Khaled Azar 
Most founders sell their company with very little planning. In spring 2026, the International Business Brokers Association surveyed 255 people who sell companies. Depending on company size, 60% to 90% of their sellers had prepared for under a year, or not at all. Two years gives you time to fix the problems a buyer would spot.
You can hire an exit planner, someone paid to help you get ready to sell. I often see planners send a long report and then stop helping. Every 3 months, a good one leaves you with a better number or a signed document. I’ll show you what to expect at each step, what to ask, and what to pay.
What SaaS exit planning services are actually for
A buyer pays for proof. A plan is only worth what it proves by the day you sell.
Here is the mechanism. When a buyer gets serious, they spend weeks checking your company. That check is called diligence, which is simply the buyer testing every claim you made before they wire money. They pull your billing data, your contracts, your code ownership and your churn by month. Anything they cannot verify, they price as risk. Risk shows up as a lower price, or as part of the price held back until later.
So the job of exit planning is not to describe your business. It is to make the things a buyer checks come out clean, two years before they check. A founder who did that work sells a company with less to argue about. A founder who did not sells the same company at a discount.
That gives you a simple way to judge any plan. I call it the Changed Number Test: every quarter of a real exit plan ends with a number that moved or a document that got signed. A quarter that ends with only a report did not do the work. It described it.
Share of middle market owners who had started preparing for an exit in 2026, from Capstone Partners’ survey of 400 owners, published in September 2026.
Capstone surveyed larger, middle market companies, so its numbers run higher than the broker survey above, which also covers small sales. It also found that owners who had started preparing reported 20% greater revenue growth over the last 12 months than owners who had not. The survey does not show which came first. Owners with growing companies may simply be the ones who plan. Either way, the planners are the sellers you will be compared with.
The 8 quarterly deliverables of a two year exit plan
This is the anatomy of a plan for a bootstrapped SaaS company, quarter by quarter. The middle column is the work. The right column is what you should hold when the quarter ends. If a provider cannot point to that column, the quarter failed the test.
| Quarter | The work | What you hold at the end |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A value estimate with its method shown, and a list of the 5 issues that cost you the most | A price range and the 3 numbers that move it |
| 2 | Monthly books closed the same way every month, with revenue booked when you deliver the service | 12 months of revenue that ties to the bank account |
| 3 | Retention measured the way a buyer measures it, customer group by customer group | A table of each signup month’s revenue, 12 months later |
| 4 | Ownership cleanup: signed code ownership from every employee and contractor, clean ownership records, and a check of the open source code inside your product | A folder of signed documents |
| 5 | Less dependence on you: written processes and a second person who runs sales or support | 2 weeks away from the company with nothing breaking |
| 6 | Revenue quality: more annual contracts, a price review, and no customer over 10% of revenue | A changed contract mix you can show on one page |
| 7 | A data room, which is simply the shared folder buyers read, and a practice run of the buyer’s check | Every finding from the practice run fixed |
| 8 | A sell or wait decision, a buyer list, a tax plan with your accountant, and an advisor chosen | A signed decision and 30 to 50 named buyers |
Quarters 2 and 3 are where most founders I talk to are weakest. Their dashboard says one thing and their bank deposits say another, and no one has rebuilt retention from the raw billing data. A buyer will rebuild it. Our guide to how buyers read cohort retention shows what they look for.
Quarter 4 is the cheapest to fix early and the most expensive to fix late. A missing ownership agreement from a contractor who left 3 years ago is a one page signature today. In the middle of a sale, it becomes a reason to hold back part of your price. The same goes for messy ownership records, which we cover in cleaning up your cap table before a sale.
Quarter 8 ends the day you go to market, and the sale still takes time after that. In the same spring 2026 survey, sales of companies worth $2 million to $5 million took 11.5 months on average from hiring an advisor to closing, up from 9 months the quarter before. So if you want the money in about 3 years, the plan starts now. Do not wait for quarter 8 to meet advisors either. We tell founders to start talking to advisors 18 months out, so you can pick one with time to spare.
A two year plan has 8 checkpoints. Each one should leave you holding a changed number or a signed document, never only a report.
Why many exit planning services stop at a report
The reason is the fee. A provider paid a flat fee for an assessment is paid to produce a document. The document is the part they control. Changing your numbers is your work, it takes months, and it does not fit a flat fee. So the incentive points at a thick report delivered early.
