Best IT Services & MSP M&A Advisors in 2026: the 5x-to-18x EBITDA Gap

Best IT Services & MSP M&A Advisors in 2026: the 5x-to-18x EBITDA Gap

Last updated: September 2026 · Last verified: September 2026

TL;DR. An MSP is priced on EBITDA, not on the recurring revenue it sells, and the ladder is steep: sub-$1.5M EBITDA MSPs trade at 5-7x; scaled platforms above $15M EBITDA with strong recurring revenue command 16-18x (Drake Star, MSP Market Update Q2 2026, July 23, 2026), with 111 transactions in Q2 2026, up 9% quarter-over-quarter, and no published rung in between. Ranked on dated adviser-of-record evidence, the bench is martinwolf M&A Advisors (with its IT ExchangeNet unit), Solganick & Co. and Q Advisors in the first tier; Clearsight Advisors, Tequity Advisors, The McLean Group, D.A. Davidson, Stifel and Kroll as one-lane specialists; Houlihan Lokey, William Blair, Harris Williams, Guggenheim Securities and Raymond James on sponsor-scale platforms; and Drake Star Partners as the research authority. The gate nobody else explains: under 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13) a firm can lawfully sell your sub-$25M-EBITDA MSP without a FINRA registration, which is why the best specialists are invisible on BrokerCheck. I run Peony, the data room 6,800+ teams use for processes like these; we are not an adviser.

Why is an MSP priced on EBITDA when it sells "recurring revenue"?

Because the recurring revenue is delivered by technicians who are paid whether or not the contract renews, so a buyer capitalises what is left after they are paid, then pays more turns of it for the quality of the contracts. I'm Sean Yu, co-founder of Peony, a data room company. I have built and watched thousands of data rooms across my career — about 1,000 of those when I was an investor at two funds with a combined $6.3 billion in AUM, and the rest across the 6,800+ teams Peony serves today. This guide is for one owner in four lanes: an SMB managed services provider with $3M-$60M of revenue and a blended P&L of managed services, projects and product resale; a cloud or application partner (Microsoft, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Workday) whose buyer is a strategic or a partner-led platform; a federal or government IT services firm whose value sits in contract vehicles and recompete calendars; and a managed network, UCaaS or security services provider priced on recurring voice, SD-WAN and SOC contracts.

An IT services or MSP M&A advisor is an investment bank, M&A boutique or channel marketplace that runs the sale, recapitalisation or growth investment of a services business on the owner's behalf: positioning contract mix and utilization, building a buyer list of consolidators and strategics that already close several deals a year, and defending the EBITDA base through a quality-of-earnings that will pull your PSA and RMM data directly. This post sits under the best M&A advisors hub and deepens the one-paragraph IT-services section of our best technology and software M&A advisors guide, which names one firm; the software M&A advisors guide routes IT-services sellers here because they are priced on a different unit.

I built the bench on one standard, the Adviser-of-Record Ledger, a Peony-original evidence standard: a firm earns a rank only if I could read a dated 2024-26 IT-services or MSP adviser-of-record credit in a primary source, the firm's own dated release, a counterparty's release or a dated trade-press report naming the role; where the evidence is one deal, buy-side, or announced rather than closed, the profile says so. The market's shape makes this harder than it sounds: most MSP acquisitions are announced by the consolidator with no adviser named, and the counters that track the market (Drake Star, Solganick) publish deal counts, not adviser credits.

The MSP EBITDA Ladder: what the published rungs actually say

Call it the MSP EBITDA Ladder, a Peony-original frame built on the only dated 2026 report that prints numbers. Drake Star's MSP Market Update Q2 2026, published July 23, 2026, states its valuation tiers entirely in EV/EBITDA, and prints exactly two of them:

Two other dated sources set the shape of the middle without printing a rung. Solganick's Technology Services M&A Update for Q2 and H1 2026 (July 21, 2026): "Firms without AI readiness or high-margin recurring revenue saw multiples stagnate, while those at the AI–Cloud–Security nexus continued expanding toward 15x+ EBITDA," and "AI consulting commands the sector's highest premiums: 2.0x–4.0x+ EV/Revenue and 12.0x–18.0x EV/EBITDA." Service Leadership's 2026 Annual IT Solution Provider Industry Profitability Report, in its June 24, 2026 release (reprinted by The Cannata Report): "Business valuations and valuation multiples for best-in-class IT solution providers reached record highs in 2025, driven by continued revenue growth and even stronger profitability growth. For the average IT solution provider, this contributed to an approximate 15% increase in enterprise value from 2024." Best-in-class providers "achieved 19%+ adjusted EBITDA profitability for the sixth consecutive year, the longest run in industry history," on benchmarking data from providers across 104 countries, in the report's 21st year.

The same release is the primary source for why the unit is EBITDA and not revenue: "Managed service providers saw total revenue growth rebound to 9.6%, up from 7.1% in the prior year, while adjusted EBITDA grew even faster at 17.1%." Profit is growing almost twice as fast as revenue at the average MSP, and a buyer paying turns of EBITDA is buying that operating leverage, not the top line.

What moves an MSP up the ladder?

Four things, three of them with a dated source and one a practitioner observation. First, recurring managed-services contract mix, the condition Drake Star prints on the top rung. Second, AI embedded in service delivery rather than sold as a line item, which is the Sold-versus-Embedded AI Split, a Peony-original label for the distinction Drake Star made the headline of its Q2 report: "AI adoption is now the underwriting basis for acquisitions, not a pitch line. Buyers pay for MSPs that have embedded AI into service delivery, not those merely selling it." Sam Levy, a Drake Star partner in New York: "We're seeing a clear split between MSPs that have actually put AI to work in their operations and those just selling AI as a service line. That distinction is now driving both diligence and pricing." martinwolf's July 30, 2026 commentary reads the same split from the sell side, naming an "AI Disconnect" as the defining middle-market IT M&A trend of H1 2026, with Seth Collins noting that some PE firms with long histories in IT services are shifting focus to industries less disrupted by AI, while AI enablers "can command premium multiples." Third, PSA-verified utilization and a clean split between managed services and product resale, covered in the diligence section below. Fourth, an attested security posture on the MSP's own estate, the SOC 2 report and the cyber-insurance application answers a buyer's insurer will ask for; no source prices this in turns, and this guide does not either.

Is the market growing or slowing in 2026?

Growing, on both counters, and they count different universes so never blend them. Drake Star: "MSP M&A remained resilient in Q2 2026 with 111 transactions, up 9% quarter-over-quarter," led by Cognizant's acquisition of Astreya, with "IT Services dominated deal flow at 95% of volume, and strategic buyers remained the primary consolidators; the top 10 acquirers each closed four or more deals since mid-2024." Drake Star also frames the demand side: a global MSP market it puts at $350B in 2025 and "on track to hit $850B by 2034," a 10.4% CAGR. Solganick, on its own count: "MSP M&A surge — 2025's 20% surge to 466 deals ($4.3B) extended into H1 2026 AI-enabled MSP consolidation," inside a technology services market where "2026 is on pace to be the strongest year for Technology Services M&A since 2021." Drake Star's quarterly count and Solganick's annual count come from different trackers; this guide prints each with its attribution and derives nothing from either.

Which advisers actually closed the IT services and MSP deals on the tape, 2024-26?

Twenty-two deals where I could read the adviser's role in a primary document, and the specialists, not the banks, hold most of the sell-side rows. The Adviser-of-Record Ledger below is the whole evidence base for the ranking; date is the closing date unless marked.

