Manufacturing is not one market
Before comparing anything, it is worth noticing that the sector does not behave as a single category. The publisher with the most granular data reports separately by sub sector, and the spread between them at the same size is wide enough to matter.
First Page Sage, in a 2025 report drawing on data from the third quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of 2025, reports EBITDA multiples across manufacturing sub sectors ranging from 6.8x at the low end to 11.1x at the high end. Within a single size band, food and beverage sits above marine and maritime by more than a turn, and aerospace above consumer products.
So a figure described as the manufacturing multiple is already an average across businesses that the same publisher treats as different markets.
The first disagreement: which measure applies
CT Acquisitions, updated 4 May 2026, states that owner operated machine shops below roughly $1,500,000 of EBITDA shift from EBITDA multiples to owner earnings multiples entirely, and reports a typical range of 2.5x to 4x owner earnings for them.
First Page Sage reports no owner earnings figures at all. Its tables are EBITDA and revenue.
That is a disagreement about the shape of the market rather than about a number. One publisher says the smallest manufacturers are priced on a different measure by a different buyer. The other simply does not describe that segment.
For an owner running a shop where they are also the estimator, the quoting authority, and often on the floor, that distinction decides which published figure is even relevant to them.
A third source settles which of the two is describing that segment. BizBuySell transaction data covering 2021 through 2025 reports that the middle half of manufacturing businesses recorded as sold fell between 2.04x and 3.59x owner earnings. That band overlaps most of CT Acquisitions' 2.5x to 4x, on the same measure.
So the small end of this sector does trade on owner earnings, and two independent sources now describe it at a broadly consistent level. The publisher that reports no owner earnings figures is not contradicting that. It is not covering it.
The second disagreement: where they do describe the same business, the bands do not meet
Set the measure question aside and look only at EBITDA, where both publishers report.
CT Acquisitions reports 4x to 6x EBITDA for manufacturers below $2,000,000 of EBITDA. First Page Sage's lowest size band covers $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 of EBITDA, and across sub sectors within it the figures run from about 6.8x upward.
Those two describe overlapping populations. A manufacturer with $1,500,000 of EBITDA sits inside both. And the ranges do not overlap at all. The top of one is below the bottom of the other.
This is not a case of two publishers landing in slightly different places. For the same business, one would produce a valuation roughly half again as large as the other, before any negotiation begins.
Part of it is time, and that is worth saying
One difference between the sources is age. First Page Sage's figures rest on data running to the first quarter of 2025. CT Acquisitions updated in May 2026, more than a year later.
That gap could account for some of the distance, and an honest reading has to allow for it. It does not resolve the disagreement, because nothing in either publication tells you how much of the gap is timing and how much is method, sample, or the population each is describing.
It does mean an owner comparing the two is not only comparing two views of a market. They are comparing two views of two different moments in it.
We published this one wrong ourselves
This vertical is where our own estimator failed, and the failure is instructive enough to be worth setting out.
An audit of every row in our multiples table found that manufacturing was publishing a band labelled as EBITDA that did not appear in either cited publisher's EBITDA data. The figure sat instead inside First Page Sage's separate revenue multiple table, and it also matched CT Acquisitions' owner earnings range for small machine shops almost exactly.
Whichever of those was the true origin, the label was wrong. A revenue multiple and an owner earnings multiple are both much smaller numbers than an EBITDA multiple for the same business, so the figure would have understated or overstated depending entirely on which earnings number a user entered against it.
We report this because it is the strongest available illustration of the point. A publisher's page carrying three tables in three measures is very easy to read from incorrectly, and the mistake produces a number that looks perfectly reasonable. The estimator now shows each figure with its measure attached and reports this vertical as carrying conflicting evidence.
Why we do not reconcile them
Averaging an EBITDA band against an owner earnings band would be meaningless, because they are multiples of different quantities. Averaging the two EBITDA bands would produce a figure neither publisher reported, drawn from data a year apart, describing populations defined differently.
Converting between measures is worse. It would require assuming owner compensation, a market rate for replacing the owner's role, and how much of reported earnings is genuinely transferable. None of that is published, all of it varies by shop, and inventing it would manufacture a figure and present it as sourced.
So the estimator leads with the one figure drawn from completed sales, which is stated on owner earnings, and shows every figure beneath it with the publisher named, the measure stated, the scope given and the date attached. On this vertical in particular, the measure label is the most important thing on the page.
What a buyer examines
Diligence concentrates on whether the operation runs on documented process or on an experienced individual, and on whether the reported margins survive inspection.
- Customer concentration, and what commitment sits behind the largest accounts
- Job costing and realised margin by product rather than in aggregate
- Quoting methodology, and whether it is documented or held by one person
- Process documentation, routings, and bills of material against operator knowledge
- Equipment condition, maintenance history, and remaining useful life
- Quality certifications, audit results, and non conformance history
- Sole source components and supplier lead time exposure
- Inventory ageing and work in progress valuation
What to prepare
Two things carry disproportionate weight here, and both are record problems rather than operational ones.
The first is margin by product. Aggregate margin tells a buyer very little, because it hides which work is profitable and which is carried. If job costing does not reconcile to the financials, the buyer assumes the less favourable reading.
The second is quoting. In many shops the owner prices work from experience, and nothing written explains how. A buyer paying for future earnings needs to believe those earnings can be produced by someone else, and quoting is usually where that belief is won or lost.
Verelume reads contracts, financials, and operating records and reports what the record supports, where documents conflict, and where a claim has no documentation behind it. In a sector where the published benchmarks disagree this sharply, what your own record establishes is the part of the argument you control.