A Christmas light business for sale is priced on its customer book, and the two holiday lighting books listed on BusinessesForSale.com in September 2026 ask 1.15 and 1.63 times one season's cash flow. Brokers who buy the category quote 3 to 5 times EBITDA for a business with signed, renewing accounts. Below: every listing I could verify, the multiples, and our 40-job business plan valued three ways.
I run a permanent lighting company in Ottawa and built GlowBid. I have not sold a lighting business; what follows is the public record of what sellers ask, what brokers say they pay, and arithmetic you can check. LightQuoter's August 2026 guide says the renewal book is the asset and stops there, with no listing and no multiple. This page has both.
What are Christmas light businesses listed for today?#
Every listing below was open on its page on September 8, 2026, except the Nassau County one, which is kept up as sold. Asking prices, not sale prices. The multiple is the ask divided by the cash flow the seller reports.
Residential, commercial and municipal; figures from the listing summary in search results, the page blocked our fetch
Read the Las Vegas line twice. $225,000 of the $319,000 ask is fixtures and inventory, so the customer book itself is priced at $94,000, under half a season's cash flow, even with commercial accounts. The Wake County book is two seasons old and asks 1.15 times. The San Francisco company asks nearly five times, and the difference is written in its own listing: 14 years, 86 percent repeat, million-dollar profit, a lender already on board. The customer list is not worth a multiple until it has proven it comes back.
Interactive
The six runs you draw
Hover or tab through the legend. Each run has its own rate because each one costs a different amount of ladder time per foot.
Pick a run to see what it is and how installers usually price it.
How do brokers value a holiday lighting business?#
On normalised earnings times a multiple, with the multiple set by how much of the revenue is signed. Two brokers publish their ranges for this category.
Trailing twelve months that hide eight cost-only months; typical deals $500,000 to $3 million
Sundance Financial, March 2026, reporting BizBuySell's 2025 closed deals
2.5x SDE average across 9,500 sales; landscaping 2.56x, cleaning 2.30x, HVAC 2.80x
Any small business; lighting is not broken out
BizBuySell's own report page blocked our fetch, so this is a secondary write-up
Two definitions matter. SDE, seller's discretionary earnings, is net profit with the owner's pay added back, because the buyer will decide what to pay themselves. EBITDA leaves a market wage for the owner in the costs. For a one-crew business the two are a few thousand dollars apart, which is why the small-business multiples (2.5x SDE) and the broker multiples (3x to 5x EBITDA) are closer than they look. The normalisation point both brokers make is the one that catches lighting businesses: January to August carry insurance, storage and software with no revenue, and a buyer who annualises a strong Q4 gets a number nobody will finance.
Three, and they are worth very different amounts. The LightQuoter page names the renewal book and the equipment and says the business name is worth less than sellers think; the one it leaves out is signed agreements. Here is what each is in the listings above.
The renewal book. Customers who came back last season and the season before, with the record to prove it. This is the whole of the Wake County ask and most of the Nassau ask, and it is what the 86 percent figure in San Francisco is doing at the top of that listing. A list of one-season customers is a marketing list, and a buyer prices it like one.
Signed agreements. Contracts the buyer can step into. The Nassau listing says "230 accounts with contracts"; our multi-year lease template is what that looks like for a leased display: a term of 1, 3 or 5 seasons, a price schedule per season, and an ownership clause that says the installer owns the lights until the term ends. DealFlow OS calls leased inventory "a key competitive moat and recurring revenue asset", and the reason is simple: a customer two seasons into a three-season lease owes the third season, and the lights on their house are yours.
Equipment and inventory. Ladders, standoffs, fall protection, testers, the truck, and the strands in bins. Priced at used-market value, separate from the goodwill, which is how the Wake County ($15,000) and Las Vegas ($225,000) listings show it. Our equipment list prices a one-crew kit at $2,750.79 new including the first 1,000 ft of C9; a buyer pays less than that for it used, and it should never be dressed up as goodwill.
A worked example: our 40-job business plan, valued three ways#
The business plan template runs one crew through 40 seasonal jobs at $2,134.20 each on GlowBid's default seasonal rate card: $85,368 of revenue and $48,369 net before income tax, with both crew members paid $22 an hour, the owner included. The owner's 300 hours come to $6,600 plus 12 percent payroll costs, $7,392 in all, so SDE is $55,761. The same 40 customers are then valued as three different books.
Book
Earnings basis
Multiple and where it comes from
Value
A. One season done, 40 customers, nothing signed
SDE $55,761
1.15x to 1.63x cash flow, the two live book listings
$64,125 to $90,890
B. Two seasons done, all 40 rebooked, nothing signed
Year-two SDE $68,414 (40 jobs at $1,586.77 profit, less $2,449 fixed, plus the owner add-back)
2.5x SDE, BizBuySell's 2025 average per Sundance
$171,035
C. 40 customers on 3-season flat leases at $1,865.20, two seasons left
Lease-season EBITDA $50,322 (40 at $1,319.27 profit after $50 storage, less $2,449 fixed; owner paid in costs)
3x to 4x EBITDA, the bottom of CT's range and the middle of DealFlow's
$150,966 to $201,288
Book C also carries $149,216 of signed revenue for the two seasons remaining, which is the line a buyer's lender reads. The year-two profit in book B is from our per-job P&L, where the cord and bulbs are already paid for; the lease-season costs are the same house with $50 a season of storage from our asset record page. Books B and C are close in dollars and far apart in risk: B is a promise that 40 people call back, C is 40 signatures. The multiple in row C is the buyer's choice inside the brokers' ranges; I used the low half because one crew and residential-only sit on both brokers' watch-out lists. Price your own house in the free roofline tool and drop it into row A to see what one season of your book is worth at the listing multiples.
