Most online businesses — blogs, niche sites, small SaaS products and online shops — are valued the same way: average monthly net profit multiplied by a “multiple”, usually somewhere between 25 and 45. A site earning $1,000 a month in profit is therefore often worth around $25,000–$45,000.
Here is how to work out both numbers for a real site.
Step 1: Find the average monthly net profit
Buyers look at profit, not revenue. Take the last 6–12 months and work out:
Net profit = revenue − costs (hosting, tools, content, freelancers, advertising)
Then average it per month. Using 12 months smooths out seasonal peaks — a Christmas-gift site shouldn’t be valued on its December income alone. Be honest about costs: if you write the content yourself, a buyer will have to pay someone to replace you, and a good buyer will account for that.
Step 2: Choose the multiple
The multiple reflects how risky and durable the income looks. These factors move it up or down:
| Raises the multiple | Lowers the multiple |
|---|---|
| Site older than 3–5 years with a steady history | Young site (under a year) |
| Traffic growing month on month | Traffic declining or hit by a Google update |
| Several income streams and traffic sources | Everything depends on one ad network or one source of traffic |
| Little owner time needed | Needs many hours a week to run |
| Recurring revenue (subscriptions, SaaS) | One-off or irregular income |
A reasonable starting point is around 30–35× for an established content site, then adjust for the points above.
Step 3: Multiply and sanity-check
Website value = average monthly net profit × multiple
Example: a 6-year-old recipe blog averages $3,200 revenue and $700 costs a month, so its net profit is $2,500. Traffic is stable and it earns from ads and affiliate links. Starting at 32× and adding a little for its age gives about 35×:
$2,500 × 35 = $87,500
A sensible asking range would be roughly $75,000–$100,000, depending on how well the seller can prove the numbers.
What if the site doesn’t make money yet?
Unprofitable sites aren’t valued on a profit multiple. Buyers pay for the assets instead — the domain, the content, the traffic and any email list — and prices are usually much lower. Growing even a modest, provable profit is the fastest way to raise a site’s value.
Estimate any site’s value in seconds
The Website Worth Calculator does these steps for you. Enter a domain and it estimates traffic from live ranking data, checks the domain’s age and rank trend, detects its income streams and applies a profit multiple — or type in your own revenue and costs for a more accurate figure. To see where the profit comes from, break it down with the Website Revenue Calculator.
How to prove your numbers to buyers
- Screenshots or read-only access to analytics (Google Analytics, Search Console).
- Earnings reports from ad networks and affiliate programmes for at least 12 months.
- A clear list of monthly costs and the time the site takes to run.
Verified, well-documented income is the single biggest thing that helps a site sell at the top of its range.