Bottom line: twenty-two rows, nineteen closed (SCG, Quinnox and Thrive are announced, with the close not verified), and the sell-side credits at founder scale belong to martinwolf and IT ExchangeNet (five rows between them), Solganick (two), Q Advisors, Clearsight, Tequity, D.A. Davidson, Stifel, Kroll and The McLean Group (one each); the banks appear where a sponsor is forming or exiting a platform (Centre Technologies, Omega Systems, Thrive, 1Path, Brite, SCG) or a strategic is paying $634 million (Astreya). The Kroll row is carried as the firm labels it, a sell-side credit on Stonewall Solutions to xFact; I could not read a description of the target and do not characterise it as an MSP.

Most MSP deals name no adviser at all. The consolidators announce their own acquisitions, and the releases are buyer maps, not adviser maps: Coeo's $14.5 million base-price purchase of NetWolves (August 3, 2026, Channel Dive); Integris's announced intent to buy First Focus, "the largest managed service provider (MSP) serving small and midsize (SMB) businesses in Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines," subject to regulatory approval (April 27, 2026, its first international acquisition); The 20 MSP's four acquisitions on June 3, 2026, which took its count to 48; New Charter Technologies' GraVoc deal (April 16, 2026); Ntiva's Purple Guys and Contuit deals (2024); and every Evergreen Services Group row. A list that says a firm "advised on" any of these without a release naming the role is asserting, not reporting.

Who are the 15 IT services and MSP M&A advisors on this bench, and how are they ranked?

By dated IT-services adviser-of-record evidence first and by fit for an owner-seller second. Two or more dated 2025-26 sell-side credits at founder or lower-middle-market scale outrank one; a sell-side credit outranks a buy-side one; a closed deal outranks an announced one; and a firm whose only evidence is research sits last, however good the research. That is why two multi-credit specialists and Q Advisors lead, six one-lane specialists follow, five banks that appear on sponsor-scale platforms sit behind them, and Drake Star, whose report this guide quotes more than any other, is ranked fifteenth.

1. martinwolf M&A Advisors: the only registered specialist with six dated rows, five of them sell-side

martinwolf, 7000 E. Shea Boulevard, Scottsdale, describes itself as "specializing in IT cloud/tech-enabled services, software/SaaS, and IT supply chain" and states it "has advised on approximately 300 transactions in more than 20 countries, including eight divisions of Fortune 500 companies" and is a "Registered member of FINRA & SIPC" (firm boilerplate, July 30, 2026 release). Registration: CRD 47936, FINRA approval February 11, 2000, with Martin Wolf Securities LLC and Lillian Securities LLC as other names in the SEC record. Its three dated rows: adviser to GuideIT on its sale to Focus (July 23, 2026), a firm whose heritage the release traces to Ross Perot's IT outsourcing; buy-side adviser to Tailwind Capital's DMD Systems Recovery on its acquisition of ITAD provider Lifespan Technology Solutions (June 4, 2026); and adviser to HOIST, an IFS systems integrator, on its growth investment from WestView Capital Partners (April 22, 2025). Its July 30, 2026 "AI Disconnect" release is the sell-side counterpart to Drake Star's split.

IT ExchangeNet is martinwolf, not a second firm. CRN reported on January 28, 2021 that Martin Wolf Associates "said it has done its own M&A with the acquisition of IT ExchangeNet, an Ohio-based specialist in small business channel M&A," a unit that "several years ago was spun off from Martin Wolf Associates," with Tim Mueller as its president and CEO. ITX, Cleveland, describes itself as "A Global M&A Consultancy" focused "exclusively on IT Services and Digital Marketing," with deals "Valued above $5 million in the M&A Marketplace," and it shows no FINRA registration of its own; its parent martinwolf holds CRD 47936, so ask which entity signs the engagement. Its 2026 rows are the freshest founder-scale MSP and partner credits on the tape: TrellisPoint, a Cleveland Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Copilot and Azure partner, to Univerus ("IT ExchangeNet represented TrellisPoint in the transaction," July 22, 2026); SynergisticIT to LanceSoft (May 13, 2026); and Vive Communications, a UCaaS provider, to Pure IP (April 7, 2026). Call the two units one organization, the Double-Count Fix: a "twelve-firm list" that counts martinwolf and ITX separately is an eleven-firm list. Verdict: first because it is the only specialist that is both a registered broker-dealer and the holder of multiple dated 2026 sell-side rows, with a marketplace unit for the $5 million-plus channel deal a bank will not take.

2. Solganick & Co.: two exclusive MSP sell-sides and the best research below Drake Star

Solganick & Co., Inc., Los Angeles and Dallas, calls itself "a leading investment bank focused on technology services companies," and its sector page carries MSP in the URL. Its two dated credits are the cleanest founder-scale MSP evidence on the bench: exclusive M&A adviser to Imagine Technology Group of Chandler, Arizona, founded in 2011 as a Sharp and Toshiba copier dealer and evolved into managed print plus managed IT, on its sale to DEX Imaging, "the nation's largest independent dealer of document imaging technology, managed print, and managed IT services," DEX's fifth acquisition of the year (August 3, 2026); and exclusive adviser to Columbia Advisory Group, an MSP serving higher education, SLED and mid-market clients with cybersecurity, GRC and technology services, on its sale to Complete, backed by Heritage Holding, where Solganick "ran a competitive M&A process that targeted PE backed strategic buyers and received multiple offers" (closed per the case study; announced December 26, 2025). On May 29, 2026 it hired Ramesh Menon as a Plano-based managing director for technology services and digital transformation. Registration: zero SEC broker-dealer or adviser records under the name and no FINRA statement on the site, so it operates as an M&A advisory firm outside BrokerCheck, presumably under the federal M&A-broker exemption discussed below; the firm does not state which exemption it relies on and neither will I. Its Technology Services M&A Update (Q2 and H1 2026, July 21, 2026), Cybersecurity M&A Update (August 3, 2026) and SAP and ServiceNow ecosystem updates are the second research shelf in the sector. Verdict: the call for a Southwest or Texas MSP, a managed-print-plus-IT dealer or a public-sector-facing MSP whose buyer is a PE-backed strategic.

3. Q Advisors: the managed-network and UCaaS specialist nobody lists

Q Advisors LLC, 999 18th Street, Suite 2015, Denver, is a FINRA broker-dealer, CRD 127232, approved November 17, 2003, with two branches per its SEC record; I could not verify a firm website that belongs to it (two similarly named domains belong to unrelated businesses), so there is no link here. Its two dated rows sit on either side of the table: sell-side adviser to S-Net Communications, an Illinois contact-center and hospitality-vertical provider, on its sale to Coeo Solutions, an Illinois managed network services company (voice, managed network, SD-WAN, circuit aggregation, cybersecurity) funded by Riata Capital Group ("Q Advisors advised S-Net," Channel Dive, May 4, 2026); and buy-side adviser to Revelstoke Capital Partners on its purchase of Omega Systems of Reading, Pennsylvania, a 24/7 IT support, cybersecurity, compliance, multi-cloud and disaster-recovery MSP, from Pfingsten ("Harris Williams was the financial advisor for Omega and Q Advisors advised Revelstoke," January 20, 2025). Coeo went on to buy NetWolves at a $14.5 million base price on August 3, 2026 with no adviser named. Verdict: the deepest evidence on the bench in the managed-network, voice and connectivity corner of IT services, and a registered one; third rather than first because one of its two rows is buy-side.

