Is it worth paying for more than one valuation before I list?

Often, yes, particularly if the business is complex, if you and a co-owner disagree on value, or if a single number seems out of step with your own sense of the business. A second opinion can catch assumptions the first valuator made that don't quite fit your situation — how they normalized your earnings, what comparable transactions they used, or how they treated risks like customer concentration or your own involvement in the business.

The nuance is that getting two valuations isn't about shopping for the highest number; different qualified valuators using sound methodology should land in a broadly similar range, and a wide, unexplained gap between two professional opinions is itself useful information — it usually means the underlying assumptions, not just the math, need a closer look.

For a straightforward, smaller business sale, a single well-supported valuation combined with your broker's market read may be enough. For anything with co-owners, family succession involved, or a genuinely disputed number, the cost of a second opinion is usually small compared to what's riding on getting the price right. A business lawyer can also help interpret how any valuation would hold up if the sale, or the number itself, were ever challenged later.