How to value a small business in Thailand

Ask five people what a small business is worth and you'll get five different numbers — usually because they're using five different methods.

Revenue multiples are a starting point, not an answer. International small-business sale data puts typical revenue multiples for restaurants and cafes at roughly 0.4–0.5x annual revenue — but margin, not revenue, is what actually drives value. BizBuySell

Seller's Discretionary Earnings (SDE) is the number that matters. SDE is the business's true cash benefit to a single owner-operator: net profit, plus the owner's own salary, plus non-recurring or personal expenses run through the business. Typical multiples for restaurants and cafes run roughly 1.5x–2.5x SDE, clustering around 2.2x for established, well-documented operations.

What pushes a business to the top or bottom of its range:

• Lease strength — long, transferable, favorably priced adds value.
• Owner dependency — a business that runs without the owner is worth more.
• Verified vs. self-reported numbers — this is where documentation directly moves price.
• Brand and pricing discipline — businesses that manage price position rather than compete on discounting hold margin.

Important caveat: these ranges come from aggregated international data, not a Thailand-specific dataset — treat them as a sanity check on an offer, not a formula to trust blindly.