4. Clearsight Advisors: the enterprise-application-partner bank, inside a bank

Clearsight Advisors, McLean, Virginia, provides "investment banking services for professional services and technology-enabled services companies," and its footer states the ownership and registration chain in one line: "Clearsight Advisors, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Regions Financial Corporation. No offerings of securities are made through this site; all securities are offered exclusively through RF M&A Services LLC, a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC." That entity is RF M&A Services LLC, CRD 154250, Charlotte; Clearsight's own legacy record, CRD 159543, is inactive, so type the live one. Its IT-services lane is the enterprise-application partner and digital-engineering firm, not the SMB MSP: exclusive financial adviser to Intecrowd, a global Workday services partner, on its sale to UST (completed April 8, 2026; deal team led by managing director Brendan Curran), and financial adviser to ASGN on its announced $290 million purchase of digital-engineering firm Quinnox (January 20, 2026, buy-side, close not verified). Its other 2026 credits (StoneTurn, Ambit) are professional services and healthcare consulting, not IT. Verdict: the call for a Workday, ServiceNow or SAP partner at $20 million of revenue and up; the wrong door for a help-desk MSP.

5. Tequity Advisors: the cross-border and application-partner option

Tequity Advisors, with offices in Toronto, Austin and London, describes itself as "a leading North American M&A Advisory firm specializing in global Enterprise B2B SaaS, Cloud, and IT company transactions" (citybiz, April 1, 2025), and its one fully dated MSP credit is exactly that: exclusive financial adviser to Stratogent, a California managed IT services provider, on its sale to PTP, a 424 Capital-backed cloud consulting MSP (April 1, 2025). Its transactions page adds 2025 rows dated by year only: Apogee IT Canada to Supra Canada (MSP and cloud IT), SkyVenn to Rallyday-backed Kicksaw (Salesforce managed services), PAMT to Bell Canada's Ateko and Unikomm to Plat4mation (ServiceNow partners), and 3CIS to Aliter Technologies. Tequity is Canadian, with no US broker-dealer record and no FINRA statement on its transactions page; its deal count of 114, which our software hub carries, is the firm's own and was not re-verified for this guide. Verdict: the call for a Canadian MSP, or a US Salesforce, ServiceNow or Microsoft partner whose buyer set is cross-border; for a domestic SMB MSP it is an option, not the default.

6. The McLean Group: the federal IT services lane, with the KKR exit to prove it

The McLean Group, Tysons, Virginia, is "a middle-market investment bank providing objective strategic and financial advice on mergers and acquisitions, business & asset valuation, and growth capital" that for "over 30 years" has served the Defense, Government & Intelligence, Security, Critical Infrastructure and Technology & Software markets, among others (firm boilerplate, July 8, 2026). Registration: McLean Securities, LLC, CRD 104117, FINRA member. Its dated row is the sharpest federal IT-services credit on the 2026 tape: exclusive financial adviser to Highlight Technologies, a Fairfax, Virginia employee-owned federal IT services firm, on its acquisition by Empower AI, a KKR portfolio company (July 8, 2026). Three more 2026 govcon headlines name the firm as adviser (Vanteon, TENICA, Valiant's O&M division), none opened beyond the headline. Verdict: if your revenue is on contract vehicles and set-asides, this is your bench, and an MSP specialist is the wrong one.

7. D.A. Davidson & Co.: proof a regional bank will take a franchise-scale MSP

D.A. Davidson & Co., headquartered in Great Falls, Montana, with technology bankers in Portland and Boston among other offices, is a FINRA broker-dealer, CRD 199. Its dated row is small and instructive: exclusive financial adviser to IT Assist, a Newtown, Pennsylvania TeamLogic IT franchisee founded in 2011, on its sale to TeamLogic LLC, the franchisor behind the TeamLogic IT managed services network (May 7-8, 2026; citybiz and Business Wire). Verdict: evidence that a registered regional bank will run a single-franchisee sale when the buyer is obvious and the client wants a registered adviser across the table from a franchisor; one row, so seventh.

8. Stifel: the cybersecurity-and-managed-services platform sell-side

Stifel advised Brite, a cybersecurity and managed services provider, on its sale to Sole Source Capital, a private equity firm that "invests thematically in industrial and business services sectors," as a new platform (January 12, 2026). The release is precise about who hired whom: "Stifel acted as financial advisor, Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP acted as legal advisor to Brite and Sidley Austin LLP acted as legal advisor to Sole Source." Verdict: one row, sell-side, closed, on the security-heavy end of managed services; the bank to ask when your buyer is a sponsor forming a platform rather than an existing MSP.

9. Kroll: a dated sell-side credit, with the target uncharacterised

Kroll's Technology & Business Services Investment Banking team, operating through Kroll Securities LLC, CRD 36927, Chicago, advised Stonewall Solutions on its sale to xFact as sell-side adviser (June 18, 2026, per Kroll's own transaction page). I could not read a description of the target, so this guide carries the row as Kroll labels it and does not call Stonewall an MSP. Verdict: ninth on one dated, closed, sell-side credit whose lane I cannot confirm.

10. Houlihan Lokey: two 2026 rows and the 7 Mile heritage

Houlihan Lokey (Los Angeles; NYSE: HLI) has two dated 2026 rows, one on each side of the table: financial adviser to SCG, a UK provider of communications, connectivity and managed IT services to SMBs that supports around 35,000 companies, on Providence Equity Partners' significant investment (announced July 29, 2026; "Houlihan Lokey served as SCG's financial adviser"); and financial adviser to LightBay Capital on its new platform investment in Centre Technologies of Houston (June 25, 2026), where Guggenheim was the sell-side. Its IT-services heritage includes the acquisition of 7 Mile Advisors, the Charlotte IT-services boutique (Business Wire, July 10, 2023), which no longer exists as an independent firm. Verdict: the bank for a sponsor-scale platform, US or UK; below that it is the adviser across the table.

11. William Blair: the sponsor-owned MSP exit

William Blair (Chicago) acted as exclusive financial adviser to 1Path, an Atlanta MSP (IT support, cybersecurity, cloud) owned by MSouth Equity Partners, on its acquisition by Ideal Integrations, a Pittsburgh MSP owned by Frontenac (closing December 9, 2024, per William Blair's own page). Verdict: one dated, closed, sell-side row, on a sponsor-to-sponsor MSP trade; the profile of deal it will take.

12. Harris Williams: the sponsor-owned MSP exit, second example

Harris Williams LLC, Richmond, CRD 113930, with 14 branches per its SEC record, was "the financial advisor for Omega" when Pfingsten sold Omega Systems to Revelstoke Capital Partners (January 20, 2025). Verdict: a mid-market bank that shows up on sponsor-owned MSP exits, not founder-owned SMB ones; one dated row.

13. Guggenheim Securities: the bank on the $50 million-plus platform trades

Guggenheim Securities, LLC, 330 Madison Avenue, New York, CRD 40638, is on two rows: sell-side for Centre Technologies on LightBay's platform investment (June 25, 2026) and financial adviser to Berkshire Partners on its agreed strategic investment, with Court Square Capital, in Thrive (definitive agreement announced January 14, 2025; close not verified), where Lazard and Moelis advised Thrive. Verdict: ledger-grade evidence on the largest MSP platform trades of 2025-26; hire it at that scale and expect to meet it as the buyer's bank below it.

14. Raymond James: sponsor buy-side only

Raymond James & Associates, Inc., St. Petersburg, CRD 705, "advised Providence on the transaction" when Providence Equity Partners announced its significant investment in UK MSP SCG (July 29, 2026), with Houlihan Lokey on the sell side. I found no US MSP sell-side row for 2024-26. Verdict: ranked because the credit is dated and named; fourteenth because it is buy-side, on an announced deal, outside the US.

15. Drake Star Partners: the report everyone cites, without an MSP tombstone I could find

Drake Star Partners publishes the MSP Market Update this guide quotes, and its Q2 2026 edition (July 23, 2026) is the only dated 2026 source that prints MSP EV/EBITDA rungs; MSPs sit under "Digital Services > Managed IT" in its taxonomy, with Ralf Philipp Hofmann (Munich), Christophe Morvan (Paris) and Sam Levy (New York) as the named contacts. Registration: Drake Star Securities LLC, CRD 131338, FINRA approval October 15, 2004, registered office in West Palm Beach, Florida, with ten listed offices including New York, London, Paris and Munich. Its news page on September 16, 2026 shows software and digital-media tombstones and 2026 awards, including Boutique TMT Investment Bank of the Year, and no 2024-26 MSP adviser-of-record credit, which is why the bank whose research anchors this guide sits last on it. Verdict: hire it for a cross-border digital-services process and read its report either way; ask for three dated MSP closes, because the public record does not show them.

