ExitValue.ai

What Is Your Cybersecurity Business Worth?

Cybersecurity commands premium revenue multiples vs. generic SaaS, mission-critical, high switching costs, regulatory tailwinds. SMB / sub-$25M ARR: a revenue-multiple range. Mid-market with strong ARR growth: 5-8x. Premium platforms: 10-25x. Find out where you fall.

What's your cybersecurity actually worth?

The median is just the midpoint — your Cybersecurity number depends on margins, growth, customer concentration, and owner-dependence. Get your specific figure in 2 minutes.

  • ✓Sellability score with 5-driver breakdown and lift estimates
  • ✓Named comparable M&A transactions in your sub-vertical
  • ✓AI-written analysis grounded in your specific inputs
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an ARR-multiple range
Mid-Market
an ARR-multiple range
Premium Platforms

Real Cybersecurity M&A data from our 25,592-transaction database, refreshed nightly from SEC filings and verified press releases. Run a valuation to see your business priced at current market multiples.

How Cybersecurity Companies Are Valued

Cybersecurity is one of the few software categories that's defied the multiple compression of 2022-2024. The combination of mission-critical spend, switching costs measured in months, regulatory tailwinds (NIST, SOC 2, federal mandates), and breach-driven board-level urgency keeps buyer demand elastic even when general SaaS multiples soften.

That premium isn't uniform. The same a revenue multiple range applies to commodity MSSP work and a high-NRR EDR platform, and they trade radically differently. Below, the bands buyers actually use, organized by how you should think about your own company.

SMB Cyber: an ARR-multiple range (Sub-$25M Revenue)

Companies under $25M ARR price on revenue, not EBITDA, and the range is wide. The bottom of the range (~2x) reflects services-heavy security shops, pen testing, compliance assessment, MSSP work that's really staff augmentation in security clothing. The top of the range (~5x) reflects product-led companies with documented ARR growth and clear evidence the customer base will renew.

What buyers diligence at this size: logo retention (do customers stay 3+ years?), NRR above 100% (are existing accounts expanding?), and customer count diversification(no top-3 above 30%). A $10M ARR cyber business with 110% NRR and 200+ customers gets bid up to 5-7x; the same revenue concentrated in 20 enterprise accounts with flat NRR trades at 2-3x.

Mid-Market Cyber: an ARR-multiple range ($25M-$500M)

At this size, the conversation shifts to category leadership. Buyers, strategic and PE, are looking for companies that own a defensible niche: SASE, identity, EDR, vulnerability management, secrets management, security data lakes. Generic offerings don't clear this range; specialized platforms with technical moats do.

Mid-market cyber companies with 30%+ EBITDA margins also start to trade on EBITDA in parallel, typically 14-32x, and the higher of the two methods wins. NRR >110%, federal/regulated customer base, and partner ecosystem (CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, Microsoft Sentinel integrations) are the multiplier ingredients.

Premium Platforms: an ARR-multiple range ($500M+)

At public-comp scale (CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, SentinelOne, Wiz), the multiples reflect growth more than current ARR. CrowdStrike traded above an ARR multiple through 2024-2025 because the underlying ARR was compounding 30%+. Wiz reportedly took offers around $20B (~an ARR multiple) on ~$700M ARR before declining Google's $23B bid in 2024.

For privately-held companies in this range, strategic acquirers like Cisco (which paid an ARR multiple for Splunk at $28B), Palo Alto (acquired Talon, Dig, IBM's QRadar SaaS), CrowdStrike (Bionic, Flow), and Zscaler set the comp set. Thoma Bravo's portfolio (Sophos, Proofpoint, SailPoint, ForgeRock) provides PE-side comps in the same range.

Key Drivers Buyers Will Diligence

Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is the single most-watched metric. Above 110%: premium. Below 100%: red flag, suggests churn or downgrade exceeds expansion. The cyber-specific nuance: NRR including customer additions vs. expansion-only NRR are different numbers; buyers will ask for both.

Federal and regulated revenue commands a multiple premium because the procurement cycle that lands those customers is its own moat. FedRAMP-authorized cyber companies frequently trade 1-2 turns higher than commercial-only equivalents at the same ARR.

Platform breadth vs. point solution: buyers increasingly pay platform multiples (8-12x) and point-solution multiples (3-5x). If you do one thing for one buyer persona, you're a feature; if you span EDR + identity + cloud workload + GRC, you're a platform.

