Fair questions

For a business around $500,000, somewhere between $98,000 and $155,000 in cash on closing day. The spread is the one thing nobody explains. The SBA minimum is ten percent, and it is ten percent of everything the deal costs rather than ten percent of the price, which is already more than the $50,000 you will be quoted. But ten percent is a floor, not the number, and lenders routinely ask for fifteen or twenty on a first purchase with no experience in the industry. On top of whichever it is, you need a cushion for your own household while the first months are slow. Cash at Close works out your version in about two minutes, and it lets you move that percentage to see what your lender wanting more actually costs you.

Not to look, and not to get a loan approved. You do have to quit before you close, because a lender will ask how you intend to run the business, and because most businesses this size still need somebody in the building. The fit check asks how many months you could go without income, which is the question that actually decides your timing.

Sometimes. More often the business is fine and the seller is tired, and the real problem is that the earnings figure never paid anybody to do the owner's job. That is not fraud, it is how these listings are written. It is also the first thing we check.

It is the normal starting point and it is what the fit check is for. A quarter of people buying small businesses have not picked an industry yet. You do not need to arrive with an answer. You need sixteen honest answers about how you like to work, and the result does the rest.

Sometimes it is, and the result will tell you so. There is a question in there about whether you want out of your boss, your work, or your whole industry, and the three answers point in genuinely different directions. Better to find that out in ten minutes than in month eight.

Six to eighteen months to find the right business, then 45 to 90 days to close once you have agreed on one. Most people budget about six weeks for the second part and are surprised. Nobody tells you the first part at all.

The largest group of people buying small businesses in the US right now is Gen X. That makes you the most common kind of buyer, not the exception. The more useful question is how many months you could go without income if the first year is slow, and the fit check asks it directly.

Below about 640 most SBA lenders will not originate, and below 600 none will. That does not end it. It means the deal has to be cash, mostly seller financed, or backed by a partner who qualifies. The fit check asks early and tells you straight rather than letting you find out in month three.

No. There is no course, no coaching program, no mastermind and no upsell. The whole price list is on this page: two free tools, a free sample review, and one paid review at $699.

There is a real answer and it is not that we just want to help. The fit check costs us almost nothing to run, and it is the cheapest way for you to find out whether we are any good at this. A small number of people who take it later pay us to read a real listing. Most never do, and it stays free for them anyway.

No. We take no referral fees, no lead fees, and no commission from anyone but you. If a broker or a lender paid us, we would start wanting you to buy something, and you would have no way of telling. So they do not pay us.

You send us the listing. You get back a PDF and a call if you want one. Two people read it, so it takes as long as two people reading carefully takes, and you get an email the moment it is done. If the listing turns out not to contain enough for a real answer on the numbers, that is itself the finding: you get the review anyway, with what is missing, why it matters, and the exact list to send back to the broker.

Yes, and you should read the result together. The fit check asks who else has to approve the decision, because that kills more deals than financing does. If you give us an email we can send a copy to them as well.

No. Sixteen questions, your result appears on the screen, and you can close the tab. You give us an email only if you want a copy sent to you, or if you want to stop halfway and pick it up later.