Sell My Logistics Business in Florida: What Sets the Multiple
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Now is the Perfect Time to Sell Your Business in Florida:
Asset-Light or Asset-Heavy: How Your Florida Logistics Business Gets Priced
An owner-operated Florida 3PL changes hands at 3 to 4.5 times SDE, and the distance between the bottom of that range and the top has almost nothing to do with how many trucks are parked in the yard. It tracks one thing: how much of your revenue is nailed down under contract. Picture a Miami customs house at dawn — containers rolling off the Port of Miami, trade lanes to Latin America already loaded — and the business riding that flow is worth what its contract book says, not its equipment list.
That gap is the entire subject of this article, and it explains how two logistics companies posting identical revenue can sell for wildly different money. Sailfish Equity Advisors, a Florida sell-side M&A firm, works for owners of 3PLs, freight brokerages, warehousing operators, and trucking companies — pricing each business against what acquirers actually pay, taking it to market without a single shipper or carrier catching on, controlling who ever sees the contract book, and getting the operation diligence-ready before a buyer starts digging. Across twenty-plus years and north of a thousand completed Florida sales, the sector keeps proving one point: the owner who grasps what a buyer is truly purchasing leaves with the bigger check.
What is my Florida logistics or 3PL business worth right now?
"Logistics" stretches from a two-truck dispatch shop to a contract-warehousing platform, so the range is naturally wide. Here is how the sector trades in 2026:
• Owner-operated small 3PL: 3 to 4.5 times SDE.
• Asset-light with multi-year contracts: 5 to 7.5 times EBITDA.
• Asset-heavy (fleet and warehouse on the books): 5 to 6 times EBITDA.
• Platform-scale operators ($5M+ EBITDA): 8 to 11 times EBITDA.
• Freight-brokerage-heavy, asset-light books: low-to-mid-teens EBITDA.
Which metric applies climbs with size. A small owner-run shop gets measured on SDE — seller's discretionary earnings, meaning the dispatch and contract income left after a market salary for the seat you personally fill, plus the personal expenses run through the books added back. Asset-light and platform deals switch to EBITDA, because an institutional acquirer installs its own management and disregards whatever a single owner paid themselves.
Small-business deal flow is soft overall — 2,342 businesses sold in Q2 2026, off 4% from a year earlier, at a median near 2.7 times SDE. Logistics prices above that line with solid contracts and below it on spot-market revenue.
Asset-light versus asset-heavy: two different businesses on the same invoice
Buyers don't see one logistics industry; they see two, priced on different terms.
Asset-light means you move freight without owning much of what moves it — a freight brokerage lining up carriers, a non-asset 3PL orchestrating transportation, a customs or drayage operation living on relationships and lane knowledge rather than steel. High margins, no capital buried in depreciating gear: that is why asset-light operations with genuine contracts fetch 5 to 7.5 times EBITDA and brokerage-heavy books climb into the teens. The catch a buyer prices in: if those relationships belong to you personally, the value can walk out the door with you.
Asset-heavy means the trucks, trailers, forklifts, or the warehouse are yours. That trades a notch lower — 5 to 6 times EBITDA — for a reason owners rarely expect: buyers penalize capital intensity. A fleet is a rolling repair bill and a warehouse is a lease or a mortgage, so an acquirer underwrites replacement cost and the capex you have postponed. The premium goes to a young, well-kept fleet matched to contracted revenue and a warehouse lease with real term and assignable rent — not a balloon payment landing the year after close.
Most Florida logistics businesses blend the two, so know which side of the ledger drives your earnings before market — a buyer's first question is how much is contracts versus equipment.
Contract density: the single number that decides your multiple
This is the lever that outpulls every other. Buyers pay for revenue they can bank on — in logistics, revenue under contract for a set term. Two thresholds carry most of the weight:
• More than 70% of revenue under contracts of 24 months or longer lifts an operation into the 6 to 7 times range — a genuine step up from the owner-operated SDE band.
• Customer concentration below 25% — no single shipper accounting for more than a quarter of revenue — parks you at the top of your range. Cross above 25% and buyers start applying concentration discounts, since losing that one account would hollow out the very earnings they just paid for.
Run these two figures on your own book before a buyer does: what portion of next year's revenue is already contracted and for how long, and how much rides on your single largest customer and your top three. A book that is dense, long-dated, and well-spread behaves like an annuity, and buyers pay annuity multiples for it. One living on spot freight and month-to-month handshakes is a wager on next quarter, and it gets priced like one. If yours is thin on tenure, locking in or extending term contracts and widening the customer base is the most valuable move you can make on the multiple before market — and it sits entirely within your control.
What the Promptus deal tells you about who's buying Florida logistics
Consolidation here is busy, and it signals exactly what buyers want. On February 4, 2026, Allstates WorldCargo acquired Promptus, LLC — a Miami customs brokerage — pulling an in-house customs-brokerage capability into the combined company (Business Wire [https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260204397736/en/]).
Notice what the buyer actually purchased. No fleet. No warehouse. A Miami-based book of trade-lane and customs relationships that snaps straight onto an existing logistics platform — an asset-light, capability-adding deal right at the edge of the Port of Miami. That is the Florida logistics pattern right now: strategic buyers and platforms paying for lanes, licenses, contracts, and specialized capabilities they can bolt onto what they already operate. Your business becomes a target the moment it supplies something a larger platform cannot build quickly — corridor density, a customs or drayage capability, contracted volume on lanes they are chasing. Frame it as a capability a buyer covets rather than a pile of assets, and you change both which buyers appear and what they'll pay.
