Quality of Earnings Cost: Report Ranges by Company Size, Sell Side vs Buy Side and What Drives the Fee

By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT

An owner forwards me a two page engagement letter from an accounting firm. Scope, timeline, team, and one line that says the fee is estimated at $55,000, billed at standard rates. His question is short. Is that normal, and is it worth it?

Both answers depend on things the letter does not say. How clean his books are. Whether a buyer is already at the table. Whether the firm's name will be accepted by the people writing the check. This page is about the price of the report, not what the report is. If you want the explanation of what a quality of earnings review checks, start with our quality of earnings guide and come back.

Quality of earnings cost is the fee an accounting or transaction advisory firm charges to rebuild your earnings for a sale, and for an owner led company in 2026 the published market range runs from about $10,000 for a small limited scope report to $90,000 and above for a full report on a mid sized company.

Quality of earnings cost by company size, in one table

These are market figures from five published sources, each linked and dated. Some are accounting firms, one is an M&A advisor, one is a data room vendor and one is a business listing marketplace. They do not agree, and the next section explains why.

One note on the last source. CT Acquisitions is an M&A advisory firm and says on the page that it has a commercial interest in its own rankings. Its page also gives different ranges for the same tier in different places. I include it because it is the only source that prices by firm tier, which is the variable most owners miss.

For most owners I talk to, companies between $5 million and $50 million in revenue, the realistic planning band from these sources is somewhere between $25,000 and $90,000. That is a planning number. Your quote comes from your books.

Why the published ranges disagree

Put the table in front of three owners and they will each find the number they want. The spread is real, and it comes from three things.

Firm tier. A regional firm with a small team and a Big Four practice are not selling the same product. The lender or fund on the other side of a larger deal may only accept certain names on the cover. The fee follows the name.

Scope. A limited scope report might cover revenue, add backs and a working capital view for two years. A full report covers three years plus the interim period, proof of cash, payroll, customer concentration and a net working capital peg. Same title on the cover, very different hours.

Measurement. Some sources price by enterprise value, some by revenue, some by deal size, and one prices by EBITDA. A company with $20 million in revenue and thin margins can sit in a lower enterprise value band than a $12 million company with strong ones. Before you compare a quote to the table, decide which yardstick the firm is using.

The practical lesson is simple. Do not compare quotes on the fee line. Compare them on scope, the team that does the work, and the turnaround.

Sell side vs buy side: who pays and what each fee buys

The buy side report is paid for by the buyer, after the letter of intent, during exclusivity. You do not pay for it. You pay for what it finds, through the price.

The sell side report is paid for by you, before you go to market. Its fee is the only one in this whole process that buys you time to act on the findings.

Here the sources split. BD Emerson tells owners to expect sell side work to cost roughly a tenth to almost a third more than the equivalent buy side scope, with a five to eight week timeline instead of four to six. Their reasoning is that the report has to survive several buyers' teams, not one. CT Acquisitions puts a sell side report at about half the cost of an equivalent buy side one.

Both can be true. A sell side report built to be relied on by bidders and their lenders is a bigger job than a buyer's internal check. A sell side report built mainly to find your own problems early can be lighter. Ask the firm which one they are quoting.

The refresh matters. Morgan and Westfield notes that updating a sell side report should cost less than the original, but it is still a fee, and a sale that drifts two quarters will usually need one.

What drives the fee up, and what brings it down

The most useful part of the BD Emerson page is not the table. It is the list of what moves a quote. I read it as an owner's cost control list.

What adds to the fee:

• Cash basis or hybrid books. BD Emerson says these add roughly a fifth to a half to the fee, because the firm has to rebuild accrual numbers before it can test them.
• Each extra legal entity, ERP instance or point of sale system, at roughly $5,000 to $15,000 each.
• Consolidation in spreadsheets outside the accounting system.
• A two week turnaround, priced at 1.15 to 1.4 times the standard fee.
• Exclusivity windows under four weeks.
• A delay in the middle of the work that forces a roll forward, at $5,000 to $15,000 for each extra month.

