For founders / What is my RIA worth
What your firm is worth, and what moves the number.
Buyers use three lenses and they rarely agree. The gap between them is where the negotiation lives. Send the ADV and the assets and a partner returns a range, with the arithmetic.
Three lenses
Percent of assets
The conference number. Easy to quote, nearly useless alone, because it ignores what the firm earns on those assets and whether the revenue stays when the founder stops.
Revenue multiple
Better. It prices the recurring fee stream. It still misses margin, so two firms with identical revenue and very different cost structures look the same when they are not.
Normalized EBITDA multiple
The number buyers actually underwrite. Earnings after a market-rate salary for the work you do yourself. Founders who pay themselves nothing or everything both get adjusted to the same baseline, and that adjustment is often the largest swing in the whole valuation.
What moves the number
Recurring revenue
The share of fees that renews without a sale. Above 90 percent is the expectation.
Client retention
Annual attrition, and who the departing clients were. Five households holding a quarter of revenue is a discount, not a footnote.
Organic growth
New assets from new relationships, excluding market movement and acquisitions.
Margin after normalization
What is left after you are paid like an employee for the work you do.
How much runs without you
The variable founders underprice. A firm where three advisors hold the top thirty relationships is worth materially more than one where you do.
Have a different question? Ask a partner.
Fifteen minutes, no deck, no follow-up sequence. Or send the ADV and the assets and start with a number.