The 5x Firm and the 12x Firm Do the Same Work.

In 2026 the market prices IT services firms on one thing, the same thing that decides your margin every quarter.

Two IT services firms. Same service lines, similar size, comparable talent. One would sell for 5x earnings. The other for 12x. That spread is real this year, and it's widening.

The premium firm isn't better at the work. The gap is almost never capability, it's whether a firm can prove how predictably it makes money. And that's the same thing that decides your margin every quarter, buyer or no buyer.

What the market pays for

Advisors are pricing IT services on one axis in 2026: services mix. Resale-heavy firms land around 3-5x earnings, solutions providers around 6-8x, and cloud and consulting specialists 8-11x, per CT Acquisitions benchmarking. MSPs follow a parallel line based on recurring revenue, with the strongest platforms reaching low-teens multiples.

Different labels, one variable underneath: predictable margin. The market pays up for margin it can count on, and marks down margin it can't.

Scale doesn't fix it

The tell is what doesn't move the number. When H.I.G. Capital took Converge Technology Solutions private in 2025, a firm worth over a billion, it went for about 7.4x, right at the market average. Size didn't buy a premium.

So buyers aren't paying for how big you are, or how good your people are in the room. They're paying for how predictable your margin is. That's an operations question, not a sales one.

The multiple is a mirror

Here's why this matters even if you never plan to sell.

A multiple is just a buyer's estimate of how reliably you turn people into margin. The premium firm can show, any given week, what's deployed, what's idle, what the bench is costing. The other firm reconstructs all of it at quarter-close, from timesheets and spreadsheets, months after the margin was made or lost.

Same work. But one firm can prove how it runs. The other is hoping you don't ask.

The multiple the market would put on you today is the clearest scorecard of operational quality you'll ever get, and it rewards exactly the number that's invisible on a lagging report. You don't need an exit for that to matter. It's this quarter's question wearing a different hat.

Ranges from CT Acquisitions, GF Data, and Service Leadership benchmarking observed 2026 ranges, not fixed rules.

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