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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
A Cremorne digital studio or a Southbank media shop: valued on the net revenue left once pass-through spend is stripped out, and on how much of it renews each month.
A Melbourne marketing or creative agency is valued by capitalising maintainable earnings, measured on net revenue rather than billings and after the founders are paid market salaries. The rate applied depends on how much revenue sits on retainer, how long clients have stayed, how concentrated the client list is, and whether those clients deal with the agency or with one founder.
Most requests arrive with a change of ownership in sight. The founder of a Collingwood branding studio wants to sell a stake to two senior staff. A Richmond performance agency has a term sheet from a national holding group. Two Fitzroy studios with complementary skills are looking at a merger and need a fair split. A property settlement in the Melbourne registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court needs the agency valued at a set date. Or a move into a new company structure needs a market value the ATO will accept.
Offers from consolidators deserve particular care. They often pay only part of the price at completion and the rest as an earn-out tied to later results, so the founder keeps carrying much of the risk after the sale. Knowing what the agency is worth on its own numbers is what lets you judge whether that structure is really a sale or a deferred employment contract.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. An acquirer is buying client relationships that produce fees month after month, so the valuation capitalises what those relationships will sustainably earn after a team on market pay has been covered.
Capitalisation of future maintainable earnings is the standard method. Results are normalised for founder pay and any personal spending run through the business, then a capitalisation rate is built whose agency-specific loadings centre on three things: client concentration, the mix of retainer and project fees, and reliance on the founders.
A discounted cash flow fits an agency in the middle of a shift: integrating an acquired studio, moving clients from campaigns onto retainers, or facing the known end of a major contract inside the forecast. When losing one account would change the agency's direction, a year-by-year forecast shows it plainly, where one capitalised year hides it.
Transactions involving agencies of similar size and discipline show whether the income result is in a sensible place. Multiples expressed against billings or gross income need care, because billings include media and production costs the agency passes straight to suppliers. Net revenue is the only base that compares like with like.
Little more than a floor. Debtors, unbilled work and equipment are restated, and an agency with a genuine retainer book will be worth far more than that total.
Normalisation is where two valuers most often part ways, so every adjustment and its reason is set out in the body of the report. For agencies the recurring ones are:
Melbourne's agency sector is concentrated in the inner city. Cremorne and Richmond hold many of the digital, performance and technology-led agencies, often alongside the software businesses they work for. Collingwood, Fitzroy and Brunswick carry design, branding and content studios, many of them founder-led and small. South Melbourne, Southbank and the CBD host the larger integrated and media agencies that work for national brands, government and the institutions based in the city.
Two features of this market show up in almost every Melbourne agency valuation. The talent pool is deep, which supports growth but means a senior account lead can move to a competitor a few streets away and take relationships along; restrictive covenants and staff tenure are reviewed for that reason. And client lists are often short: a studio with three substantial retainers can look very profitable, yet it carries a heavier risk loading than an agency earning the same profit from twenty smaller clients.
Demand for what agencies sell keeps widening. The national count of information media and telecommunications businesses rose 4.0 per cent in 2025 to 2026 and professional, scientific and technical services rose 3.6 per cent, while Victoria gained a net 19,581 actively trading businesses (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). New businesses need brands, websites and campaigns, which keeps the pool of potential clients, and of potential acquirers, growing.
The report sets out the purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the records relied on, with any limits on them stated openly. It then lists every approach considered, the method chosen under each and each normalisation adjustment with its reason, and draws the results into a range with the weighting explained in prose.
Agencies most often reach a courtroom when founders fall out. A shareholder dispute in the Supreme Court of Victoria, or a property settlement in the Federal Circuit and Family Court at Melbourne or Dandenong, puts the valuation in front of an opposing expert, and the questions will be why net revenue, the rate and the comparable range were treated as they were. We prepare reports under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services, and the certified valuer who signs one is ready to explain every step of it.
Ask the valuer which judgement in their draft is most open to challenge and how they would defend it. If the answer is vague, so is the report.
An Indicative valuation gives a founder a grounded figure to set against a consolidator's term sheet or to price a stake for senior staff. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report suits a sale, a merger between agencies or an employee equity plan. A Detailed report belongs in a family law matter, a dispute between shareholders, or anywhere an opposing expert will pull the work apart.
Start with who will read the figure. A court, the ATO, a lender or another expert each expects to see more of the reasoning, and the report should be built for that reader.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.