Terms of use

General information, not advice

The guides, figures and examples on this site are general information about how marketing agencies, including PR firms and media buying agencies, are bought and sold. They are not legal, tax, accounting or investment advice.

Where a page summarizes a rule, it describes what the source says, not how it applies to your agency. The U.S. Copyright Office, for example, says commissioned work, such as a freelancer's, is a work made for hire only if it falls in one of nine statutory categories and both sides sign a written agreement saying so. That does not tell you how your own contractor agreements will be treated.

Talk to your own attorney and CPA before acting on anything here. Take contract questions, such as whether a client agreement can be assigned to a buyer or who owns work your freelancers made, to your attorney. Take tax questions, such as how the price is split between goodwill and a non-compete, to your CPA.

Is the estimator's range an appraisal?

No. The valuation estimator starts from a published range of multiples of seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) or EBITDA, then places your agency inside it using your answers. How much each answer moves the range is this site's own judgment, not a published figure; how the estimator works sets out the sources and the steps. It cannot see your client contracts, your books or how much of your revenue passes through to media and freelancers, and a buyer will.

When it can produce one, its result is a rough, indicative range. It is not an appraisal, a formal valuation, a fairness opinion or an offer to buy your business, and no one should rely on it for a lending, tax, legal or purchase decision.

Does requesting a valuation make you a client?

Requesting a valuation or joining the buyer list does not create a client, brokerage, advisory or agency relationship, and does not oblige you to sell, buy or sign anything. Requesting a valuation does not list your business, and details about your agency are not shared with prospective buyers without your permission.

The privacy policy explains what happens to information you send through this site.

Where do the figures on this site come from?

Market figures on this site come from the published sources cited on the page where they appear. Those sources were last checked on October 14, 2026, and some describe earlier years. BizBuySell's figures for graphic and web design businesses, for example, cover sales from 2021 to 2025 and come from a small sample in a related field. Worked examples and estimator results are illustrations calculated from those figures, not data.

Rules that shape a marketing agency sale change, and sources can be revised or wrong. The Federal Trade Commission's Non-Compete Rule, for example, was removed from the Code of Federal Regulations by a final rule published February 12, 2026. The site may be updated or corrected at any time.

Links to other websites

Source links on this site go to pages that others run, such as FE International's digital agency valuation article and the IRS instructions for Form 8594, and those pages can change or move after they were accessed. Links to other websites are provided for reference. Those sites are not controlled by this site.

Who operates this site?

SellMarketingAgency.com is operated by a non-licensed entity and is an affiliate of Wraith Brokerage, LLC (a Delaware LLC). We specialize in marketing agency M&A for performance marketing, creative agencies, and marketing technology companies.