How does the §15(b)(13) M&A-broker exemption decide who can sell your MSP?

By making almost every SMB MSP an "eligible privately held company," so that an unregistered intermediary can lawfully sell it, provided the buyer takes control and runs it. Call this the Consolidator Conflict Clause frame, a Peony-original reading of the statute for this lane. Exchange Act §15(b)(13), 15 U.S.C. 78o(b)(13), "Registration exemption for merger and acquisition brokers," was added by Public Law 117-328 on December 29, 2022 and took effect 90 days later, March 29, 2023. Subparagraph (A): "Except as provided in subparagraph (B), an M&A broker shall be exempt from registration under this section." The company qualifies if, in the fiscal year before the engagement, "The earnings of the company before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization are less than $25,000,000" or "The gross revenues of the company are less than $250,000,000," either or both; those dollar amounts are adjusted for inflation every five years from December 29, 2022, so the first adjustment lands December 29, 2027 and the thresholds are unadjusted today. Control is presumed when the buyer "has the right to vote 25 percent or more of a class of voting securities," and the buyer must "directly or indirectly, [be] active in the management of the eligible privately held company," for example by "electing executive officers," "approving the annual budget" or "serving as an executive or other executive manager."

Three exclusions in subparagraph (B) are the ones that bite in a consolidator-driven market. Clause (vi): the exemption is lost if the broker "Represents both the buyer and the seller in the same transaction without providing clear written disclosure as to the parties the broker represents and obtaining written consent from both parties to the joint representation." Clause (viii): it is lost on a transfer "to a passive buyer or group of passive buyers," and clause (vii) on a buyer group "formed with the assistance of the M&A broker." Clause (i) and (iv): lost if the broker holds funds or securities or "provides financing related to the transfer of ownership," and clause (ix) if it "Binds a party." Subparagraph (C) removes the exemption from any broker, or any of its officers or employees, barred or suspended by the Commission, a state or a self-regulatory organization. The MSP application: an intermediary that also sources deals for a consolidator is representing the buyer, and if it then takes your mandate it needs your written consent to the joint representation or it has no exemption; a sale to a search fund or investor group that will not run the business is outside the exemption regardless. State registration and state exemptions are separate and are not covered here.

Type the CRD, not the name: "Q Advisors" resolves to two unrelated websites, "Clearsight" to an inactive record, and "7 Mile Advisors" to an unrelated RIA. Houlihan Lokey, Stifel and William Blair are FINRA members whose CRDs I did not re-pull for this guide.

Do I need an investment bank, a marketplace or a business broker to sell a $1M-EBITDA MSP?

A marketplace or a business broker below roughly $5 million of enterprise value, a specialist from there to the $15M-EBITDA rung, and a bank when a sponsor is forming or exiting a platform: this guide's reading of the evidence, not a published standard. The boundary is visible in the ledger. IT ExchangeNet lists deals "Valued above $5 million"; D.A. Davidson took a single-franchisee sale where the buyer was the franchisor; Guggenheim, Lazard and Moelis appear on Thrive, a 15-acquisition platform. What a specialist adds below bank scale is the buyer list of consolidators that close four or more deals a year and the discipline to keep resale revenue out of the EBITDA a buyer capitalises; what a bank adds above it is competitive tension between sponsors and the structuring of rollover. The fee math is in the fees section; at $2 million to $3 million of value a Double Lehman produces 8% to 9%, and the minimum fee usually binds.

Who did we leave off, and why?

Every firm below is real; what is missing is a dated IT-services or MSP adviser-of-record credit I could read, or the firm is in the wrong category, or its name collides with another's. Cogent Growth Partners is the name most often given as "the MSP M&A specialist," and ChannelE2E's December 24, 2024 piece describes Rick Murphy and his partners as specialising "in advising service providers of all types on M&A deals and putting together buyers and sellers"; but cogentgrowth.com redirected to a parked for-sale page on September 16, 2026, the firm has no SEC record, and its last named tombstone I could find is March 14, 2023 (Fairdinkum's acquisition of Warren Systems, where Cogent advised the acquirer), with a February 2021 credit also on the buy side. A firm whose public record ends in 2023 and whose domain is for sale fails the dated-evidence gate, whatever it is doing privately. Corum Group (Bothell, Washington) is software-first, with a 290-deal lifetime book per our software hub and no IT-services or MSP tombstone in 2024-26; route there for software. Evolve Capital is two unrelated namesakes, a New York fintech investment bank and a Dallas private equity firm with a "$2-5M EBITDA sweet spot," neither an IT-services adviser. 7 Mile Advisors was acquired by Houlihan Lokey in July 2023 and is not an independent option. Lincoln International (CRD 42045; NYSE-listed since May 20, 2026), Baird (CRD 8158), Canaccord Genuity (CRD 1020) and Founders Advisors carry no 2024-26 MSP adviser-of-record credit I could find, and Founders has no broker-dealer record under its name, so no CRD is printed. Lazard, Moelis and J.P. Morgan are on the ledger and not the bench: one row each, at a scale (Thrive; Astreya at $634 million) where they are the buyer's bank for most readers. MSP brokers and listing marketplaces are not advisers and are not ranked.

Who is buying MSPs and IT services companies in 2026?

Strategics at the top, a dozen sponsor-backed consolidators in the middle, and a franchisor at the bottom, each closing several deals a year, which is why the buyer list is the half of the adviser's job you cannot do yourself. Drake Star's Q2 2026 read: "strategic buyers remained the primary consolidators; the top 10 acquirers each closed four or more deals since mid-2024." The consolidator map, with the dated rows only; the sponsors that formed or added to platforms through the advisers above (LightBay, Sole Source, Revelstoke, Frontenac, 424 Capital, Heritage Holding) are in the ledger:

Two name traps on this map. Thrive, the Foxborough, Massachusetts MSP, is not Thrive Holdings, the OpenAI-backed AI holding company that raised $2 billion (August 2026) and put $100 million into Shield Technology Partners, a separate MSP roll-up (February 2, 2026); never fuse them. And Integris is described in its own April 2026 release as "backed by OMERS Private Equity," so do not carry Frontenac, an earlier sponsor, as its current owner. For a $2M-EBITDA MSP, the practical test is which of these buyers your adviser has closed with in the last 18 months, by name and date.

What do buyers pull in MSP due diligence, and how does it move the price?

Your PSA and RMM exports, the split between managed services and resale, and the security posture of your own network, in that order, and each one can move you a rung. The PSA and RMM pull comes first because it is the audited ledger of a service business: from ConnectWise PSA, Kaseya BMS, Autotask or HaloPSA a buyer exports time entries and agreement data to compute technician utilization, contract mix by agreement type and the share of revenue that is contracted rather than billed on time and materials; from ConnectWise Automate, Kaseya VSA, Datto RMM, N-able or NinjaOne it exports endpoint counts by client to compute revenue per endpoint and seats per technician. The tooling is concentrated enough that a buyer's team already knows the exports: as of Q2 2024 "the top five companies – ConnectWise, Kaseya, N-able, NinjaOne, and Atera – represent over two-thirds of the overall $388 million software market for MSPs" (Canalys chief analyst Jay McBain, via ChannelE2E, October 2024). Reconcile the PSA to the general ledger before launch; the utilization number a buyer computes from your own time entries is the one that survives.

