How to Value a Sawmill: The Only Public Comp Table in the Industry
The Problem: Nobody Has Comps
Ask ten sawmill owners what their operation is worth and you will get ten guesses. Ask ten business brokers and you will get ten engagements. The reason is simple: until now, there has been no public comp set for sawmill and lumber yard sales. The generic marketplaces carry a handful of listings at a time, and the trades that do close happen quietly, broker to buyer, with the numbers never surfacing.
We built this table by tracking every sawmill and lumber yard listing we can find, public and auction, and recording the numbers that matter: asking price, revenue, and cash flow. It is not a substitute for a full valuation. It is the starting point every owner deserves before the biggest transaction of their life.
The Comp Table (September 2026)
These are live and recent whole-business listings from the national marketplaces, auction houses, and our own origination. Medians across the set: roughly 1.78x revenue and 4.18x cash flow, asking basis. (Equity-stake listings are tracked as inventory but excluded from the math, and we say so on every table.)
The spread matters more than the median. A Brooklyn millwork shop with $778K cash flow asks 2.3x cash flow. A Minnesota sawmill asks over 15x, because most of its value sits in equipment and timber assets, not cash flow. The difference is asset intensity, customer concentration, and how replaceable the owner is. Multiples are the beginning of the conversation, not the end of it.
The Three-Number Method
Before you talk to anyone, run three numbers. First, adjusted owner benefit: your true annual cash flow plus salary, personal expenses run through the business, depreciation, and interest. Second, the multiple band: 2x to 5x owner benefit for a mill with the owner doing the selling; higher for absentee-run operations with management in place, lower for single-customer businesses. Third, the asset floor: what would the equipment, inventory, land, and buildings fetch at auction? Your business is worth at least its asset floor, and usually a premium on top if the customer base transfers.
If the number that comes out surprises you in either direction, that is exactly why you run it before a buyer does.
What Moves a Mill's Value Most
Owner dependence is the number one value killer in this industry. A mill where all relationships, pricing judgment, and tribal knowledge live in one head sells at a discount or not at all. Documented processes, a second person who can price lumber, and customer contracts that transfer, those are worth real percentage points.
The second lever is equipment age against maintenance records. The third is timber supply security: long-term logging relationships and contracts read as future revenue to a buyer. The fourth is cleanliness of the books. Every one of these is fixable in the two to three years before a sale, which is why the owners who start watching their number early get the best exits.
Frequently Asked
What multiple do sawmills sell for?
Across our tracked whole-business comp set as of September 2026, asking prices run a median of roughly 1.78x revenue and 4.18x cash flow, with cash-flow multiples spanning about 1.9x to 25x (asset-heavy mills sit at the high end because value sits in equipment and timber, not cash flow). Well-run operations with management in place and diversified customers sit at the top of the band; owner-dependent single-customer mills sit at the bottom.
How do I value a sawmill without a broker?
Run the three-number method: adjusted owner benefit, a 2-5x multiple band depending on owner dependence, and the asset floor from an equipment auction estimate. Cross-check against the public comp table before engaging anyone.
Do sawmill sales include the real estate?
Sometimes. Roughly a third of tracked listings include or offer real property separately. Mills with owned land and buildings generally command higher absolute prices but a lower multiple on cash flow, because more of the value sits in assets.