How much is a locksmith business worth?

Short answer: a locksmith business with written commercial accounts sells like a business; an emergency-lockout operation with the owner on the van sells like a job. Realized sales put locksmiths at 2.35× SDE (BizBuySell, trailing five years). Which side of that line you sit on is the whole valuation. See Locksmiths and run your figures in the valuation calculator.

The number

This trade has realized data. BizBuySell's industry multiples (closed sales, trailing five years through Q2 2026) report locksmith businesses at 2.35× SDE and 0.75× revenue, with a $300,000 median sale price.

The size ladder from the IBBA Market Pulse, Q2 2026 is the frame for most small sales: 2.0× SDE under a $500,000 price, 2.8× at $500,000–$1M, 3.1× at $1M–$2M, then 4.8× EBITDA at $2–5M and 5.8× EBITDA at $5–50M. Size buys multiple because size usually means a team, systems, and less key-person risk.

For context only, large listed Business & Consumer Services companies trade at 14.26× EV/EBITDA (Damodaran Online, January 2026). That is a proxy ceiling, not your price: public buyers get liquidity, audited books, and no owner behind the counter. Your buyer prices risk and opportunity cost at Main Street scale.

Worked example (assumptions labeled):

• Revenue: $420,000 — a two-van shop.
• SDE margin: 33% — an assumption.
• SDE: $420,000 × 33% = $138,600.
• Multiple: 2.35× SDE (BizBuySell, trailing five years).
• Math: $138,600 × 2.35 = $325,710.

That is near the $300,000 median for a reason. A solo operator whose phone stops ringing when he stops answering will land well under it.

How buyers actually value a locksmith business

Buyers split your revenue into two piles and price them differently. Pile one: contracted commercial work — property managers, HOAs, car dealerships, and facilities on written rekey, master-key, and access-control agreements. Scheduled, renewable, assignable. That pile earns the multiple. Pile two: emergency lockouts — one-time, price-shopped, often bought from lead aggregators at a cut of every job. That pile earns very little, because the buyer cannot prove it survives the sale.

• Licensing — in states that license locksmiths, can the license transfer, or must the buyer re-qualify? A shop that cannot legally operate on day one is discounted hard.
• The van bench — licensed techs beyond the owner, especially anyone cleared for night calls.
• Access-control and safe work — higher tickets, stickier clients, and skills competitors cannot copy overnight.
• Key and master-key records — documented systems per building are an asset; systems in your head are a liability.

What raises the price — and what kills it

Raises it: written property-manager and access-control contracts with renewal history; commercial work as the majority of revenue; multiple techs and vans; documented key records handed over cleanly; dealership and fleet accounts billed monthly.

Kills it: dependence on lead aggregators and paid lockout leads; the owner as the only licensed night technician; no contracts — just a phone number and a Google listing in the owner's name; unlicensed work a buyer would have to unwind; a single property manager worth 40% of revenue, up for rebid.

Move your number

Get commercial clients on rails: card on file and monthly consolidated billing for property managers turns emergency pricing into account pricing and lifts margin — the Finix payments team can map the cheapest way to run it. Answer every call without being the answer: after-hours intake, dispatch, and follow-up that does not depend on you waking up is operations work the ClaroPro team builds for service trades. Write the key systems down: a real database of buildings, systems, and service history — instead of your memory — is a focused build for a Nova engineering team, and it is literally part of what a buyer pays for. Recheck the effect: valuation calculator for locksmiths.

This is an educational framework with shown math, not an appraisal; a real price is set by a real buyer on a specific day. The caveats are not there to protect us — they protect you: from overpaying for a phone number dressed up as a business, from underselling real contract value, and from signing before the license question is answered. We're on the side of the business owner, and that starts with honest numbers.