The second pull is the Resale Line, a Peony-original label for the product revenue inside a blended IT-services P&L. No source publishes a VAR multiple, so the honest statement is structural: a buyer pays turns of EBITDA for contracted managed services and treats hardware and software resale as a lower-margin, non-recurring line, and Service Leadership's 2026 release shows the two businesses behaving differently: "Value-added resellers experienced a significant revenue rebound, growing 8.9% in 2025 compared to 1.8% in the prior year, driven by a recovery in product sales while maintaining adjusted EBITDA dollar growth of 17.0%," against MSP revenue growth of 9.6% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 17.1%. Split the P&L into managed services, project and professional services, and resale, with gross margin by line, before a buyer's quality of earnings does it for you. MSSP revenue, recurring SOC and SIEM contracts with heavy tooling leverage and scarce talent, is priced on the same EBITDA logic; ChannelE2E's December 2024 "M&A Talk" segment on how the acquisition market differs for MSPs and MSSPs is the only sourced discussion I found, and no MSSP multiple is published.

The third pull is the security posture of your own estate, and it is where MSP diligence has changed most. Buyers and their insurers ask for two exhibits: any SOC 2 report the MSP holds, and the answers on its most recent cyber-insurance application or renewal, covering MFA coverage, endpoint detection and response, backup immutability and privileged-access controls. The reason is in the claims data. Coalition's 2026 Cyber Claims Report (March 5, 2026): "Initial ransom demands surged 47% year-over-year"; business email compromise and funds-transfer fraud "still accounted for the majority (58%) of cyber incidents"; dual-extortion ransomware accounted for "70% of all ransomware claims"; ransomware losses averaged $269,000 against an average loss of $116,000 across claims; 86% of businesses refused to pay; and 64% of closed claims resolved with no out-of-pocket loss. An MSP that sells security and cannot evidence those controls on its own network gets its client-security revenue discounted or escrowed; that is a practitioner observation, not a statistic, and no source prices a SOC 2 report in turns. SOC, per the AICPA, "is a suite of service offerings CPAs may provide in connection with system-level controls of a service organization," whose reports "provide users with valuable information that is needed to assess and address the risks associated with outsourcing services"; a Type II report tests controls over a period. Coalition's report lists no required policyholder controls, so treat your application answers as your own evidence, not a regulator's checklist. Our sell-side due diligence guide covers the rest of the file.

What do IT services M&A advisers charge?

A monthly retainer plus a success fee at closing, and no MSP-specific fee survey exists, so the honest benchmark is the general lower-middle-market one in our M&A advisor fees guide. Across advisers surveyed, a declining-rate Lehman formula is the most common structure (44% of firms in the Firmex/Axial 2024-25 Fee Guide), 71% charge some form of upfront fee (Axial 2026 M&A Fee Guide), and the survey composite success fee runs about 4.8% at $5 million, 3.4% at $20 million and 2.0% at $100 million of transaction value. At the size most MSPs sell, the Double Lehman scale (10-8-6-4-2) is the realistic quote: $240,000 on a $3 million sale, which is 8%, $180,000 on $2 million (9%), and a fixed minimum fee often binds below that, which is where a marketplace or a business broker on a commission-style fee takes over. Not one firm on this bench publishes a rate, searched September 16, 2026. Settle four terms in writing: whether the retainer credits dollar-for-dollar against the success fee, the minimum, the tail period and exclusivity, and whether the fee base is enterprise value or cash at close net of rollover, because a sponsor platform will ask you to roll equity and that leg is a securities transaction. Then ask the §15(b)(13) question: which entity, if any, is registered, and whether the firm has been paid by the buyer or its sponsor in the last two years, because clause (vi) makes an undisclosed joint representation the intermediary's problem and, if the deal unwinds, yours.

What should the data room look like when the likely bidders are consolidators who could hire your engineers?

One room per bidder, staged tranches, and identity on every rendered page, because the natural acquirer of an MSP is a consolidator that can hire your engineers and call your clients if the deal dies; the buyer map above is a list of firms that already run the same PSA you do. For a $2M-EBITDA MSP running four sponsor-backed platforms and one strategic, the build is:

• A separate data room per bidder, with visitor groups walling one platform off from another inside one process, so no party sees another's tranche, activity or Q&A, on your own custom domain on the Data Room plan.
• Staged disclosure: the teaser, contract-mix summary and PSA utilization roll-up first; the client-level MRR schedule, the cyber-insurance application and any SOC 2 report in the middle; the engineer roster by tenure, per-client pricing and the RMM endpoint export last, after a bid you believe.
• NDA gates before the room opens: Simple NDA on Business and up, Advanced NDA with a countersigned PDF on Data Room and up; password-protected links and link expiry on every tier including Free.
• View-only, no-download and screenshot protection with one-click revoke on Business and up, for the day a platform drops out of the process.
• Per-viewer dynamic watermarks on every rendered page on the Data Room plan, so a leaked client list traces to the person who opened it.
• Page-level analytics on every tier, showing which platform spent forty minutes on the utilization file and which never opened the resale schedule, the earliest honest read on who is real.
• Redaction and archive download on the Deal Team plan for client names in the early tranche, plus auto-indexing and structured Q&A so the PSA reconciliation, vendor agreements and insurance file are complete before the first management meeting.

Peony is not an M&A advisor and does not place deals; the firms above do that. We are the confidential room the process runs in, used by 6,800+ customers, rated 4.8 on G2 and 4.9 on Capterra: pick your adviser first, then stand up the room. The Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month billed annually, the tier a sell-side process wants for dynamic watermarking, Advanced NDA, custom domain and per-file permissions; Business is $30 per admin per month and covers the teaser stage with revocation and Simple NDA; Deal Team is $64 per admin per month billed annually and adds redaction and archive download; a Free tier exists with password links, expiry and analytics. The build is in our M&A data room playbook and how to write a CIM; the room is a document-handling control, not a security or compliance opinion.

So which IT services or MSP M&A adviser should you hire?

The one whose dated closes sit in your lane, because the four lanes do not share a buyer list. An SMB MSP at $1M-$5M of EBITDA prices on contract mix and PSA-verified utilization against consolidators that close four or more deals a year: martinwolf and IT ExchangeNet for a registered specialist with a $5 million-plus marketplace, Solganick for a Southwest or public-sector-facing MSP and a competitive process among PE-backed strategics, Q Advisors if the business is managed network or voice. A cloud or application partner prices on partner tier and project-versus-managed mix: Clearsight for Workday and enterprise applications, Tequity for Canadian and cross-border ServiceNow and Salesforce partners, IT ExchangeNet for a Microsoft Dynamics practice. A federal IT services firm prices on contract vehicles: The McLean Group. A sponsor-owned platform above the $15M-EBITDA rung prices on the 16-18x conversation with strong recurring revenue: Houlihan Lokey, William Blair, Harris Williams or Guggenheim, with Stifel for a security-heavy platform. Whoever you hire, ask for three dated closes with named counterparties, the registered entity or the exemption it relies on, and any fee it has taken from the buyer's side in two years.

Related resources

• Best technology and software M&A advisors, the hub this spoke deepens, and best software M&A advisors for a seller priced on ARR rather than EBITDA.
• Best accounting firm M&A advisors, the sibling services spoke, and best financial services M&A advisors.
• City benches that currently catch MSP-adviser searches: Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Denver, Cleveland, Washington, DC and Phoenix.
• Best M&A advisors, M&A advisor fees and M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank.
• Add-on acquisition strategy and the roll-up data room, for the consolidator's side of the table; SaaS valuation multiples for the ARR world this lane is not in.
• M&A data room, how to write a CIM, quality of earnings and sell-side due diligence.
• Pricing and the M&A, due diligence and private equity solution pages.

