Today’s CPA Firm M&A market looks different than it did even six months ago. The most important shift is a change in who is actually doing the buying and that single fact reshapes what both sellers and buyers should expect walking into a conversation this year.
For the first time on record, private equity has overtaken strategic buyers as the majority acquirer type in accounting firm M&A. Financial acquirers accounted for 54.8% of deal activity through mid-2026, up from 38.9% in the same period in 2025, with PE-specific deal volume up 69.1% year-over-year. This did not happen gradually. It happened because wider adoption of the alternative practice structure, which separates a CPA-owned attest practice from a non-attest management entity that sponsors can invest in directly, opened the door for PE capital to reach further into the market than it could when ownership rules kept most buyers CPA-only.
The volume behind this shift is real. Accounting firm M&A hit a record 194 transactions in 2025, up 26% year-over-year, and 2026 is already outpacing that pace. A separate industry tracker shows PE-backed deal volume climbing from 22 transactions in 2023 to 65 in 2024 to over 100 in 2025, and January 2026 alone recorded more than 25 PE-backed deals, the highest January on record and nearly 25% of the entire prior year’s total in a single month.
If one transaction captures the scale this market has reached, it is Grant Thornton’s agreement to acquire CBIZ. Announced July 29, Grant Thornton Advisors will acquire CBIZ in an all-cash deal at $55.00 per share, an enterprise value of $5 billion and roughly a 54% premium to CBIZ’s 30-day volume-weighted average share price. New Mountain Capital, which led a May 2024 investment in Grant Thornton Advisors, is providing additional equity to support the acquisition. The combination is expected to create the fifth-largest professional services provider in the country, with more than $5 billion in annual domestic revenue and nearly $7.5 billion globally.
The deal is not finalized. The CBIZ Board of Directors have unanimously approved the deal and is recommending shareholder approval. The go-shop period expired August 27th, and closing is expected in the fourth quarter, pending shareholder and regulatory approval. Whatever happens next, the deal itself already makes the point: platform-tier accounting M&A has reached a scale that would have been unthinkable in this profession a decade ago.
There is no single “market multiple,” and firms often mis-anchor by comparing themselves to the wrong size band entirely. Solo firms under $500,000 in revenue currently trade around 0.9x to 1.3x revenue. Firms between $500,000 and $2 million trade around 1.0x to 1.4x revenue. In the $2 million to $10 million range, pricing shifts from a revenue basis to an adjusted EBITDA basis, and firms in that range trade around 5.5x to 8.5x adjusted EBITDA. Regional firms between $10 million and $50 million trade around 7.5x to 11.0x adjusted EBITDA, and platform-tier targets above $50 million trade around 10.0x to 15.0x adjusted EBITDA.
That top band has moved with interest rates. It peaked at 12.0x to 15.0x during 2020 through 2022, compressed to 10.0x to 13.0x as the Federal Reserve pushed rates to a 5.25% to 5.50% peak by mid-2023, and has since rebased back toward 10.0x to 15.0x as rates settled at 3.50% to 3.75% through the most recent 2026 Fed decisions. Do you actually know which band your firm sits in, or are you benchmarking against a headline number that belongs to a very different size of business?
Within any given size band, a handful of factors explain why two similar-looking firms get very different offers. Recurring revenue share matters most: firms with 70% or more recurring revenue clear the top of their range, while project-heavy firms clear the bottom. Client concentration cuts the other way: firms where the top 10 clients represent more than 40% of revenue trade lower, while firms under 20% clear the top. Practice mix matters too. Tax and advisory-dominant firms trade roughly half a turn to a turn and a half above audit-heavy firms of the same size on adjusted EBITDA, reflecting stronger margins, more recurring revenue, and a larger pool of interested buyers. Technology adoption and partner concentration round out the list: cloud-first, workflow-automated firms outperform firms still running on legacy systems, and firms where one partner controls more than 40% of client relationships trade at a discount that reflects real succession risk.
Deal structure looks different depending on where a firm sits too. At the platform tier, rollover equity of 25% to 50% is now standard, well above the 10% to 30% typical in other professional-services roll-ups, because sponsors want selling partners meaningfully invested after close. Cash at close typically runs 50% to 70% of headline value at the platform tier and 60% to 80% in the lower middle market. Earnouts tied to client or revenue retention show up often in the $2 million to $10 million range, usually running 12 to 36 months. At the small-firm end, the playbook stays familiar: SBA 7(a) financing paired with a seller note covering 25% to 40% of consideration remains the dominant path for external buyers, alongside internal partner-succession buyouts financed with a multi-year note.
This remains a strong market for a well-prepared seller, but “well-prepared” carries real weight this year given how sharply recurring revenue, concentration, and practice mix move the actual number. A firm that waits to address those factors until a buyer is already at the table is negotiating from a weaker position than a firm that spent the prior 12 to 24 months fixing them. If you have not yet worked through what genuine readiness looks like, Are You Really Ready to Sell Your CPA Firm? is the right next stop.
The pool you are competing in looks different than it did even a year ago, with more PE-backed buyers bidding for the same firms you are. The fundamentals have not changed, though: a clear acquisition thesis, real financing readiness, and the leadership bandwidth to integrate what you buy still separate serious buyers from everyone else. Knowing exactly where a target sits on the size-band spectrum also matters more than it sounds, since applying the wrong multiple convention to the wrong size firm is one of the most common, avoidable mistakes a first-time buyer makes. CPA Deal Desk works directly with buyers to help connect you with the right opportunities.
It depends heavily on size. Solo firms under $500,000 in revenue currently trade around 0.9x to 1.3x revenue, firms between $2 million and $10 million trade around 5.5x to 8.5x adjusted EBITDA, and platform-tier firms above $50 million trade around 10.0x to 15.0x adjusted EBITDA. There is no single market-wide multiple that applies across all sizes.
Wider adoption of the alternative practice structure has let PE sponsors invest directly in a non-attest management entity alongside a CPA-owned attest practice, opening the market to financial buyers in a way traditional CPA-only ownership rules previously restricted. Financial acquirers accounted for 54.8% of accounting M&A deal activity through mid-2026, up from 38.9% a year earlier.
Grant Thornton Advisors agreed on July 29, 2026 to acquire CBIZ in an all-cash transaction valued at $5 billion, or $55.00 per share. New Mountain Capital is providing additional equity to support the deal, and the combined firm is expected to become the fifth-largest professional services provider in the country.
Recurring revenue share, client concentration, practice mix (tax and advisory versus audit-heavy), technology adoption, and partner concentration are the largest observed drivers. Firms with 70% or more recurring revenue and client concentration under 20% consistently clear the top of their size-band range.
At the small-firm end, SBA 7(a) financing paired with a seller note covering 25% to 40% of consideration remains the dominant structure. At the platform tier, deals typically combine 50% to 70% cash at close with 25% to 50% rollover equity from selling partners.
Whichever side of the table you are on, this market rewards preparation more than it rewards speed. CPA Deal Desk can help you figure out where you actually stand.