Ask HN: What's my profitable startup worth? (detailed stats provided)

I've been running a US-based real estate related startup for a few years. I handle all aspects of the business myself from coding thru customer service and I've set it up so that it can run on auto-pilot for long periods of time (ie. months) while I focus on other interests. It's never been marketed, doesn't have a blog or any social presence. It does however have some great clients & industry partners who view my business as being more than a one person show. I have previously received multiple buyout offers, but until now I haven't seriously considered selling and I'm not sure if I actually will or not.

TRAFFIC

2013: 1.4M sessions, 5.4M pageviews & 33% bounce (60% desktop, 32% mobile & 8% tablet)

2014: 1.7M sessions, 6.2M pageviews & 54% bounce (42% desktop, 48% mobile & 10% tablet)

2015: 2.5M sessions, 10.8M pageviews & 54% bounce (28% desktop, 64% mobile & 6% tablet)

Source of traffic: 50% organic, 37% referral, 13% direct & 0% social

REVENUE

2013: $135k revenue - $2k expenses = $130k profit

2014: $105k revenue - $5k expenses = $100k profit

2015: $140k revenue - $5k expenses = $135k profit

Source of revenue: 30% AdSense, 20% users & 50% affiliate marketing

Expenses: hosting & credit card processing fees

2014 revenue reduction: caused by affiliate marketer closing their program

For obvious reasons, I’m using a throwaway account, but I will answer followup questions. However, I won’t disclose the name of my startup or it's address.

So what do you think my startup is worth?

Congratulations on your success thus far.

There are several pricing models one can use for small business valuation. In this case, your company earns revenue using advertising (AdSense and affiliate). Companies like this are priced differently from e.g. SaaS startups which are in turn priced differently from companies selling enterprise desktop software.

The industry standard for ad revenue companies is a 20-24x multiplier on the most recent (sustained, not outlying) monthly profits. Specifically, it would be the following:

(20..24(135/12)) = 225 - 275

There is your answer. Your company would likely fetch between 225k (cheap) to 275k (expensive). Most folks on marketplaces like Flippa (which is where predominantly ad-revenue companies like yours are brokered) would value it as such.

There are other factors which can inflate the price of your company to maybe a 30x monthly profit valuation, but in general that will be the range. It's good that most of your traffic comes from organic searches, advertising arbitrage is risky and often results in a downgrade.

you might need a few more years of data to get a decent discounted free cash flow valuation.

I'm just curious, how long did it take you to get up to 5M page views?

Can you please explain where 20-24x multiplier industry standard number comes from?