How to put a selling price on an established website?

Hey guys,

I have been approached by an interested buyer for a website that I have owned and managed since December 2008. The site is iPhone related and currently has 90,000 pageviews/month and net profits of $1800 USD/month.

Pageviews and have consistently increased 5-10k per month, every month and there is still a lot of room for growth, esp. in advertising & affiliate incomes.

Alexa ranking is currently 115,000. It ranks on the first page of Google for almost all relevant key words and phrases.

I have searched all over the web and there is very little quality info on the topic and every site uses a different formula, or offers no method of calculation at all. Any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hello , if you your question is regarding setup a product price on website then i have few suggestion for you :

1. Please Benchmark all the website who selling same product like you
2. Please do offline marketing
3. Please target nearest buyer of your product like your city and state Audience
4. Please keep all the bachmarking information on your website so user knows that you are provide good quality product compare to others

Please study the product which people mostly looking in your website

 

its usually your monthly income x12

 

Depending on the website, how long it's been online, how much unique content it has, and the profit margins, I'd say somewhere between 12x and 24x it's monthly revenue.

 

Have you read this? That's the only comprehensive guide to how much you can get for your site.

Rule 1: Learn to avoid valuation tools that don't tell you how they arrive at their valuation.

 

iPhone is a hot niche, so if you're really netting 1800/mo steady (day in and day out minimum 6mo), 1800 x 12 is what you're looking for. This assumes the site history and quality is good and it's not a blackhat feeder site of some sort.

 

Rule 2: Don't trust figures pulled out of thin air by people in webmaster forums who may or may not have any experience of valuation and simply repeat some nonsense they've read somewhere else.

 

If you have a SOLID PROVEN sales track record over that time, you can go Revenue x 12 months revenue.

Do not listen to cheapskates telling you bullshit like 3/6 months. That is wrong. However, on DP and a few other forums low ballers will always try and say that ANY site is worth that, and they would pay no more than 3 months revenue for anything.

Membership sites, and those with a long proven track record, can command a premium on sales price. You may have to wait a bit longer (3-6) for the right buyer, but believe me it's worth it.

That said, you must be able to back up all claims for your site. Referrals, traffic, sales, and so on. Without the stats and screen shots for that period. You may have to settle for less. Proof will make or break you.

Good luck on your sale.

 

I think that would be far too cheap for the website you describe. Perhaps if you had approached them to buy it off you but they contacted you.

You should decide what you want for it. You must have your price. If you accepted the same as you would earn a year from now anyway that would be a poor decision.

Apologies for not giving tangible advice - I dislike such answers on my own threads - it is just that I get the feeling that many DP members are web-worldly but not worldly-worldly and they undercharge. The best example of this is in content creation with people selling 500 word original articles, including copyright, for $2 - utter madness!

 

I would use this as a guide line. How much is it going to get you started on your next project and provide for yourself during that time.

Personally if the site was making 1,800 USD/month, I would keep it and invest some more time developing it to make 18k/month.

 

1st, you didn't mention how much you yourself want for your site. Maybe 100k or 1M? 2nd it is not clear how exactly your site makes $1800/mo -- affiliate programs, membership, etc? From there your traffic comes? Because, for example, if 70% of its revenue comes from google and adsense -- just think how much of it will remain if google penalize your site for any reason. In this case 12x price doesn't seem too low. Shortly, there need more data to make a reasonable suggestion.
You also could take the matter from other side. Net profit of $1800/mo (i.e. what remains after all costs payed and taxed deducted) means $21600/yr. Let's say your business is risky and therefore must have a return of 4 times more than, e.g. riskless bank rate, which is, say, 5% for your country. 5%x4=20%/yr, so $21600/20%=108K -- the price you could claim for your site (of course only if it has a "proven record of earnings" and reasonable expectations to keep these earnings in future). But it is just a simplified example, so you could talk with your accountant or banker about how to correctly evaluate a business with financial models.
The article mentioned by Foggy is really good.

 

Its simple to calculate.
monthly earning x 10
and if you have PR then add 20%
If got link back from authority site then add 20% more.