Who Buys Accounting and Bookkeeping Firms? The Four Buyer Groups and What Each Pays

The four groups are PE-backed accounting platforms doing add-ons, regional CPA firms and local practitioners, individual CPA buyers financed with SBA loans, and search funds or independent sponsors. They sort by firm size before they sort by price. Practices worth under about $2M trade on SDE or gross fees. Firms in the $2M to $10M enterprise value band draw platforms pricing on adjusted EBITDA, which Ad Astra Equity puts at 4.0x to 6.0x, rising to 6.0x to 8.0x in the $10M to $50M band.

BizBuySell data on sold accounting, CPA and tax practices from 2021 to 2025 shows a median SDE multiple of 2.04x, median SDE of $208,303, and a median sale price of $425,000. That is the market where individual CPAs and local firms compete. The platform tier runs on different math, different diligence, and a different closing structure.

Before you take a single buyer call, place your firm in one tier using trailing earnings: SDE if it is worth under about $2M, adjusted EBITDA if it sits in the $2M to $10M band.

Eight PE-backed platforms are active acquirers doing add-ons in this industry, each backed by a named sponsor:

• Citrin Cooperman: Blackstone, which took ownership from New Mountain Capital in January 2025
• Aprio: Charlesbank Capital Partners (2024)
• Carr, Riggs & Ingram (CRI): Centerbridge Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners (2024)
• Baker Tilly: Hellman & Friedman and Valeas Capital Partners (2024)
• Grant Thornton: New Mountain Capital, CDPQ, OA Private Capital (2024)
• Sikich: Bain Capital (2024)
• Cherry Bekaert: Parthenon Capital (2022)
• EisnerAmper: TowerBrook Capital Partners (2021)

How the deal closes if you do attest work

CPA firms are licensed by the state board of accountancy, and attest work requires CPA ownership and firm registration. A sponsor cannot own the attest practice. Platforms solve this with an alternative practice structure: the licensed attest entity stays CPA-owned, and the sponsor owns the advisory entity that holds tax, consulting and client accounting work. If attest is a large share of your fees, expect an independence review and APS coordination that lengthen diligence. The split also shapes whether you sell assets or equity, which drives your tax result; see asset sale vs stock sale.

Worked example: a $9,000,000 revenue firm

Inputs: $9,000,000 revenue and $2,200,000 adjusted EBITDA after paying a $150,000 general manager salary to cover the owner's operating role. Every multiple below is an EBITDA multiple applied to that $2,200,000.

The same source cites sponsor-deal prints of 9x to 15x, with Blackstone's Citrin Cooperman deal near 15x. Those are platform recapitalizations, not add-on prices for a firm at $2,200,000 of EBITDA, and an owner who anchors an LOI negotiation on them loses credibility with the buyer's deal team.

The bigger risk is the earnings line itself. Partner-comp scrape and one-time items can move reported EBITDA by 10% to 30%, and the quality of earnings review tests WIP and AR. On $2,200,000, that is $220,000 to $660,000 of EBITDA. At 6.0x, it is $1,320,000 to $3,960,000 of enterprise value. Read what a quality of earnings report covers and commission your own sell-side review before a platform's accountants run theirs, so the partner-comp and WIP adjustments are argued from your schedule.

They price your client book on gross recurring fees, roughly 0.75x to 1.5x under the same advisory benchmarks, then adjust for how many of those clients will stay. A strategic buyer already has a building, software and staff. It absorbs your clients into its existing overhead, so your cost structure mostly drops out of its math and the fee base is what it pays for.

That has a direct consequence for a firm with thin margins. Take a practice with $1,200,000 of revenue. If all of it were recurring fees, 0.75x to 1.5x puts it at $900,000 to $1,800,000. A strategic counts only the recurring portion, so one-off projects and seasonal work drop out of that base. A financed buyer, by contrast, pays only for earnings it can service debt from. A practice with high fees and low SDE can therefore price better with a local firm than with an individual.

