SMB Benchmarks 2026
Hard data, sourced and cited.
The numbers small business owners need to make defensible decisions, owner compensation by industry, valuation multiples, state-by-state sales tax thresholds, and more. Sourced from BLS, IRS, transaction databases, and Rubric Financial's anonymized client engagement data. Updated quarterly.
Free, no sign-up, citation-ready.
Owner Compensation
Owner Compensation Benchmarks by Industry: 2026 SMB Data
What small business owners pay themselves in 2026: industry-by-industry median W-2 salary, owner draws, and total compensation by revenue tier.
Updated June 23, 2026
Valuation
Small Business Valuation Multiples by Industry: 2026
EBITDA, revenue, and SDE multiples for SMB sales in 2026, segmented by industry and transaction size. Sourced from BVR, IBA, BizBuySell.
Updated June 23, 2026
Tax & Compliance
Economic Nexus Thresholds by State: 2026 Sales Tax
Sales tax economic nexus thresholds for all 50 U.S. states in 2026. When you register, what counts, and which states include marketplace facilitator sales.
Updated June 23, 2026
New benchmarks every quarter. Want data on a topic that's not here? Tell us.
Frequently Asked
Questions about the data
- Where does the data come from?
- Each benchmark cites its sources: BLS and IRS statistics, transaction databases for valuation multiples, state revenue departments for nexus thresholds, and Rubric Financial's own anonymized client engagement data where noted. Every dataset page lists the sources behind its figures so you can verify them yourself before relying on them.
- How often are the benchmarks updated?
- Quarterly. Each dataset page shows its own last-updated date, and new benchmark topics are added every quarter. Between refreshes, material changes, such as a state adjusting its sales tax nexus threshold, are corrected as we become aware of them under the corrections process in our editorial policy.
- Can I cite these benchmarks?
- Yes. The data is free, requires no sign-up, and is published to be citation-ready. Link to the specific benchmark page rather than copying figures, so your readers always see the current numbers and the underlying sources, since datasets are refreshed each quarter and figures change.
- Why does an accounting firm publish benchmark data?
- Because most of the decisions we help owners make, how much to pay yourself, what your business is worth, where you owe sales tax, are easier to get right with a defensible reference point. Publishing the data we already maintain for client work saves owners from guessing, whether or not they ever engage us.
Your own numbers
A benchmark tells you the range. It won't tell you where you sit.
Bring the figure you are trying to defend, owner comp, a multiple, a nexus threshold you may have crossed, and we will tell you in a quarter of an hour whether it holds up and what it would take to document it.
Fifteen minutes with a partner. If the honest answer is that you don't need us, that's what you'll hear.