What does a buyer check before paying for the book?#
The list below is what the two broker pages and the four listings between them ask for. Have it ready in January, not in the week the buyer asks.
Rebook rate by season. Customers who came back, as a percent, for each of the last three seasons. CT Acquisitions calls it the primary factor; DealFlow OS sets the top of the range at 80 percent. GlowBid's pipeline has a Re-book stage for exactly this count.
Signed agreements that assign. Every lease and seasonal service agreement, with an assignment clause so the buyer steps in without re-signing 40 homeowners. Our clause library has the ownership and term wording; the assignment line is one to add with your lawyer.
The asset record. One row per leased display: strands, bin, condition, buyout value. A buyer who can read what is in storage will pay for it; one who is shown a pile will not.
Revenue by account. How much sits with the top three commercial accounts. Both brokers want commercial work in the book and both discount a book that depends on one contract.
Normalised twelve months. The season's profit with the eight quiet months of insurance, storage, software and the truck in it, and the owner's hours priced.
The owner's role. If every quote, every install and every renewal call is you, the buyer is buying a job. The crew app in GlowBid Ultimate exists partly so the production side runs from a board rather than from the owner's head.
Deposits and receivables. Deposits collected for next season are a liability the buyer inherits. Show the ledger.
How is a sale structured, and how long does it take?#
Not all cash, and not quickly. CT Acquisitions describes 60 to 80 percent of the price in cash at close, with the balance as an earnout of 10 to 25 percent, a seller note, or rolled equity. DealFlow OS puts the whole process at 12 to 18 months from engagement to close and says to go to market in the first quarter after a strong season, when the numbers are at their peak. The Nassau seller stayed a season for support; the Wake County seller offers three weeks. Plan on one more takedown after you sign.
Selling the list, not the renewals. A spreadsheet of 200 names from three seasons ago is not a book. Count the ones who rebooked last January and sell that number.
Lights on the customer's house with nobody's name on them. If the homeowner bought the strands, the buyer is paying for a labour customer. Say which is which; the Wake County listing does.
No paper. Leases that live in a text thread cannot be assigned. Put every multi-year customer on a signed schedule; the lease versus buy page shows what three seasons on paper is worth against three seasons of hope.
Inventory dressed as goodwill. A buyer will value the strands at what they cost to replace, which our storage page puts under $300 for a 200-foot C9 display. Show it as inventory and price the book on its own.
Q4 annualised. Twelve times December is not a year. Both brokers say this is the most common reason a lighting business is mispriced, in either direction.
The owner on every ladder. If the business stops when you do, the multiple drops to the equipment. Write the SOPs and let the crew close jobs from a checklist before you list.
Founding-price software as a hidden cost. GlowBid Core is $299 a year at the founding price and the rate card, the agreements and the asset record travel with the account, so a buyer inherits the system, not a shoebox. Note the subscription in the normalised costs and hand over the login on closing day.
FAQ
Questions installers ask
How much is a Christmas light business worth?
Between about 1.2 and 1.6 times one season's cash flow if all you are selling is a customer list, on the two holiday lighting books listed for sale on BusinessesForSale.com in September 2026. Brokers who buy the category quote 2.5 to 5 times normalised EBITDA for a business with signed, renewing accounts. The gap between those two numbers is the renewal book, and a signed multi-year lease portfolio is what moves you from the first to the second.
What do buyers check first in a Christmas light business?
The rebook rate, then whether the customers are on paper. CT Acquisitions names season-over-season rebooking as the primary driver and DealFlow OS puts 80 percent or better re-sign rates at the top of the range. After that: signed agreements that can be assigned to the buyer, an asset record for every leased display, how much revenue sits with the top few commercial accounts, and whether the business runs without the owner on the ladder.
Is a signed multi-year lease worth more than a repeat customer?
Yes, because it is revenue a buyer can read in a contract rather than a hope. A repeat customer might come back; a customer two seasons into a three-season lease owes the next season and the business owns the lights on their house. Forty customers on a flat lease at $1,865.20 a season is $149,216 of signed revenue for the two seasons remaining. DealFlow OS calls leased inventory the category's recurring revenue asset.
How do I calculate SDE for a seasonal lighting business?
Start with net profit before income tax, then add back what the owner paid themselves and any one-time costs. On our 40-job business plan the net is $48,369 with the owner paid $22 an hour as crew, and adding back those 300 hours plus 12 percent payroll costs gives $55,761 of SDE. Brokers also normalise for off-season months with costs and no revenue, which CT Acquisitions says is where most lighting businesses get undervalued.
Should I buy a Christmas light business or start one?
Buy only if the price is for a transferable book and you can see the rebook history and the contracts. LightQuoter's August 2026 guide makes the same point. Starting from nothing costs about $2,449 of fixed costs on our business plan, and the first customers' deposits fund their own lights, so the thing you are paying for in an acquisition is the list, not the ladders. Pay for what is signed and discount what is promised.
How long does it take to sell a Christmas light business?
DealFlow OS puts the window at 12 to 18 months from engagement to close and says the best time to go to market is the first quarter after a strong season. Expect 60 to 80 percent of the price in cash at close on CT Acquisitions' deal structures, with the rest in an earnout of 10 to 25 percent or a seller note, so the headline price is not all cash.