Free, confidential veterinary practice valuation

Which earnings figure should you enter?

The estimator takes one of two earnings figures, and they are not interchangeable. Enter the one your books can support.

EBITDA, recast as adjusted profit

Profit after the practice pays you a fair-market salary for the veterinary work you do and pays fair-market rent, even when you own the building. That is how Simmons & Associates appraisers recast a practice's tax returns to find valuation profit, treating owner pay and rent as operating costs. If your accountant has not done this, the table shows the figures two sources use for owner pay and rent.

How two sources set owner pay and rent

Simmons: assumptions in a worked example on a $1,000,000 practice, which also charges 3% of gross for management. Mandelbaum Barrett: rules of thumb from a 2024 presentation. Local rates govern a real deal.

Source	Owner-doctor pay	Rent
Simmons & Associates	22% of own production	8% of building value
Mandelbaum Barrett	20% of production	8% to 10% of building value

Law firm Mandelbaum Barrett's 2024 presentation said corporate buyers need a fair-market lease, with the rent deducted from EBITDA and checked by a rent appraisal, so the more rent you charge as landlord, the lower the EBITDA and the price. As a check on the figure you get, Simmons considers a small animal practice financially healthy at an adjusted profit of 14% to 18% of gross, and sees average practices at 10% to 12%.

Seller's discretionary earnings (SDE)

Profit with your own salary and other owner benefits added back, the figure BizBuySell's veterinary listings report. Use it if your books have not been recast.

Do not enter SDE as EBITDA. SDE still holds your pay for the veterinary work, and the EBITDA ranges are multiples of adjusted profit, so applying them to SDE would overstate the value.

What the estimate is and is not

What it is

On EBITDA, your adjusted profit times the fair-market range Simmons & Associates, a veterinary appraisal and brokerage firm, gave in 2024 for practices sold to private veterinarian buyers, which the firm also describes as the historical norm for general small animal practices. It is one firm's range, not a count of sales. Mandelbaum Barrett's mid-2024 range for private sales, a little higher at the top, is printed beside it as a cross-reference and does not change the result.

With three or more FTE veterinarians and $1.5 million or more of gross revenue, roughly the corporate target that Simmons and Mandelbaum Barrett each describe, the EBITDA result also shows the range Mandelbaum Barrett reported for corporate sales in mid-2024. It is one firm's reported range, not an offer from any buyer. The same 2024 presentation said corporate buyers typically require part of the price as rollover equity, and that most do not buy the real estate.

On SDE, your SDE times the middle half of the asking multiples across the 56 listings in BizBuySell's Veterinary Practices category on October 27, 2026. Those are asking figures from a page that changes daily, not sale prices, and BizBuySell says listing multiples generally run higher than those of businesses that actually sold.

Above $900,000 of gross revenue, a cross-check against gross: the share of gross Simmons says a well-managed, reasonably profitable practice of that size should appraise and sell for to a private veterinarian buyer. The same firm says there is no general rule of thumb for practice value, so the cross-check never replaces the earnings result.

Practice type adds notes in words and never moves the range. Simmons calls salability fragile for mixed and large-animal practices, rural practices and practices grossing under $700,000, which is not the same as unsellable: the same article points mixed-animal and rural practices to mergers and partnership buy-ins. The equine note gives the historical range one consultant described at an American Association of Equine Practitioners convention session.

The result also names, in words, three things that move a real price: whether your associates stay after the sale, which Simmons' appraisers say makes a multi-doctor practice worth more than a solo practice whose seller leaves at closing; your profit margin; and whether you own the building.

Each range, with a worked example, is in how much a veterinary practice is worth.

What it is not

An appraisal, or a price to write into a partnership or buy-in agreement. The full valuation you can request here is not an appraisal either, and it is not an offer to buy: VetFirm Sales does not buy practices.

Cash at closing. Simmons says to expect some of a corporate price to be paid later, as an earnout, holdback or retention bonus, and that it is common for part of the price to be paid in the parent company's stock or retained ownership. It adds that corporate buyers expect the selling doctor to stay at least two years, and most want three or more.

A price for your building. Simmons says that in a private sale the seller's real estate is typically sold with the practice, while corporate investors typically do not buy it; either way, the building is valued separately from the practice. In a 2024 article, Simmons' Doyle Watson puts a fair-market return on practice real estate at about 7% to 10% of its value, depending on the local market, under a triple-net, arm's-length lease.

The lender's number. If the veterinarian buying your practice uses an SBA 7(a) loan, the lender must get its own valuation from an independent, accredited appraiser under SOP 50 10 8.1, effective October 1, 2026, and may not use one prepared for you or the buyer; for a business purchase price of $350,000 or less, the lender may value the practice itself unless the buyer and seller have a close relationship. Total debt for the purchase, including any seller note not on full standby, cannot exceed that valuation, and any price above it has to be made up by equity. This is general information; confirm it with the buyer's lender or your counsel.

What happens after you request a veterinary practice valuation?

The order of a sale, from recasting your P&Ls to the DEA registration steps and choosing between a private veterinarian and a corporate buyer, is in how to sell a veterinary practice.