The buyer pool split, and the measures split with it
Veterinary practices sell into two markets that barely resemble each other. One buyer is another veterinarian, usually financed through an SBA loan, buying a practice to work in. The other is a corporate group assembling a platform, buying earnings that must continue after the selling veterinarian leaves.
Those buyers do not price the same asset, so the industry does not use the same measure for them. That is the whole reason the published figures for this sector look irreconcilable.
What each publisher actually says
SovDoc, published 24 June 2025, reports that practices often sell for 8 to 13 times adjusted EBITDA. It bands that by size, giving 8.0x to 9.5x below $1 million of EBITDA, 9.5x to 11.5x between $1 million and $3 million, and 11.0x to 13.0x and above beyond that.
CT Acquisitions, verified 29 June 2026, reports on owner earnings for smaller owner operated practices. It gives 2.5x to 4.5x owner earnings for single doctor practices under $500,000 of owner earnings, and 4.0x to 6.5x for small multi doctor practices between $500,000 and $1 million. Its own EBITDA tiers begin at 6.5x to 9.5x adjusted EBITDA.
Set side by side, one source appears to be quoting roughly three times the other. Neither is wrong.
The numbers are not comparable, and the difference is not a discount
Adjusted EBITDA and owner earnings are different quantities calculated from the same practice. Owner earnings include everything the practice paid the owning veterinarian, because for a buyer who intends to work in the practice, that compensation is the income they are buying.
Adjusted EBITDA removes it and substitutes the cost of employing someone to do that clinical work. For a corporate buyer that is the honest number, because the practice has to keep producing once the seller has gone.
So a practice with, say, meaningful owner compensation has a much larger owner earnings figure than adjusted EBITDA figure. A larger multiple applied to a smaller number is not the same as a bargain, and the two published ranges can both be accurate descriptions of the same market.
The expensive mistake is anchoring. An owner reads 8 to 13 times, applies it to the owner earnings figure their accountant prepared, and arrives at a number no buyer in either market will recognise. This is the most common way a veterinary owner forms an expectation that diligence then destroys.
Which one applies to you is a question about your practice, not your preference
The corporate multiples assume the practice can run without the seller. That is the condition attached to them, and it is tested rather than assumed.
If production depends heavily on the owning veterinarian, the replacement cost deducted before the multiple is applied grows, and the resulting figure shrinks. If associates carry a substantial share of production and the client relationships sit with the practice, the deduction is smaller.
Which means the record has to separate owner production from associate production clearly enough to survive examination. That single distinction moves the number more than any negotiation over the multiple.
What consolidation did to the top of the market
SovDoc offers a useful piece of history on the same page. It notes that the current range compares against 5x to 6x multiples seen just a few years ago.
That is the consolidation effect stated plainly by a source. Corporate buyers competing for practices at scale moved the top of the market substantially. It is also a caution, because a number that moved that far in a few years can move again, and a figure published in 2025 describes the market as it was then.
It does not follow that every practice benefited. The owner earnings ranges for smaller owner operated practices did not move the same way, which is precisely why the two sets of figures have drifted so far apart.
Why we do not reconcile them
Verelume's estimator reports this vertical as carrying conflicting evidence, because the sources disagree on the measure itself. That is a deeper disagreement than a difference in range, and it cannot be resolved by arithmetic.
Converting between them would require assuming a replacement veterinarian's salary, the owner's current compensation, and how much of production is genuinely transferable. None of those are published, and all of them vary by practice. Producing one number from those assumptions would manufacture a figure and present it as sourced.
So the tool shows both, names each publisher, states which buyer each describes, and carries the date. Naming the buyer is the part that makes the numbers usable.
What a corporate buyer examines
Diligence concentrates on whether production survives the seller, and on whether the regulatory record is clean.
- Production by doctor, with the owner separated from associates and from hygiene or technician revenue
- What a replacement veterinarian would cost, and whether the record supports that estimate
- Associate agreements, compensation terms, and non compete or non solicit provisions
- Active client definition, how it is counted, and retention history
- Controlled substance logs and DEA registration records, reconciled
- Licensing and credentialing for every practising veterinarian
- Premises lease term, options, and assignment on a change of ownership
- Equipment age, service history, and finance or lease obligations
What to prepare before either buyer arrives
The most valuable preparation in this sector is unglamorous. It is making the production record answer one question cleanly: how much of this practice depends on the person selling it.
A buyer will not accept an estimate. They will ask for the reporting, and if the production system, the payroll record, and the owner's own account of their hours disagree, the buyer prices the uncertainty rather than the practice.
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. For a practice preparing to sell, that means knowing whether your own records tell one consistent story about who produces what, before the question is asked by someone with a reason to doubt the answer.