That is not a bad business for them, and a report is not useless. It is just a different product from a plan. Once you see the incentive, the red flags are easy to spot:
- The main deliverable arrives in the first month and nothing is scheduled after it.
- The checklist talks about inventory, real estate or equipment. It was written for a different kind of company.
- The value estimate has no method you can check, or it never changes.
- No task on the plan has a named owner and a due date.
- The provider promises a price before seeing your billing data.
- There is no regular review where someone asks what changed since the last one.
The Exit Planning Institute, the trade group that certifies exit planners, still publishes an older industry estimate on its State of Owner Readiness page: only 20% to 30% of businesses that go to market actually sell. It covers all kinds of businesses, not only software, but the point holds.
What SaaS exit planning services should cost
Certified Exit Planners, a firm that does this work, published its typical fees in April 2026. These are one firm’s published rates, not an industry survey. A 90 day assessment runs $3,500 to $8,000. A full plan with 12 months of help putting it in place runs $10,000 to $30,000. An ongoing monthly arrangement runs $1,500 to $5,000 a month.
Put the monthly range over 2 years and you get $36,000 to $120,000. That sounds like a lot until you measure it against what it can move. Here is an illustration with round numbers, not a real deal.
Say your company has $1.5 million in yearly recurring revenue. Say a buyer would pay 4 times that today, so $6 million. Now say the plan fixes your retention numbers and your contracts, and the buyer pays 4.5 times instead. That is $6.75 million. The plan moved your price by $750,000.
Against that, a $60,000 plan is 8% of what it added. A report on its own costs less, $3,500 to $8,000 in the fees above, but it moves nothing until someone does the work. That is the whole case for the Changed Number Test, in one comparison.
For the cost of the sale itself, which comes later and works differently, see our breakdown of what M&A advisor fees really cost a SaaS seller.
6 questions to ask before you hire one
- What number will be different after each quarter? If they answer with a document, ask again.
- Who does the work: you, me, or someone you bring in? Most of it will be yours. Know how much before you start.
- How do you estimate my value, and how often do you update it? Ask to see the method on a past client with the names removed.
- Do you also sell companies? A planner who later runs your sale has a reason to keep you as a client. That can be fine. You should know it.
- What happens if I stop after 6 months? Look for a monthly arrangement you can end, not a 2 year commitment paid upfront.
- Which SaaS problems have you fixed before? Ask for retention, revenue booking and code ownership by name. A planner who fixes restaurants will not know your buyer.
If you want to run the first quarter yourself before paying anyone, our SaaS exit readiness checklist scores the 10 areas buyers check first.
Where Livmo fits
Livmo sells exit planning for founders too, so read this section with that in mind. Our plan is a two year roadmap with a value estimate we update as goals are met, and a scheduled review every quarter. We also run sales, which is question 4 on the list above. Hold us to the same 6 questions you would ask anyone else.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should an exit plan include?
A real exit plan includes a value estimate with its method shown, clean monthly books, retention measured the way buyers measure it, signed code ownership, less dependence on the founder, better revenue quality, a data room, and a final sell or wait decision. Each of those should end with a changed number or a signed document, not only a report.
What does an exit planning advisor do?
An exit planning advisor finds what a buyer will check, puts the fixes in order, and tracks your value as the fixes land. A good one ends every quarter with a changed number or a signed document. Most also bring in an accountant, a lawyer and, when it is time to sell, an advisor who runs the sale.
How much does professional exit planning cost?
Certified Exit Planners published typical fees in April 2026: $3,500 to $8,000 for a 90 day assessment, $10,000 to $30,000 for a full plan with 12 months of help, and $1,500 to $5,000 a month for ongoing work. Over 2 years, the monthly range adds up to $36,000 to $120,000.
How long does the exit planning process typically take?
Plan on about 2 years to get a SaaS company ready, then about 1 more year to sell it. In a spring 2026 survey by the International Business Brokers Association and M&A Source, sales of companies worth $2 million to $5 million took 11.5 months on average from hiring an advisor to closing.
Can I handle exit planning without professional help?
Yes, for the early quarters. Cleaning up your books, measuring retention and collecting signed code ownership are work you can do with your accountant and lawyer. Outside help pays off when you need a value estimate a buyer will respect and a practice run of the buyer’s check.
Next Steps
Want to know which of the 8 quarters your company would fail today? A value assessment shows your current price range and the 3 numbers that move it most.