Frequently asked questions

Who are the best MSP M&A advisors?

Two firms carry two or more dated 2025-26 sell-side MSP or IT-services credits I could read in a primary document, and a third carries one sell-side and one buy-side credit in the managed-network lane; the three lead the bench. martinwolf M&A Advisors (Scottsdale; FINRA broker-dealer, CRD 47936; approximately 300 transactions in more than 20 countries by its own count) advised GuideIT on its sale to Focus (July 23, 2026), and its IT ExchangeNet unit in Cleveland, for deals valued above $5 million, sold TrellisPoint to Univerus (July 22, 2026); Solganick & Co. (Los Angeles and Dallas; no SEC broker-dealer record, so it works outside BrokerCheck, which the federal M&A-broker exemption permits for sub-$25M-EBITDA sales), exclusive adviser to Imagine Technology Group on its sale to DEX Imaging (August 3, 2026) and to Columbia Advisory Group on its sale to Complete (closed; announced December 26, 2025); and Q Advisors (Denver; CRD 127232), which advised S-Net Communications on its sale to Coeo Solutions (May 4, 2026) and Revelstoke Capital on its purchase of Omega Systems (January 20, 2025). Behind them sit specialists with one dated lane each, Tequity Advisors, Clearsight Advisors, The McLean Group, D.A. Davidson, Stifel and Kroll, and the banks that appear on sponsor-scale platforms: Houlihan Lokey, William Blair, Harris Williams, Guggenheim Securities and Raymond James. IT ExchangeNet and martinwolf are one organization, so a list that counts both is one firm shorter than it looks.

Who are the best IT services M&A advisors?

It depends which IT services lane you are in, because the bench splits four ways. For an SMB managed services provider, martinwolf and its IT ExchangeNet unit, Solganick & Co. and Q Advisors have the dated 2025-26 closings. For a cloud or application partner (Microsoft, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Workday), Clearsight Advisors (a Regions Financial subsidiary; exclusive adviser to Workday partner Intecrowd on its sale to UST, April 8, 2026), Tequity Advisors (Toronto, Austin and London; exclusive adviser to Stratogent on its sale to PTP, April 1, 2025, plus 2025 ServiceNow and Salesforce partner sales) and IT ExchangeNet (TrellisPoint, a Microsoft Dynamics partner, to Univerus, July 22, 2026). For federal and government IT services, The McLean Group (McLean Securities, CRD 104117; exclusive adviser to Highlight Technologies on its sale to KKR-backed Empower AI, July 8, 2026). For a sponsor-scale platform, Houlihan Lokey (SCG sell-side, July 29, 2026, announced; LightBay buy-side on Centre Technologies, June 25, 2026), William Blair (1Path to Ideal Integrations, December 9, 2024), Harris Williams (Omega Systems, January 20, 2025) and Guggenheim Securities (Centre Technologies, June 25, 2026). At the strategic ceiling, J.P. Morgan Securities was exclusive financial adviser to Astreya on its $634 million sale to Cognizant, completed June 22, 2026.

Is an MSP valued on EBITDA or recurring revenue?

EBITDA, with recurring revenue acting as the lever that sets the multiple rather than the base it is applied to. The only dated 2026 MSP valuation report that prints numbers, Drake Star's MSP Market Update Q2 2026 (July 23, 2026), states its tiers entirely in EV/EBITDA: sub-$1.5M EBITDA MSPs trade at 5-7x, and scaled platforms above $15M EBITDA with strong recurring revenue command 16-18x; the words strong recurring revenue are the condition on the top rung, not a separate multiple. Service Leadership's 2026 annual profitability report (June 24, 2026 release) explains why buyers underwrite the profit line: MSPs grew revenue 9.6% in 2025 while adjusted EBITDA grew 17.1%, and the average provider's enterprise value rose approximately 15% from 2024. The SaaS habit of quoting an ARR multiple misleads here because a managed-services contract is delivered by paid technicians, so a buyer prices what is left after they are paid, then pays more turns of it for contract mix, PSA-verified utilization and AI embedded in delivery.

What multiple does an MSP sell for in 2026?

Between 5x and 18x EBITDA depending almost entirely on scale and recurring-revenue quality, and the published data prints only the two ends. Drake Star's MSP Market Update Q2 2026 (July 23, 2026): sub-$1.5M EBITDA MSPs trade at 5-7x; scaled platforms above $15M EBITDA with strong recurring revenue command 16-18x. Nothing dated in 2026 prints a rung between $1.5M and $15M of EBITDA, so any number you are quoted for a $3M-EBITDA MSP is an adviser's opinion, not a published statistic. Solganick's Technology Services M&A Update for Q2 and H1 2026 (July 21, 2026) adds the shape: firms without AI readiness or high-margin recurring revenue saw multiples stagnate, while those at the AI, cloud and security nexus continued expanding toward 15x+ EBITDA, and AI consulting commands 2.0x-4.0x+ EV/revenue and 12.0x-18.0x EV/EBITDA. Product-resale revenue inside a blended P&L is priced on the low end of any of those ranges; no source publishes a VAR multiple, so isolate it before a buyer's quality-of-earnings does.

Who is buying MSPs in 2026?

Strategic buyers and a small set of sponsor-backed consolidators, each of which closes several deals a year. Drake Star's Q2 2026 update counts 111 MSP transactions in the quarter, up 9% quarter-over-quarter, with IT services at 95% of volume, strategic buyers as the primary consolidators and the top 10 acquirers each closing four or more deals since mid-2024. The dated buyers on this guide's ledger: Cognizant (Astreya, $634 million, completed June 22, 2026); DEX Imaging (Imagine Technology Group, August 3, 2026, its fifth acquisition of the year); Coeo Solutions, backed by Riata Capital (S-Net, May 4, 2026; NetWolves at a $14.5 million base price, August 3, 2026); Complete, backed by Heritage Holding (Columbia Advisory Group, closed; announced December 26, 2025); LightBay Capital (Centre Technologies platform, June 25, 2026); Sole Source Capital (Brite platform, January 12, 2026); Revelstoke Capital (Omega Systems, January 20, 2025); Ideal Integrations, owned by Frontenac (1Path, December 9, 2024); and Providence Equity Partners (a significant investment in UK MSP SCG, announced July 29, 2026). The serial acquirers with dated counts: Evergreen Services Group, an Alpine Investors platform, ended 2024 with 25 acquisitions (CRN); Thrive, Foxborough MA, had made 15 acquisitions since 2020 when Berkshire Partners and Court Square announced their agreed strategic investment (January 14, 2025; close not verified); The 20 MSP reached 48 acquisitions on June 3, 2026; Integris, backed by OMERS Private Equity, announced its intent to buy Australia's First Focus (April 27, 2026).

What do IT services M&A advisors charge?

A monthly retainer plus a success fee at closing, and no MSP-specific fee survey exists, so the honest benchmark is the general lower-middle-market one in our M&A advisor fees guide. Across advisers surveyed, a declining-rate Lehman formula is the most common structure (44% of firms in the Firmex/Axial 2024-25 Fee Guide), 71% charge some form of upfront fee (Axial 2026 M&A Fee Guide), and the survey composite success fee runs about 4.8% at $5 million, 3.4% at $20 million and 2.0% at $100 million of transaction value. At the size most MSPs sell, the Double Lehman scale (10-8-6-4-2) is the realistic quote: $240,000 on a $3 million sale, which is 8%, and a fixed minimum fee often binds below that. Not one firm on this bench publishes a rate. The terms worth negotiating are whether the retainer credits against the success fee, the minimum, the tail period, exclusivity and whether the fee base is enterprise value or cash at close net of rollover.

Is 2026 a good time to sell an MSP, or should I wait for the AI dust to settle?

