How To Value a Website in 5 Popular Methods

Ask five website buyers what they think your website is worth, and you’re likely to get five different answers. Each buyer would likely have a different valuation number and potentially a different method for how they value a website.

There are so many factors involved in determining what a website is worth that it’s easy to understand why valuations will fluctuate from buyer to buyer.

So what is your site really worth? “What anyone is willing to pay for it!” That’s the real answer. However, that’s not an answer you can put in your bank account.

Want to get a valuation for your website based on genuine, historical sales data and analytics from Flippa, the #1 site to buy or sell an online business? Just use this Valuation Bot. It’s like talking to a wizard.

OR,  learn how to value a website yourself.  If you’re going that route, here are five valuation methods to use:

1. Comparable Sales

In the real estate market, Comparable Sales are called COMPS. A comparable is found by searching for related sites in your niche that are as close to your site’s age, traffic and revenue as possible. The closer the numbers are for a comparable site, the higher relevance the site has in the valuation.

To create a comparable valuation on a website generating $3,000 in monthly income from a combo of Adsense and Amazon Associates, and 20,000 unique monthly visitors, the first step is to search Flippa’s won listings for sites that closely match this criteria.

The following are five sites in the results that can be used for the comparison.

A Formula for comparable valuation:

Step 1: Add “won price” for all sites sold in the comparable listing:

• $138,000+$61,000+$23,001+$26,000+$26,000 = $274,001

Step 2: Find the average price of comparable sites:

• $274,001 divided by # of Sites (5) = $54,800

The comparable valuation would be $54,800 for the site.

In this particular case, I’d recommend dropping the highest priced site that was sold to get a better valuation as that top price was clearly a bit out of scope for the norm. If you drop the $138,000 site, the comparable valuation is $34,000.

2. Revenue Multiple

The revenue multiple valuation method is to divide the monthly or yearly profit by the sales price. Although buyers use this method frequently, it’s not an exact science.

For example, the valuations should be different for two sites with $3,000 per month in net profit from the same revenue source (AdSense and Amazon Associates for example) if one site has three months of history versus another site with three years of history generating the same income.

A site with just three months history might get 0.5x annual profit as the valuation where as a site with three years may get 2x annual profit.

Using the same five websites above from recent Flippa auction sales these are the multiples the sites sold for:

The multiple valuation method results vary from 1.15x to 2.35x for these sites. Age isn’t the only factor in determining the multiple however.

The buyer could have additional sites in that niche or know ways to increase revenue for the site that the current owner isn’t using, which is why they will pay a higher multiple.

It’s easy to see with this example that using just the multiple can be deceiving when trying to find out how to value a website.

Formula for Multiple Valuation Method:

Annual Revenue divided by Sale Price = x

X is the number of years it would take to earn back the purchase price of the site with the current monetization methods.

3. Traffic Value

Another approach to determining the value of a site, specifically sites that have yet to be monetized but have traffic, is the Traffic Value Valuation Method.

This method is determined by researching the top key phrase or phrases that drive the majority of traffic to a website. Then find the Cost-Per-Click value of the keywords.

For example, a site that once sold on Flippa, Bankruptcy-Chapter-7.org, has two key phrases driving over 90% of its traffic, the two key phrases are; “Chapter 7” and “Bankruptcy Chapter 7”.

Once you know these terms go to Google Adword’s keyword tool and enter both terms. The approximate cost per click for each term will be found. For [Chapter 7] it’s $5.95 and for [bankruptcy chapter 7] it’s $11.44.

If the amount of traffic going to Bankruptcy-Chapter-7.org is 900 visitors using Chapter 7 and 500 using bankruptcy chapter 7, then you can multiple the cost per click with the visits.

Formula for Traffic Value Valuation Method

Cost per click x # of Monthly Unique Visitors from That Keyword

$5.95 x 900 = $5,355 + $11.44 x 500 = $5,720

$5,355 + $5,720 = $11,075

The value of traffic to the site is worth $11,075 per month if a site had to pay, for each visitor with a service like Google Adwords. The next step is to multiply $11,075 by an amount around 45%. Taking a percentage of the total traffic value creates a more realistic picture of what the traffic will cost if paid, since not everyone would pay the maximum cost-per-click.

Traffic Value ($11,075) x Percentage .45 = $4,983.75/month.

4. Reverse Engineering Cost

The Reverse Engineering Cost method formula calculates the price to build a site from scratch to match the site being sold.  The formula is:

Cost to Build Site + Cost to Drive the Same Amount of Traffic + Time Factors = Value

The cost to build a site is pretty easy to determine. It’s easy to go to developers and ask them to look at a site and give a fair quote for the cost of creating the same type of site with new content. Obviously, a complex site versus a simple site will require a higher cost to build.

The cost of attracting traffic to a site can be difficult to calculate. However, getting a quote from an SEO company may provide some good valuations.

The first time factor includes the amount of hours for the buyer to get the site built and driving the same amount of traffic, whether its outsourced or created on their own. The second time factor is the opportunity cost. How much money would the site make in the time frame it would take to build a new one?

For example, if the cost to build the site is $1,500, and an SEO company quotes $3,500 to build the same amount of traffic, the site is valued at $5,000. Then add the opportunity cost and hours spent by the buyer. If the buyer needs to spend 10 hours and their time, is worth $50/hour it’s an additional $500. If the time to build the site and traffic is six months and the original site would have generated $300 per month, the opportunity cost is $1,800. ($300 x 6)

The total cost to reverse engineer the site is $5,000 + $500 + $1,800 or $7,300.

5. Customer Value

If a buyer already has a list of customers or prospects, he/she likely knows what that list is worth. There are a few metrics list owners use:

LTV – Life Time Value of a customer

DPE – Dollar per email

To best understand how to calculate the life time value of a customer when taking into consideration other expenses in the business and the acquisition cost of a customer, download the Harvard tool that calculates the LTV.

Once a buyer understand the LTV they are able to determine how much they can spend for a site that will generate x number of customers.

With DPE (dollar per email), a list owner may know, for every email they have in the list that matches the current demographics of their list, they can generate $3 per email. If they can find websites to purchase that have lists with emails that match their demographics, that list is worth $3 per email.

A site with 2,000 emails could be valued at $6,000 for the buyer, without even looking at any other factors. If the site already generates income from other sources, add the value of income with the $6,000 valuation to determine the overall value of the site.

Need some tips on finding good value on Flippa? Try this article by Dom Wells.