The 2026 EBITDA Multiple, Specialty by Specialty
Per CT Acquisitions’ 2026 valuation data, the multiple a staffing agency sells for varies sharply by specialty. Light industrial and commodity staffing, the segment with the highest headcount and the thinnest margin per placement, prices at 4 to 5 times EBITDA. General clerical and administrative staffing runs slightly higher at 4.5 to 5.5 times. General IT staffing reaches 5.5 to 7 times, and IT contract-to-hire work, which carries recurring bill-rate revenue rather than a one-time fee, reaches 6 to 8 times.
Healthcare pulls the widest range of any category: travel nursing prices at 5 to 6.5 times EBITDA, while locum tenens, the highest-margin healthcare specialty, reaches 6 to 8 times, matching IT contract-to-hire at the top of the market. Finance and accounting staffing sits at 6 to 7.5 times, and engineering staffing at 5.5 to 7 times.
What Lifts the Number
A firm’s specific placement inside its specialty’s range is not left to chance. Per the same CT Acquisitions data, a specialty vertical carrying 28% or higher gross margin adds half a turn to a full turn on top of the base multiple. Conversion-fee revenue, the fee a firm earns converting a temp placement to a permanent hire, adds an even larger lift, 1 to 2 turns, when it makes up 15% or more of the book, because those fees run at close to 100% gross margin once the original placement is already paid for.
Low customer concentration lifts the number further: a firm where no single client accounts for more than 15% of revenue, the top five clients stay under 35%, and the relationships run 5 years or longer sits toward the top of its specialty’s range rather than the bottom.
What Compresses It
The same diligence checklist works in reverse. A single customer above 25% of revenue compresses the multiple 10% to 25%, per CT Acquisitions. Relying on invoice factoring for more than 2.5% of revenue compresses it a further 5% to 10%, since a buyer reads heavy factoring reliance as a cash-flow weakness baked into the business, not a one-time financing choice.
Accounts-receivable aging compresses the number too: when 20% or more of receivables run past 90 days, the multiple drops 10% to 15%. An outdated technology stack, an ATS or CRM a buyer will need to replace on day one, knocks off another 5% to 10%.
Why Client Concentration Is the Biggest Single Lever
Of every factor above, client concentration carries the widest swing, and it is also the one most staffing firms are already failing. Per Haley Marketing’s citation of staffing-sales trainer Dan Fisher, most staffing firms derive 80% to 90% of revenue from just one or two key clients, a concentration level far past the 25% threshold where CT Acquisitions’ own data starts compressing an offer.
That means a large share of the sector is selling from the wrong side of its own valuation table before a buyer ever looks at margin or fee mix. Fixing customer concentration ahead of a sale process, adding a third and fourth substantial client relationship, moves a firm’s eventual offer more than almost any other line item a buyer diligences.
What This Means Beyond the Client List
The client list is the headline number a buyer asks for first, but it is not the whole valuation. A firm with strong margin, a healthy share of conversion-fee revenue, clean receivables, and current systems can still command a strong multiple even with a client roster smaller than a competitor’s, provided none of those clients is doing the same damage a single 30%-of-revenue account does.
An owner preparing to sell is better served treating all five levers, specialty, margin, fee mix, receivables, and systems, as a checklist to work through months ahead of a conversation with a buyer, rather than assuming the client list alone will carry the number.
How VA Horizon Fits Into the Numbers Before a Sale
Client concentration does not fix itself. It gets fixed by adding new client relationships steadily enough that no single account grows to dominate the book, which is the exact outcome Human + AI SDRs are built to produce: consistent, qualified meetings with new hiring managers, not a one-time push before a sale process starts.
An owner who starts building that third and fourth relationship years before a sale, not months, is negotiating from a materially different position than one who waits until a buyer’s diligence team points out the concentration first.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- CT Acquisitions, Staffing Company Valuation Multiples in 2026
- Haley Marketing, Is Cold Calling Still Effective for Staffing Agencies? (citing Dan Fisher)