What Reduces Cyber Valuations

Customer breach exposure: if your product was named in a customer's breach disclosure, buyers will discount aggressively, even when the root cause wasn't your fault. Forensic narrative ready for diligence.

Channel partner concentration: many cyber companies do 70%+ of revenue through 1-2 distribution partners (Optiv, GuidePoint, CDW). Buyers diligence whether those relationships are contracted or handshake, and discount accordingly.

Talent costs: cyber engineers are the most expensive software engineers in the market. Companies running 30%+ R&D spend without growth to match get marked down.

Estimate your cybersecurity business value

12-input M&A-grade workup with sellability score, named comparable deals, and AI-written commentary. 2 minutes.

  • ✓Sellability score with 5-driver breakdown and lift estimates
  • ✓Named comparable M&A transactions in your sub-vertical
  • ✓AI-written analysis grounded in your specific inputs
Run my valuation analysis →

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do cybersecurity companies sell for?

SMB cyber companies (sub-$25M ARR) typically sell for a revenue-multiple range. Mid-market ($25M-$500M ARR) trades 5-8x with strong ARR growth. Premium platforms ($500M+) command a revenue-multiple range, recent comps include Wiz at ~25x and CrowdStrike at 20x+ ARR.

What's a good NRR for a cybersecurity company?

Above 110% net revenue retention is the threshold for premium multiples. 100-110% is acceptable. Below 100% raises serious red flags, buyers will assume churn exceeds expansion and apply heavy discounts.

Why do cybersecurity companies trade at higher multiples than generic SaaS?

Mission-critical spend that customers can't easily cut, switching costs measured in months not days, regulatory tailwinds (NIST, SOC 2, federal mandates), and breach-driven urgency. Buyers will pay a a revenue-multiple range premium over equivalent-size generic SaaS for these structural advantages.

Who buys cybersecurity companies?

Strategic acquirers include Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Microsoft, Zscaler, Fortinet, IBM. PE-backed platforms include Thoma Bravo (Sophos, SailPoint, ForgeRock), Vista Equity, Bain Capital, and Permira. Mid-market PE roll-ups are active in MSSP and compliance niches.

Does federal/government revenue boost valuation?

Yes, FedRAMP-authorized cyber companies typically trade 1-2 turns higher than commercial-only equivalents because the procurement moat is real and stable. Buyers value the multi-year contracted revenue and the difficulty of replacing the supplier.

Should I sell to a strategic or PE buyer?

Strategics typically pay higher multiples for capability fit but expect cultural integration and earnouts. PE buys for growth-equity stories, often pays 80-90% of strategic comps but offers more independence and second-bite optionality. Trade-off depends on whether you want to integrate or scale independently.

What's the right time to sell a cybersecurity company?

When you have 24+ months of NRR data above 110%, federal customers in your base (if commercial-only, that's a multi-year build), and a clear growth roadmap that doesn't depend on you personally. Selling into hype on a single product is risky; selling into a documented multi-product platform story is when multiples peak.

How is a cybersecurity valued?

A cybersecurity is valued by benchmarking against comparable completed M&A transactions and then adjusting for the specific business. Owner-operator businesses are typically priced on an earnings or seller-discretionary-earnings basis, while businesses at platform scale shift toward institutional earnings-multiple methodology. ExitValue.ai selects the methodology the comparable deal set actually used and adjusts for margin quality, growth, owner dependency, customer concentration, and recurring-revenue mix.

What drives cybersecurity valuation?

The biggest value levers are recurring or repeat revenue, owner independence (the business runs without the founder), customer diversification (no single client dominates), a credible growth trajectory, and operating-margin quality relative to peers. Buyers pay a premium when these are strong and discount heavily when they are weak.

How many cybersecurity M&A deals are tracked?

ExitValue.ai's database holds 25,592 verified M&A transactions across 107 sub-verticals, sourced from SEC filings, EDGAR 8-K/S-4 documents, and verified press releases and refreshed daily. Disclosed Cybersecurity transactions are surfaced as the median multiple above.

Who buys a cybersecurity?

A cybersecurity is most often acquired by private-equity platforms and strategic acquirers. Private-equity platforms typically pursue roll-up consolidation; strategic acquirers are larger operators expanding in the same space.

In-Depth Valuation Guides

How to Value a Cybersecurity Business in 2026→ Read guideSDE vs EBITDA: Which One Values Your Business?→ Read guide

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Seller resources for $1M+ EBITDA owners →

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