What buyers tear apart in diligence
Once a buyer gets serious, logistics diligence turns granular. These are the areas that decide the number after a letter of intent — assemble the file before you take the business to market:
• Contract tenure and density. Length, renewal terms, and — the part that matters most — the assignability of every customer agreement. A contract that cannot transfer without the shipper's sign-off is one a buyer cannot bank on.
• Customer concentration. Revenue by account and top-three share; holding any single customer under 25% keeps you at the top of the range.
• Asset base and lease quality. For asset-heavy operations: fleet age and maintenance records, deferred capex, and the terms and assignability of your warehouse and yard leases.
• The technology stack. Your TMS or WMS, and whether you link to customers and carriers through EDI or modern APIs. Buyers pay up for a clean, connected system and mark down one run on spreadsheets and email.
• Dedicated lanes and carrier or driver retention. Which lanes are contracted and dedicated, and whether your carrier or driver pool is deep and loyal or thin and churning — driver turnover cuts straight into deliverable capacity, and buyers underwrite it.
The operations that glide through diligence built this file first. The ones that stall were betting a buyer wouldn't examine the contracts too closely — and in this business, a buyer always does.
If the shipper relationships live in your head, that's the haircut
Now the uncomfortable part. When you tell me the shippers stay because they trust you — because you personally know the traffic manager at your biggest account — what I actually hear is a discount. Where the relationships holding your revenue together sit only in your memory and your cell phone, a buyer isn't purchasing a business at all; they're purchasing introductions that could vanish the day you hand over the keys, and that risk gets baked into every offer.
This is the asset-light trap: what makes a brokerage or non-asset 3PL valuable — relationships in place of capital — is exactly what a buyer fears once those relationships are simply you. The remedy pays back every month it costs. Shift accounts onto contracts that name the company rather than you, grow account managers the customer knows by name, and write down how lanes get quoted, carriers get sourced, and problems get solved. An operation whose contracts, systems, and people carry the revenue — one that hums along the same during a week you're off the grid — clears at the top of its range. One that needs the founder on the phone to keep freight rolling eats the discount.
How a Florida sell-side desk turns your contract book into a sale
Selling a logistics company hinges on demand, not on getting a listing posted — the number is manufactured by genuine rivalry among the right-fit buyers, all while you keep freight moving and the operation quiet.
We price the business on what Florida logistics operations genuinely trade for — by contract density, asset mix, and concentration — so you walk in holding a defensible range. We run the marketing confidentially, because news travels fast down a lane: A leak reaches your top shipper before it reaches a buyer — and the contract walks. We vet each buyer before they ever see your customer list — proof of funds, a real financing path, and confirmation they're the strategic or platform acquirer most likely to pay up for your lanes. Then we position the operation for that buyer, applying the same mechanics statewide, from the Port of Miami to the I-4 corridor to the Panhandle.
I'm Sarah Khatri, Managing Partner. Twenty-five-plus years in, with more than a thousand Florida businesses sold and Florida Broker License BK3531707 in hand, here is the honest first move toward knowing what your operation would truly fetch: a confidential valuation of your logistics business — your real number, delivered privately, with nothing leaked to a shipper, a carrier, or a competitor on your lanes.
FAQ: Selling a Logistics Business in Florida
What can a Florida logistics business actually sell for?
An owner-operated 3PL generally trades at 3 to 4.5 times SDE, an asset-light operation with multi-year contracts at 5 to 7.5 times EBITDA, an asset-heavy operation at 5 to 6 times, and platform-scale businesses at 8 to 11 times. Contract density, customer concentration, and asset mix decide where you land.
SDE versus EBITDA — which one prices a logistics business?
SDE, seller's discretionary earnings, is your dispatch and contract revenue after a market wage for your own seat, plus add-backs for personal costs run through the books; it prices small owner-run operations. Asset-light and platform-scale deals shift to EBITDA, because those acquirers bring professional management and disregard whatever one owner drew in pay.
Does contract density really change my sale price?
Yes, more than almost anything. When more than 70% of revenue sits under contracts of 24 months or longer, operations move into the 6 to 7 times range, and keeping any single customer under 25% of revenue holds you at the top of your band. Long, assignable, well-spread contracts price like an annuity.
Is an asset-light or asset-heavy logistics business worth more?
Asset-light operations with real contracts often trade higher — 5 to 7.5 times EBITDA, and into the teens for brokerage-heavy books — versus 5 to 6 times for asset-heavy operations, because buyers discount the capital tied up in fleets and warehouses. Asset-heavy earns a premium only when the equipment is young and the leases are clean and assignable.
Will my shippers and carriers hear that I'm selling?
Not when the process is handled right. The company goes to market behind a blind profile, every prospect signs an NDA, and nobody sees an identifying detail until they've cleared screening. In logistics that discipline is non-negotiable — if a major shipper catches wind of a sale before a buyer is locked in, they can reroute their freight, and the contracted revenue an acquirer is paying for weakens mid-process.
How does Sailfish Equity Advisors work with Florida logistics owners?
We price your operation against what real acquirers are paying — by contract density and asset mix — market it quietly so shippers and carriers stay in the dark, screen buyers before they reach your contract book, and set the business up for the strategic or platform acquirer willing to pay up for your lanes. Behind the firm sit twenty-five-plus years and more than a thousand Florida sales, and the whole process runs under Florida Broker License BK3531707.