Only if a competitive process will raise your price by more than the fee. On a genuinely contested sale it usually will. On a one-buyer deal you're paying eight to twelve percent for introductions and a data room.
Below is what a broker does, what it costs at your deal size, and the three questions that tell you which side of that line you're on. We're a direct buyer, so we have an interest in your answer. The arithmetic is checkable either way.
Set your expected sale price. The break-even line is the price a broker has to reach for you to end up level, and it's higher than most founders assume because the fee comes off the top.
A 11.1% uplift is achievable when a process creates real competition. The question is whether competition exists for your specific company, not whether brokers can create it in general.
Worth saying properly, because the honest case for hiring one is stronger than the case a direct buyer usually makes. A good advisor earns their fee. A bad one costs you a year.
A good advisor knows forty buyers in your category and which three are actively deploying this quarter. That knowledge is genuinely hard to replicate from outside the industry.
Running several buyers to the same deadline is the single most reliable way to raise a price. It's also the thing that most justifies the fee, and it only works if the buyers are real.
A clean financial pack, a data room and a narrative that survives diligence. Weeks of work, and doing it badly costs you more than the fee does.
Buyer calls, diligence lists and negotiation take hundreds of hours over months, during which you still have a company to run. This is the underrated part of what you're paying for.
Someone else can push on price and terms while you keep a relationship with the buyer you may work alongside afterwards. Real value, and cheaper to replicate with a good lawyer than most people think.
If yes, a process is worth running and a broker will probably pay for themselves.
If no, you're paying a percentage for an introduction you could make yourself with an email.
If no, that's real work you're outsourcing, and it's the part of the job most worth paying for.
If yes, you've already done the most valuable thing an advisor does in the first two months.
If no, hire someone. A sale you run badly while running the company badly is the worst of both.
If yes, going direct is realistic and the fee stays in your pocket.
The minimum fee, in dollars, not just the percentage.
The tail: how long after termination the fee still applies.
Whether buyers you introduce yourself are excluded from the fee.
Exclusivity length, and what it takes to end it early.
Who at the firm actually does the work, and how many other deals they carry.
Three founders they sold for in the last two years, contacted by you directly.
No. You can sell directly to a buyer and many founders do, particularly in software where buyers are easy to identify. A broker adds most value when several buyers will genuinely compete for your company, and least when there's one obvious acquirer.
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