The counters say 2026 is a strong year to sell and the AI question is already being priced, so waiting only helps if you are using the time to embed AI in delivery rather than to sell it as a line item. Drake Star counts 111 MSP transactions in Q2 2026, up 9% quarter-over-quarter, and calls the market resilient; Solganick counts 466 MSP deals worth $4.3 billion in 2025, a 20% surge that extended into H1 2026, and says 2026 is on pace to be the strongest year for technology services M&A since 2021 (the two trackers count different universes; never blend them). The split is inside the market, not in its direction: Drake Star's Sam Levy sees a clear split between MSPs that have actually put AI to work in their operations and those just selling AI as a service line, and says that distinction is now driving both diligence and pricing. martinwolf's July 30, 2026 read on H1 2026 is the caution: some PE firms with long histories in IT services are shifting focus to industries less disrupted by AI, while AI enablers can command premium multiples. If your AI revenue is resale, waiting will not move you up the ladder; if it is embedded in how tickets get resolved, the 2026 buyer is paying for exactly that.

martinwolf vs Solganick & Co.: which should I hire to sell my MSP?

Both have dated 2025-26 IT-services sell-side closings, and three facts decide it. Registration: martinwolf is a FINRA broker-dealer (CRD 47936, approved February 11, 2000; the firm states Registered member of FINRA and SIPC), while Solganick has no SEC broker-dealer or adviser record and no FINRA statement on its site, so it operates outside BrokerCheck, which the federal M&A-broker exemption permits for a sub-$25M-EBITDA MSP sale to a buyer who takes control; the firm does not state which exemption it relies on. Size lane: martinwolf runs lower-middle and middle-market processes (approximately 300 transactions in more than 20 countries, including eight divisions of Fortune 500 companies) and routes smaller channel deals to its IT ExchangeNet unit, which lists deals valued above $5 million; Solganick's two recent MSP credits are founder-scale, Imagine Technology Group to DEX Imaging (August 3, 2026) and Columbia Advisory Group to Complete (closed; announced December 26, 2025), the latter run as a competitive process targeting PE-backed strategics with multiple offers. Geography: Scottsdale and Cleveland versus Los Angeles and Dallas, where Solganick hired a Plano-based managing director for technology services in May 2026. For a managed-print-plus-IT or higher-ed MSP in the Southwest, Solganick's recent closings are the closer match; for a channel or supply-chain seller who wants a registered broker-dealer and a marketplace unit for channel deals valued above $5 million, martinwolf.

Is my $1M-EBITDA MSP too small for an investment bank?

Too small for most banks on this bench, not too small to be sold well, and the evidence shows where the roles separate. IT ExchangeNet, martinwolf's channel marketplace unit, states that its deals are valued above $5 million, which at Drake Star's 5-7x rung for sub-$1.5M-EBITDA MSPs is roughly where a $1M-EBITDA business lands; D.A. Davidson advised a single TeamLogic IT franchisee, IT Assist, on its sale to the franchisor (May 2026), which shows a registered regional bank will take a franchise-scale mandate when the buyer is obvious. Below that, a Double Lehman fee is $180,000 on a $2 million sale (9.0%) and $240,000 on $3 million (8.0%), and a minimum fee usually binds, which is why a business broker on a commission-style fee is the normal intermediary. Two things do not change with size: the buyer at 5-7x is often one of the same consolidators that pays 16-18x for platforms, so a small seller still needs a competitive list; and under 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13) an intermediary selling a company with under $25 million of EBITDA to a buyer who will control and run it may lawfully be unregistered, so ask which entity, if any, is registered before you sign.

Will product resale (VAR) revenue drag down my MSP's multiple?

Yes if it is blended into the number a buyer is asked to capitalise, and much less if it is isolated before their quality-of-earnings isolates it for you. No published source prints a VAR multiple, so the honest statement is structural: a buyer pays turns of EBITDA for contracted managed services and treats hardware and software resale as a lower-margin, non-recurring line inside the same P&L. The best-in-class benchmark data shows the two businesses behave differently: Service Leadership's 2026 report has MSP revenue growth rebounding to 9.6% in 2025 (from 7.1%) with adjusted EBITDA up 17.1%, while value-added resellers grew revenue 8.9% (from 1.8%) on a recovery in product sales while holding adjusted EBITDA dollar growth at 17.0%. What to do: split the P&L into managed services, project and professional services, and resale, with gross margin by line; show resale as pass-through with its own vendor terms; and present the managed-services EBITDA and the resale contribution as two numbers, so the 5-7x or 16-18x conversation is about the right base.

Does my MSP need a SOC 2 report or cyber-insurance evidence before I sell?

Nothing published says a SOC 2 report adds a fixed number of turns, and I will not invent one, but in practice the buyer and its insurer will ask for two exhibits about your own estate, not your clients': any SOC 2 report you hold, and the answers on your most recent cyber-insurance application or renewal, which cover MFA coverage, endpoint detection and response, backup immutability and privileged-access controls. The reason is in the claims data: Coalition's 2026 Cyber Claims Report (March 5, 2026) found initial ransom demands surged 47% year-over-year, business email compromise and funds-transfer fraud still accounted for 58% of incidents, dual-extortion ransomware was 70% of ransomware claims, and ransomware losses averaged $269,000, on an average loss across all claims of $116,000. An MSP that sells security and cannot evidence those controls on its own network gets its client-security revenue discounted or escrowed in diligence; that is a practitioner observation, not a statistic. SOC, per the AICPA, is a suite of service offerings CPAs provide in connection with system-level controls of a service organization, and a Type II report tests controls over a period. Coalition's report lists no required policyholder controls, so treat the application answers as your own evidence, not as a regulator's checklist.

How do buyers use my PSA and RMM data in MSP due diligence?

As the audited ledger of your service business, pulled directly rather than taken from your CIM. From the professional services automation system (ConnectWise PSA, Kaseya BMS, Autotask, HaloPSA are the common examples) a buyer exports time entries and agreement data to compute technician utilization, contract mix by agreement type, effective hourly rate on project work and the revenue that is contracted versus billed on time and materials. From the remote monitoring and management platform (ConnectWise Automate, Kaseya VSA, Datto RMM, N-able, NinjaOne) they export endpoint and device counts by client to compute revenue per endpoint, seats per technician and how much of the estate is actually under monitoring. The market is concentrated enough that a buyer's team already knows the exports: as of Q2 2024 the top five vendors, ConnectWise, Kaseya, N-able, NinjaOne and Atera, represented over two-thirds of the $388 million PSA and RMM software market for MSPs (Canalys, via ChannelE2E, October 2024). Reconcile the PSA to the general ledger before launch; the utilization figure a buyer computes from your own time entries is the one that survives.

How do I check whether an MSP M&A adviser is FINRA-registered, and does it matter?

Search the SEC's adviserinfo.sec.gov firm database for the broker-dealer named in the firm's footer, not the brand on the door, and expect several of the best MSP specialists to return nothing lawfully. The registered names on this bench: martinwolf (CRD 47936), Q Advisors LLC (CRD 127232), Clearsight through RF M&A Services LLC (CRD 154250; Clearsight's own legacy CRD 159543 is inactive), D.A. Davidson & Co. (CRD 199), Kroll Securities LLC (CRD 36927), McLean Securities, LLC (CRD 104117), Harris Williams LLC (CRD 113930), Raymond James & Associates (CRD 705), Guggenheim Securities (CRD 40638), Drake Star Securities LLC (CRD 131338) and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (CRD 79). Solganick returns zero records, Tequity is Canadian with no US record, and IT ExchangeNet shows no registration of its own; its parent martinwolf holds CRD 47936, so ask which entity signs the engagement. It matters because of 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13), effective March 29, 2023: an M&A broker is exempt from registration when it effects the transfer of an eligible privately held company (EBITDA under $25 million or gross revenues under $250 million, unadjusted until December 29, 2027) to a buyer who will control (presumed at 25% of voting securities) and be active in managing it. The exemption is lost if the broker represents both buyer and seller without written disclosure and consent from both, facilitates a sale to a passive buyer group, holds funds or provides financing, or binds a party. State registration rules are separate and not covered here.

