HVAC business valuation calculator

An HVAC company is usually bought for what it earns. The buyer takes a year of earnings and pays a multiple of it. For a shop with one working owner, the earnings are SDE. For a larger company with managers in place, they are EBITDA.

The calculator starts with this example: $1,200,000 in sales, $640,000 of job costs (equipment, parts, field labor and subs), $430,000 of overhead that includes the owner's $110,000 of pay, and $30,000 of add-backs like interest and depreciation.

With HVAC selected, the range is $540,000 to $918,000. The point estimate on the example's factors is $726,300, at 2.69× SDE. Change every number to your own.

SDE is the number most owner-run HVAC shops will be priced on. The buyer is often a tech or manager who wants to own a shop, or a nearby company adding customers. EBITDA comes in when the buyer is a larger group that will put its own manager in. The calculator works out both and picks the one that fits your size.

Two published sources go into the range.

Peak Business Valuation publishes ranges for HVAC companies: 2.40× to 3.40× SDE, and 3.40× to 7.80× EBITDA. They describe these as averages that may not match any one company.

The IBBA and M&A Source Market Pulse survey reports the median multiple brokers saw in each quarter's deals, by deal size, across all industries:

For an HVAC company, the calculator takes the wider of the two. For SDE-priced deals that is 2.0× (the lowest IBBA median) to 3.4× (the top of Peak's HVAC range). For EBITDA-priced deals it is 3.4× to 7.8×. The point inside the range starts from the IBBA Q2 2026 median for your size band.

The EBITDA range is wide because Peak's HVAC range runs to 7.8×. The top of it is for companies with strong recurring revenue, management in place and clean records. The calculator places you inside the range from your factors.

A buyer is paying today for earnings that will come in after you leave. Revenue that comes from a signed agreement, renewed every year, is easier to count on than revenue that depends on the next heat wave.

Maintenance agreements help in three ways:

• Predictable revenue. Plan fees arrive on a schedule, so the buyer can see next year's floor.
• Repair and replacement work. Plan visits find failing parts and aging systems. When a repair comes up, a member already knows who to call.
• Steadier schedules. Spring and fall tune-ups fill the shoulder months, so techs stay busy and stay on payroll.

In the calculator, share of sales from plans and repeat contracts carries the most weight, 40 of 100 points, with full points at 60% or more. Our weighting is a reading of what brokers say buyers look for, not a published figure.

The maintenance plan pricing calculator prices a plan so it earns its keep, and Koira's maintenance plans page shows how members, renewals and visit reminders are handled.

Not every agreement counts the same. A buyer will look at how many renew each year, whether they bill automatically, and whether they can be transferred to a new owner. Agreements that auto-renew on a card on file, with visits on record, count for more than a list of names who paid once. Check that your agreement lets you assign it if you sell the business.

The calculator scores recurring revenue, owner dependence and years in business. A buyer will look further:

Customer records matter more in HVAC than in many trades. A list of every customer with their equipment, its age and its service history is a map of future replacement work. Buyers will ask for it.

Seasonality shows up in the books as months that lose money. A buyer will want to see that the busy months more than cover them, year after year. Monthly statements for three years make that easy to show. Agreement visits and off-season work like indoor air quality and duct cleaning can smooth the slow months.

Beyond the usual financial statements, a buyer of an HVAC company will want numbers that show how steady the work is and how much replacement work sits in the customer base.

The renewal rate tells a buyer whether members stay. The equipment age tells them how many replacements are coming. Both come straight from good service records, so start keeping them now. Software that logs each visit against the equipment it covered builds this record as you work, with no extra paperwork at sale time.

• Using revenue instead of earnings. Two shops with the same sales can earn very different amounts. Buyers price the earnings.
• Adding back costs a buyer would still have. A second truck you use for the business is a running cost, even if your spouse drives it on weekends.
• Counting the owner as free labor. If you run a truck every day and pay yourself little, a buyer will subtract what it costs to replace you in the field.
• Ignoring the season. Use a full year, or better three. A record summer makes one year look stronger than the business is.
• Forgetting the fleet. If every truck needs replacing soon, a buyer will take that off the price.

Value is earnings times the multiple. Work on both, and start two or three years before you want to sell, because buyers look at the last three years.

• Price for profit. Charge a labor rate that covers every hour (the HVAC labor rate calculator works it out) and price equipment for the margin you need. Each $10,000 of extra SDE at 2.8× adds $28,000 of value.
• Build the agreement base. Sell plans on every service call and install, and renew them automatically.
• Step out of the truck. Train a lead tech to run the board and a salesperson or comfort advisor to run estimates.
• Clean up the books. Stop running personal costs through the business a few years before a sale. Fewer add-backs to defend means a smoother deal.
• Keep equipment records. Track every system you service. It is part of what you are selling.

Koira keeps customers, equipment, plans and job history together, and its reporting shows plan revenue against total sales. See how it works for HVAC contractors.