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Subscription software from Cremorne to Clayton, and managed IT with long contracts, valued on the cash the customer base will actually produce.
For a Melbourne SaaS company the discounted cash flow usually leads, because subscription revenue can be forecast from cohort data and growth is rarely steady enough for a single capitalised year. Retention, churn and net revenue retention set the risk loading in the discount rate, and private transaction multiples are used only to test the answer.
Founders in Cremorne, Richmond and the Monash precinct come to us ahead of a capital raise or a secondary sale, for an employee share scheme valuation under Division 83A, when co-founders part ways, for a property settlement in the Melbourne registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court, and for the market value the ATO expects behind a restructure or an early stage innovation company self-assessment.
The other prompt is an unsolicited approach. Strategic acquirers and private capital both shop in the Melbourne market, and a founder often receives an indicative number expressed as a revenue multiple with none of the working shown. A certified valuation gives you something to test that number against before you respond to it.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. Subscription revenue can be projected from the behaviour of existing cohorts, and the growth path is usually still moving, which is the situation a discounted cash flow handles far better than one capitalised year of earnings.
The forecast is built from the customer base: how many new accounts are won, how much revenue the existing base keeps and expands, and how much churns out. Each year's cash flow is discounted to present value and a terminal value is added. Growing last year's number by a flat percentage is easier, but it is also the first thing an opposing expert pulls apart.
Where growth has settled and the business is mature, capitalising future maintainable earnings is the simpler and better fit. A managed services provider in Clayton with three-year contracts across Monash precinct clients usually belongs here rather than in a cohort model.
The discount rate is assembled rather than picked: a risk-free rate taken from long-dated Australian Government bond yields (Source: RBA, Statistical Tables F2 Capital Market Yields), then an equity risk premium, a size premium, an industry premium, and a company-specific loading for customer concentration, churn, dependence on the founder or a lead engineer, and how reliable the revenue data itself is.
Private transactions in software and IT businesses of comparable size, growth and retention, expressed as a multiple of annual recurring revenue or of earnings. Multiples from listed companies serve as a ceiling and a sanity check only: a listed business is bigger, liquid and diversified, and those differences outweigh the shared model.
Seldom more than a floor. Development costs capitalised on the balance sheet are an accounting outcome rather than a measure of what the product is worth, and the valuation does not read them as one.
Normalisation is where valuations most often diverge, so each adjustment is written up in the report with its reason rather than left in an appendix. For software and IT services the recurring ones are:
Melbourne's technology businesses cluster in two places. Cremorne and Richmond, along the Yarra, have become the city's technology precinct, home to product companies, agencies and the engineers who move between them. Clayton, around Monash University and the Monash technology precinct, holds the research-led and hardware-adjacent businesses along with the managed IT providers that serve the south-east. Where a business sits shapes its salary benchmarks, the pool of acquirers who already know it, and the realistic cost of replacing a founder who still writes code.
That last point is the one that moves numbers. Founder remuneration is normalised to what it would cost to hire an equivalent engineering or commercial lead in Melbourne, and in a small team that single adjustment can move maintainable earnings more than any argument about the multiple. Federal settings are the same everywhere: the R&D tax incentive is stripped out as a one-off, and an early stage innovation company self-assessment is a tax position rather than a valuation conclusion, though it often needs one behind it.
The national count of professional, scientific and technical services businesses, the ABS division that includes computer system design and related services, grew 3.6 per cent in 2025 to 2026, and Victoria added a net 19,581 actively trading businesses over the same year (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). More firms means a deeper comparable set for the market cross-check and more competition for the same engineers, which is why the salary benchmark used in normalisation is checked against current Melbourne hiring rather than last year's payroll.
Every report sets out why it was commissioned, the standard of value, the valuation date, what information was relied on and where that information runs out. It then covers each approach considered, the method chosen within it, each normalisation adjustment with its reason, and closes by reconciling the results into a range with the weighting explained in sentences rather than a formula.
That reconciliation is what an opposing expert reads first. If the report cannot explain why the cohort forecast was preferred to a revenue multiple, or why the company-specific premium sits where it does, the opinion will not hold in the Commercial Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria or in front of an investor's own adviser. Reports are prepared consistently with APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and signed by a credentialed certified valuer who will explain and defend the opinion.
Which input in this model would a second expert challenge first, and how would you answer? A valuer without an answer has not finished.
An Indicative valuation is the quick way to test an inbound offer or to set an internal price before a secondary sale. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits a capital raise, an employee share scheme valuation or a co-founder buyout. A Detailed report is needed for family law, a shareholder dispute in the Supreme Court of Victoria, or a tax position the ATO may look at.
Purpose sets the depth. The more likely it is that another expert, a court, a lender or the ATO will read the opinion, the more of the working it needs to show.
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.