What should the data room look like when the likely bidders are MSP consolidators that could poach my technicians and clients?

One room per bidder, staged tranches, and identity on every rendered page, because the natural acquirer of an MSP is a consolidator that can hire your engineers and call your clients if the deal dies. For a $2M-EBITDA MSP running four sponsor-backed platforms and one strategic, I would build it in Peony this way: a separate data room per bidder, with visitor groups walling one platform off from another inside the same process; staged disclosure, with the teaser, contract-mix summary and PSA utilization roll-up first, the client-level MRR schedule, cyber-insurance application and any SOC 2 report in the middle, and the engineer roster by tenure, per-client pricing and the RMM endpoint export last, after a bid you believe; an NDA gate before anything opens, Simple NDA on Business and Advanced NDA with a countersigned PDF on Data Room; per-viewer dynamic watermarks on the Data Room plan so a leaked client list traces to the person who opened it; view-only, no-download and screenshot protection with one-click revocation on Business and up; password-protected links, link expiry and page-level analytics on every tier including Free, so you can see which platform actually read the utilization file; and Redaction on Deal Team for client names in the early tranche. Peony's Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month billed annually, Business is $30, Deal Team is $64, a Free tier exists, and 6,800+ teams use it for processes like this, rated 4.8 on G2 and 4.9 on Capterra. The room is a document-handling control, not a security or compliance opinion.

Sources

• Drake Star Partners, "MSP Market Update Q2 2026: AI Adoption Gap & Platform Scale Drive Large Valuation Split," July 23, 2026 (landing page; the full PDF is behind a download form and was not opened). https://www.drakestar.com/news/msp-market-update-q2-2026
• Solganick & Co., "Technology Services M&A Update, Q2 and H1 2026," July 21, 2026; Imagine Technology Group / DEX Imaging release, August 3, 2026; Columbia Advisory Group / Complete case study. https://solganick.com/technology-services-ma-update-q2-and-h1-2026/ ; https://solganick.com/solganick-was-the-exclusive-ma-advisor-to-imagine-technology-group-in-its-sale-to-dex-imaging/ ; https://solganick.com/case-study/columbia-advisory-group-and-complete-merge-msp-acquisition/
• Service Leadership, Inc. (a ConnectWise company), 2026 Annual IT Solution Provider Industry Profitability Report press release, June 24, 2026, as reprinted by The Cannata Report (the report itself is paid and was not opened). https://www.thecannatareport.com/connectwise-historic-growth-for-it/
• PR Newswire: "Cognizant to Acquire Astreya," April 29, 2026, and "Cognizant Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results," July 29, 2026. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cognizant-to-acquire-astreya-deepening-its-ai-first-managed-services-capabilities-at-scale-302756669.html ; https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cognizant-reports-second-quarter-2026-results-302837120.html
• martinwolf releases: GuideIT / Focus, July 23, 2026; DMD Systems Recovery / Lifespan, June 4, 2026; "AI Disconnect," July 30, 2026. https://martinwolf.com/martinwolf-advises-guideit-on-sale-to-focus/ ; https://martinwolf.com/martinwolf-advises-tailwind-capitals-dmd-systems-recovery-on-acquisition-of-lifespan-technology-solutions/
• CRN, "Martin Wolf Acquires Ohio Firm To Up M&A Ante For VARs," January 28, 2021; "Evergreen Exec On M&A Spree: 'Our Biggest Growth Year Ever'," December 23, 2024. https://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/martin-wolf-acquires-ohio-firmto-up-m-a-ante-for-vars ; https://www.crn.com/news/channel-news/2024/evergreen-exec-on-m-a-spree-our-biggest-growth-year-ever
• Thrive, "Thrive Receives Strategic Investment from Berkshire Partners and Court Square Capital Partners," January 14, 2025. https://thrivenextgen.com/thrive-receives-strategic-investment-from-berkshire-partners-and-court-square-capital-partners/
• Private Equity Professional: "LightBay Backs Centre Technologies," June 25, 2026; "Pfingsten Sells Omega Systems to Revelstoke," January 20, 2025. https://peprofessional.com/2026/06/lightbay-backs-centre-technologies/ ; https://peprofessional.com/2025/01/pfingsten-sells-omega-systems-to-revelstoke/
• Channel Dive: Coeo / S-Net, May 4, 2026; Coeo / NetWolves, August 3, 2026. https://www.channeldive.com/news/coeo-buys-s-net-bets-on-scaling-a-bespoke-support-model/819250/ ; https://www.channeldive.com/news/coeo-boosts-its-fortinet-cisco-chops-145-million-netwolves-buy/826882/
• Pulse 2.0, "Providence Equity Partners Makes Significant Investment in SCG," July 29, 2026. https://pulse2.com/providence-equity-partners-makes-significant-investment-in-scg/
• citybiz: D.A. Davidson / IT Assist, May 8, 2026; Tequity / Stratogent, April 1, 2025; Clearsight / Intecrowd, April 8, 2026; The McLean Group / Highlight Technologies, July 8, 2026; The 20 MSP, June 3, 2026. https://www.citybiz.co/article/843924/d-a-davidson-advises-it-assist-on-sale-to-teamlogic-it-franchisor/ ; https://www.citybiz.co/article/678121/tequity-advises-stratogent-on-acquisition-by-ptp/
• Sole Source Capital, "Sole Source Capital Acquires Brite," January 12, 2026. https://solesourcecapital.com/sole-source-capital-acquires-brite-a-cybersecurity-managed-services-provider/
• William Blair, "1Path Has Been Acquired by Ideal Integrations," December 9, 2024. https://www.williamblair.com/News/1Path-and-Ideal-Integrations-Transaction
• Kroll, "Sell-Side Advisor: Stonewall Solutions," June 18, 2026. https://www.kroll.com/en/transactions/sell-side-advisor-stonewall-solutions
• Alpine Investors portfolio page (Evergreen Services Group, Lyra Technology Group), read September 16, 2026. https://www.alpineinvestors.com/portfolio
• PR Newswire, Integris / First Focus, April 27, 2026; ChannelE2E, Canalys PSA/RMM market, October 21, 2024, and "M&A Talk" on MSPs vs. MSSPs, December 24, 2024. https://www.channele2e.com/news/big-3-rmm-psa-vendors-see-market-share-slip-canalys ; https://www.channele2e.com/video/ma-talk-how-the-acquisition-market-differs-for-msps-vs-mssps
• Coalition, "2026 Cyber Claims Report," March 5, 2026. https://www.coalitioninc.com/announcements/2026-cyber-claims-report
• AICPA & CIMA, System and Organization Controls (SOC) suite of services page.
• 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13), added by Public Law 117-328, div. AA, title V, § 501, effective March 29, 2023. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78o
• Firmex/Axial M&A Fee Guide 2024-25 and Axial 2026 M&A Fee Guide, as carried in our M&A advisor fees guide. https://www.axial.net/forum/ma-fee-guide-2025-2026/
• Firm websites and the SEC adviser-info firm database for CRD numbers, read September 16, 2026.

About the author: Sean Yu is the co-founder of Peony, the data room platform used by 6,800+ customers across M&A, fundraising, and private-deal workflows. He works on the access-control and analytics layer that decides who is allowed to read a confidential document. Peony is not an M&A advisor; it is the confidential room a deal process runs in. Contact: hello@peony.ink.