What moves a strategic's number

• Retention above 90% adds 0.5x to 1.0x.
• Client concentration above 20% to 25% of fees brings a 15% to 30% discount. Above 35%, buyers put a hard ceiling on cash at close.
• Owner-held relationships, or advisory revenue held by one partner, cut 1.0x to 2.0x.
• A heavy seasonal tax-compliance mix cuts 0.5x to 1.0x.
• Recurring revenue below 40% pushes the whole deal to gross-fee pricing.

Bookkeeping and tax-only practices without attest work generally do not require a CPA-licensed firm, which opens the strategic pool to non-CPA bookkeeping and tax operators. Culture fit carries real weight here; the advisory source notes that "many deals fail because of culture, not numbers." Your staff will move into the buyer's firm, so read how employees transfer in a sale before your first meeting with a regional firm's managing partner.

Yes. Accounting and bookkeeping practices are eligible for SBA 7(a) financing, and the loan caps at $5,000,000, which covers the full sub-$2M practice market. What your buyer's lender approves sets the cash you see at closing, so the SBA rules are your rules too.

Worked example: $1,200,000 revenue, $280,000 SDE

SDE is net profit plus one owner's full compensation plus documented add-backs (see what counts as SDE). Every multiple below is an SDE multiple applied to $280,000.

What your buyer's lender checks

• Coverage: SOP 50 10 8.1 requires at least 1.25x debt service coverage for an acquisition, measured on the last fiscal year or a two-year average. Projections cannot be used to meet it. Seller debt on full standby is left out of the debt service.
• Valuation: every price in the table is above $350,000, so the lender must order an independent valuation from a Qualified Source (ASA, CBA, ABV, CVA or BCA credential). A valuation you commissioned does not count.
• Debt cap: the SBA loan plus any seller debt not on full standby cannot exceed that valuation. Price above it has to come from buyer equity or standby debt.
• Equity: a complete change of ownership needs 10% of total project cost. Up to half can be a seller note on full standby, so 5% buyer cash plus a 5% standby note is a common structure.

If you carry the standby note, you receive no principal or interest on it for the life of the 7(a) loan, and acquisition loans run up to 10 years. Price that wait into your decision. Test a buyer's numbers in the SBA loan calculator.

Search funds and independent sponsors

Search funds and independent sponsors fit a firm with a manager or senior staff who already run client work, because the searcher steps in as CEO and needs a team underneath. They may finance with SBA debt under the same rules above, or with investor equity and conventional debt. Ask any searcher early whether investors are committed and which lender is in place.

Whichever individual or searcher you pick, give the lender two clean fiscal years with add-backs documented, because the 1.25x test runs on those years and not on next year's forecast.

The right buyer is the group whose pricing basis pays for what your firm actually has: transferable earnings, a recurring fee base, or scale with staff depth. Match your goal to the group:

• Maximum cash at close on a practice under about $2M of value, with strong margins: an individual CPA with an SBA loan. Your ceiling is the lender's valuation and the 1.25x historical coverage test.
• High fee volume, thin margins: a regional CPA firm or local practitioner pricing on recurring fees. Expect terms tied to client retention.
• $2M to $10M of enterprise value, recurring fees above 60%, relationships held by staff: a PE-backed platform. Expect a quality of earnings review, an APS if you do attest work, and a stay-on role.
• You want your team kept intact under a single new owner-operator: a search fund or independent sponsor, provided a manager layer already exists.

Run more than one group at once when your firm sits near a tier boundary. A practice near the $2M line can draw an SBA buyer on SDE and a regional firm on fees, and the two offers are not built on the same base. Your accounting firm valuation should show both.

How Munera runs the process

Munera works on firms from $1M to $30M in enterprise value. There is no public listing: your firm is shown on a blind profile only to buyers who have signed an NDA and been vetted for capital and fit. Preparation takes 4 to 8 weeks, marketing runs 2 to 4 months, and decision to signed LOI takes 3 to 6 months, with 60 to 90 days from LOI to close depending on financing and diligence. If your firm matches one of Munera's active buyer clients, the buyer pays the fee and you pay nothing. If we run a confidential buyer search, the fee is a success fee paid at closing with no monthly retainer, and a $5,000 engagement deposit is credited against it.

Start the 4 to 8 week preparation window with two clean fiscal years, a fee mix split between recurring and seasonal work, and a client concentration schedule showing your top ten clients' share of fees.