An indicative value range for a dental practice, built the way buyers build it — from adjusted earnings and a multiple, with a fee-income cross-check for NHS-heavy practices.
Profit with a market-rate salary charged for the owner's own dentistry. Leave blank to estimate at 18% of fees.
Illustrative figures using 2026/27 rates and simplified assumptions — not advice, and no substitute for a proper calculation on your real numbers. Ask us for the accurate version — it's free.
The multiple responds to scale, income mix, how dependent the practice is on you personally, and whether the team transfers. Most of those are buildable over two to three years — which is why exit planning starts early. For the mechanics of the maths, read how practices are valued.
Value is earnings multiplied by a multiple, and the multiple rises with scale because bigger practices are less dependent on any one clinician. This tool steps the range at £75,000, £150,000 and £300,000 of adjusted EBITDA, running from roughly 4–5× at the smallest end to 6–7.5× at the largest. Practices with 60% or more of income from NHS work get a quarter of a turn added at both ends, reflecting the contract stability a buyer is paying for. Where NHS work is half or more of income, a second cross-check appears based on a percentage of gross fees, because that is still how NHS-heavy practices get discussed in the market.
If you leave EBITDA blank it is estimated at 18% of fee income. That stand-in is there to get you a first read, not to substitute for the real figure — put your own in as soon as you have it.
On the defaults — £650,000 of fees, EBITDA left blank, half the income NHS — earnings are estimated at £117,000. That sits in the £75,000–£150,000 band, so the multiple range is 4.5–5.75× and no NHS premium applies at 50%. The indicative value is £526,500 to £672,750, with a fee-income cross-check of £650,000 to £877,500. The gap between those two views is not an error — it is exactly the argument a buyer and seller will have, and it is why the adjusted earnings figure is worth getting right before anyone quotes a price.
Adjusted EBITDA is the whole game, and this tool takes yours on trust. A buyer's accountant will charge a market-rate associate cost for the dentistry you do yourself, strip out personal spend, test whether add-backs are genuinely non-recurring, and discount income that leaves with you. They will also look at things no multiple captures: lease length, UDA delivery and clawback history, plan patient attrition, equipment age and the condition of the surgeries. Our benchmarks page shows the ratios that feed the earnings figure in the first place.
One more thing this range does not tell you: what you would actually receive. The number above is the value of the business, not the cheque. Property held separately, debt to be repaid on completion, deferred consideration held back against an earn-out, and the tax on the gain all sit between the two. On a share sale, capital gains tax runs at 18% on the first £1 million of qualifying gains under Business Asset Disposal Relief and 24% above the basic rate band beyond that — so the after-tax figure is the one worth planning around.
These tools use sensible simplifications. A free conversation gets you the real calculation — and usually a couple of things worth fixing.
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