Software house valuation multiples in 2026
Owners of technology companies often try to apply multiples known from the SaaS market to their software house. That usually leads to the wrong conclusions – a company selling its team's work has a different economic profile to a product company with recurring ARR.
In IT services, EBITDA is usually the primary reference point. Revenue matters, but only combined with margin, contract recurrence, team structure, and the company’s ability to retain clients without the owner’s personal involvement.
Dealsuite data for the CEE market show that in H2 2025 the average EV/EBITDA multiple for IT Services was around 6.1x, with a typical range of 5.5–6.9x. For Software Development it was 6.9x, in a range of 6.5–7.6x. The average for the whole CEE market was 5.3x. The data cover the CEE mid-market – companies with revenue between €1m and €50m.
6.9x
6.1x
5.4x
5.3x
A software house is not SaaS
The difference is fundamental. In SaaS, part of the value comes from being able to scale revenue without a proportional increase in headcount. In a classic software house, revenue growth usually requires hiring more people. That’s why an investor pays closer attention to EBITDA margin, team utilisation, billing rates, staff retention, and the ability to pass wage increases through to clients.
In Aventis’s global dataset, based on disclosed Mergermarket deals from 2015–2026, the median EV/EBITDA for the whole IT Services sector was 10.4x, and 11.3x for software development. That doesn’t mean a Polish software house with a few million euros of revenue should expect a similar valuation. The sample also includes large international deals, and Aventis itself points to a strong size effect on the multiple.
For a CEE owner, local mid-market data is usually the better first benchmark, while global data show the range of premium achievable with the right scale and business quality.
What most affects the valuation of an IT services company?
Revenue recurrence
Long-term contracts, managed services, system maintenance and repeat orders are worth more than a portfolio of one-off projects. The buyer pays for visibility into future cash flows. A company that has to “win” all its sales again every year carries more risk than one with renewable contracts and a high share of steady clients.
EBITDA margin
Two companies with PLN 30m of revenue can have very different values if one generates PLN 3m of EBITDA and the other PLN 6m. In IT services, value is tightly linked to margin quality: billing rates, consultant utilisation, seniority mix, subcontractor share, and bench costs.
Customer concentration
If one client accounts for 40–50% of revenue, the buyer takes on significant risk. The more diversified the client base and the longer the working relationships, the easier it is to justify a higher multiple. Concentration can be partly offset by contract quality or strategic importance of the relationship, but it usually remains a key focus of due diligence.
Owner dependence
In a founder-led software house, value can be capped when the owner is simultaneously responsible for sales, key client relationships, hiring, and critical technology decisions. A buyer should be able to take over the organisation, not just a name and a list of employees.
Service delivery model
Not all IT services are valued the same. Aventis’s analysis found the highest median EV/EBITDA in disclosed deals for data & analytics and cybersecurity services – over 16x.
16.3x
16.1x
12.1x
11.3x
11.0x
10.7x
9.8x
8.1x
7.8x
The gaps show the market pays a premium for specialisation, proprietary capability, data, security, high barriers to entry, and a recurring service model. Plain staff augmentation is usually harder to differentiate from competitors and more exposed to price pressure.
Does private equity pay more?
In Aventis’s analysis, deals involving a financial sponsor achieved a median of 11.5x EV/EBITDA, versus 9.8x for strategic investors. That shouldn’t be read as a rule that a fund always pays more, though. Private equity more often selects larger, profitable, scalable platforms, which itself lifts the quality of the sample. A strategic investor, in turn, may pay a premium if the acquisition delivers specific synergies.
How does AI affect a software house valuation?
AI is both an opportunity and a risk. A model based purely on selling hours can come under pressure if AI tools boost team productivity and cut the hours needed per project. On the other hand, companies that use AI to raise margins, shorten time-to-delivery, build their own accelerators, or specialise in AI integration can improve their economic profile.
For a buyer, the word “AI” itself isn’t what matters – the question is whether the technology gives the company better margins, more scalable delivery, and a stronger competitive edge.
How to estimate your own company’s value
If a software house generates PLN 5m of normalised EBITDA, applying a 6.1x multiple would give around PLN 30.5m of Enterprise Value. That’s a benchmark, though, not a valuation. A fast-growing company with recurring revenue, good margins and low customer concentration may sit above it. A company dependent on one client, the owner, or an unstable team may sit well below it.
Who the buyer is matters just as much. The same business can be worth a different amount to a fund building an IT platform, a large integrator seeking capability in Poland, or a foreign company looking to gain access to clients and a team.
What global datasets don’t show
In the processes we run, the biggest swings in the valuation of Polish IT companies don’t come from the subsector, but from a few things no global dataset measures: how the team is set up, whether IP and data rights are in order, whether client contracts transfer to the buyer without the other party’s consent, and whether the business can run without the owner’s daily involvement.
These areas get settled in due diligence – after the initial price is set. Fixing them before starting the process usually has a bigger impact on the outcome than the timing of going to market.
Valuation is the start of the process, not the end
A multiple helps define a reasonable value range. The transaction price, though, also depends on competition among buyers, the quality of process preparation, deal structure, the level of cash and debt, and terms around any earn-out or the owner staying on with the company.
A better question than “how many times EBITDA is a software house worth?” is: which investors might see above-average value in this specific software house, and how do you create competition for that asset?
This material is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a company valuation or investment recommendation.
Data from the Dealsuite CEE M&A Monitor (February 2026) and Aventis Advisors analyses based on Mergermarket data. Sources use different samples, geographic scope and methodologies, so multiples should not be compared mechanically or applied directly to a specific company. Data as of 08.08.2026.
