. It results in a conclusion of value. A calculation engagement is one where the analyst and the client agree in advance on which approaches and methods will be used and how far the procedures will go. Those procedures are explicitly more limited, and the output is called a calculated value. NACVA's standards draw the same line in the same terms.

A calculation report must carry language stating, in substance, that the engagement did not include all the procedures required for a conclusion of value, and that had a conclusion of value been determined, the results might have been different. That sentence is the product you are buying at the lower price point.

The practical translation: a calculation is a competent professional applying agreed methods to your numbers. A conclusion of value is a professional doing the full analysis, defending every assumption, and standing behind a single answer. The first is fine for planning and negotiation. The second is what you commission when a third party with power, whether that is the IRS, a court, or a lender, is going to read it. Where exactly that line falls for your situation is the subject of certified business appraisal versus an estimate.

Why are business valuations so expensive?

Because most of the cost is judgment, not arithmetic. Multiplying earnings by a multiple takes a minute. Deciding which earnings, which multiple, and why, then documenting the reasoning so it survives challenge, is what takes weeks.

The named drivers of price, according to the firms that publish their pricing, are consistent:

• Report type. Calculation versus conclusion of value is the primary factor, and it can be a two to three times swing on its own.
• Purpose. Anything that will be scrutinized by the IRS or a court costs more, because the analyst is writing for an adversary rather than for you. A business valuation for divorce is the clearest example of that premium.
• Complexity. Multiple entities, multiple locations, unusual capital structures, and intercompany transactions all add hours.
• Quality of your books. If the analyst has to restate and normalize your financials before they can begin, you pay for that time.
• Speed. Rush work carries a premium, though few firms publish the percentage.

That fourth point is the one you can actually control. Clean, normalized financials are the cheapest thing you can hand an appraiser. If your books live in a bookkeeping export rather than in presentable statements, it costs real money to have someone else tidy them, and it is worth generating board-ready profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow statements before the engagement starts rather than paying valuation rates for cleanup work.

Litigation and divorce: why the price jumps

If your valuation is heading for a courtroom, you are no longer buying a report. You are buying an expert witness, and the report is only the opening move.

The most recent broad survey of expert witness fees, covering more than 1,600 experts, puts the median at roughly $450 an hour for case review and preparation, about $500 an hour for deposition, and about $500 an hour for courtroom testimony. Median total billings for a single case run around $7,000, though the average is roughly double that because a handful of cases run enormous. Most experts require a retainer, with a median around $3,000.

Layer that on top of a report that already costs $15,000 or more, and the $60,000 top end of the litigation range stops looking like a markup and starts looking like arithmetic.

There is also a reason a rule of thumb will not survive a courtroom. Federal Rule of Evidence 702, amended at the end of 2023, requires the party offering an expert to demonstrate that the opinion is based on sufficient facts, is the product of reliable principles and methods, and that those methods were reliably applied to the facts. A number produced by multiplying earnings by a multiple someone read on a broker's website has no methodology to apply reliably. That is precisely the sort of opinion the rule is designed to exclude.

Is an instant online business valuation worth anything?

Yes, for the job it is designed to do. No, for the job a certified appraisal is designed to do. The mistake is not using software. The mistake is using it where a formal engagement was required.

An honest accounting of what an instant valuation actually is: it applies standard methods to the numbers you enter and returns a range. It has no standards status, because under AICPA and NACVA rules terms like calculated value and conclusion of value describe engagements performed by a credentialed analyst, not formulas run by software. No calculator output is a calculated value in the professional sense, and any tool that claims otherwise is misusing the term.

What an instant estimate is genuinely good for:

• Finding out roughly what your business is worth before you spend anything
• Sanity-checking an offer or an asking price before you negotiate
• Exit planning, when a sale is a few years out and you want to know which drivers to fix
• Deciding whether a formal valuation is even worth commissioning yet

What it cannot do is satisfy a lender, a court, or the IRS. Those readers need a named professional who is personally accountable for the number. That accountability is real: under the tax code, an appraiser whose valuation produces a substantial misstatement can be personally penalized, which is exactly the exposure a software tool does not carry and cannot substitute for.

The sensible sequence is to run the estimate first, decide from the range whether the transaction is worth pursuing, and then pay for the formal engagement once something real is on the table. You can estimate what your business is worth with the calculator at the top of this page in a couple of minutes, which is a materially cheaper way to find out whether a $10,000 appraisal is justified than commissioning one to see.

A broker's opinion of value is free for a reason

Business brokers and M&A firms routinely provide an opinion of value at no charge. This is genuine and useful, and it is also marketing: the opinion is typically offered in exchange for the listing, and the broker earns on the sale rather than on the analysis.

That is not a scandal, but it does create an obvious tension. The party telling you what your business is worth is the same party who wants the mandate to sell it, and who benefits from a number attractive enough to win your business. A broker opinion is usually a short document, sometimes ten to fifteen pages, against seventy or more for a full appraisal, and it is not accepted by lenders, courts, or the IRS.

Use it as one data point. Do not use it as the only one.

How much does a CPA charge for a business valuation?

A CPA who holds a valuation credential, most commonly the ABV from the AICPA or the CVA from NACVA, prices similarly to any other credentialed valuation professional. Expect roughly $5,000 to $10,000 for a straightforward small-business conclusion of value, less for a calculation engagement, and considerably more for tax or litigation work.

Being a CPA alone does not qualify someone to value a business, and it is a fair question to ask. The credentials that carry weight in the United States are the ASA from the American Society of Appraisers, the ABV from the AICPA, the CVA from NACVA, and the BCA from the International Society of Business Appraisers. If a lender or a court is going to read the report, the credential is not a formality, it is the thing that makes the report usable.

How to spend less without buying the wrong thing

Four things reliably lower your bill.

1. Know which engagement you need before you ask for quotes. Requesting a full conclusion of value when a calculation would do is the most expensive mistake in this process, and the second most expensive is the reverse.
2. Show up with clean financials. Three to five years of statements, your add-backs already documented, personal expenses already separated. You are paying professional rates for every hour someone spends untangling your books.
3. Do not pay for precision you will not use. If you are two years from selling and simply want to know where you stand, an estimate and a plan beat a $12,000 report you will have to redo before you transact.
4. Get more than one quote. Given that fee dispersion in this market is genuinely enormous and nobody publishes a rate card, this is close to free money.

And know the ordering. The cheapest valuable step is always the first one: understand roughly what the business is worth and what is driving the number. Once you know that, you will know whether you need a $2,000 calculation, a $12,000 conclusion of value, or nothing at all this year.

The short version

Budget $3,000 to $8,000 for a small-business valuation and expect that number to double or triple if the report is for a court, the IRS, or an ESOP. Buy a calculation engagement when you need a competent, defensible number for your own decision making. Buy a conclusion of value when someone with power over the outcome is going to read it. Run an estimate first to work out which of those you actually need, so you are not paying appraisal rates to answer a question a range would have settled.

If you want to understand the methods behind whatever you end up paying for, our guides on business valuation methods and SDE versus EBITDA cover the mechanics, what a business appraisal is covers what the formal product actually contains, and the valuation for selling a business page walks through what to fix before you go to market.