Revenue Multiple
Also known as: Profit multiple, Earnings multiple
The factor applied to a property's earnings to produce a sale price. Commonly quoted as a multiple of monthly net profit in the brokered market for small sites.
A revenue multiple is the number an acquirer multiplies earnings by to reach an offer. In the brokered market for small content and affiliate properties the common rule of thumb is somewhere around 30 to 45 times monthly net profit, with real listings regularly falling outside that in both directions.
The multiple, not the earnings, is where the interesting variation sits. Owner dependency, traffic concentration, trend direction, and documented operations move it considerably at identical profit.
Treat quoted ranges as a market heuristic rather than a law. They move with interest rates, buyer appetite, and whatever happened to a category that quarter. A multiple is also backward-looking by construction, which makes it a poor fit for exactly the cases that are most interesting: properties with visibility that has not converted yet.