Can I set different prices for different types of buyers, like a competitor versus an outsider?

Yes, there's generally nothing preventing you from approaching different types of buyers differently, and it's actually common, since different buyers genuinely see different value in the same business. A competitor might value your customer base or market share differently than a financial buyer would, and someone entering your industry for the first time might weigh owner dependency or transition support more heavily than an experienced operator would.

The nuance is that this is less about setting an arbitrary "different price" for different people and more about recognizing that your business may genuinely be worth different amounts to different buyers, and structuring your approach, and sometimes your negotiating position, accordingly. What you shouldn't do is misrepresent your financials or the business's condition differently to different buyers, since your disclosure obligations around accuracy don't change based on who's asking.

Running a process with multiple types of buyers, where realistic, rather than committing early to a single one, often reveals which buyer genuinely values the business most and why. A business lawyer can help you manage multiple buyer conversations in parallel without creating conflicting commitments to different parties.