What lowers it:

• Audited financial statements, which BD Emerson says cut the fee by roughly a tenth to a quarter.
• An organized data room before kickoff, worth roughly a tenth to a fifth of the fee.

Look at that second list again. Neither item is a negotiation with the accounting firm. Both are work you do inside your own company, months before anyone writes a report. The cheapest quality of earnings report is the one where the firm finds what it expects, where it expects it.

How to read a QoE quote before you sign it

When an owner sends me a quote, I ask six questions before I look at the fee.

1. Is the fee fixed, capped or estimated at hourly rates? An estimate at standard rates is an invitation to scope creep.
2. How many years and which periods are in scope? Two years and a trailing twelve months is not the same job as three years plus the interim period.
3. Does the scope include proof of cash, a net working capital analysis and customer concentration, or only add backs?
4. Who on the firm's team does the work, and how many deals of your size have they done this year?
5. What triggers extra fees? Late documents, extra entities and roll forwards should be priced in the letter, not discovered on the invoice.
6. Will the buyers and lenders you expect to see accept this firm's report? Ask them, or ask your advisor to ask them.

The sixth question is the one owners skip. A $15,000 report that a buyer's lender will not rely on is not a saving. It is a second fee later. Our page on M&A advisor fees covers the same discipline for the advisor's engagement letter, and cost to sell a business puts the QoE fee next to every other line that comes off the price.

A simple way to judge whether the fee is worth it. Take one add back you are not sure you can defend. Multiply it by the multiple you hope to sell at. If a $100,000 add back at an illustrative five times multiple is $500,000 of price, a $40,000 report that tells you early whether it will stand is cheap. If your books are already clean and your add backs are documented, the report is mostly confirmation, and the case for paying for it is weaker.

Where AI fits in bringing the fee down

The fee is mostly hours. AI shortens the hours on your side of the table, before the firm starts.

The data room. An AI assistant can sort three years of contracts, invoices and statements into the folder structure a QoE team asks for, name the files consistently and list what is missing. That is the organized data room BD Emerson prices as a saving.

The add back file. A model can read the expense ledger, pull every transaction that looks personal or one time, and match each to a receipt. A person still decides which ones to claim. The model just makes sure nothing is hiding.

The questions list. QoE teams send long request lists. An assistant can draft first answers from your own records so your controller reviews instead of writes. Fewer days lost waiting means less risk of a roll forward charge.

Peony reports a Big Four team running a QoE on a clean target in five days with AI tooling. I would not plan around that number. I would read it as a signal that clean inputs are now the main thing between you and a short, cheaper report. For owners running an EOS style company, our AI for EOS companies guide shows how this work fits the quarterly rhythm.

What not to hand over: which add backs to claim, how to explain a weak year, and whether a customer will stay after you leave. Those are judgment calls with your name on them, and our page on what not to delegate to AI draws that line in more detail.

What a cheaper QoE does not fix

You can negotiate a lower fee. You cannot negotiate a better company with the accounting firm.

A cheaper report does not fix a business that depends on you. If you are the top salesperson and the only person who prices the big jobs, the report will say revenue is at risk when you leave, whatever it cost. That is key person risk, and buyers price it in the multiple, not the fee. The only fix is a leadership team that runs the company without you, which is the work of leadership team development, and it takes longer than any QoE.

It does not fix timing. Paying a rush premium to get a report done inside a short exclusivity window means you are buying speed when you needed preparation.

It does not fix an owner who is not ready to sell. I see owners spend $40,000 on a report to test whether a buyer would pay their number, when the real question was whether they wanted to leave. The report answers a price question. It is a poor way to answer a life question.

Who is on the bench for this

Steve Shaw is the fractional CFO on the Leaders ADAPT bench, with twenty years in finance leadership. For an owner facing a QoE quote, Steve does the work that shrinks the quote: the move to accrual, the monthly close calendar, the documented add back file and the numbers conversation with buyers and lenders. He reads an engagement letter the way a buyer's accountant reads your ledger, line by line, looking for what will cost money later. Our fractional CFO page describes the seat.

Sergey Dmitriev, the fractional CTO and AI systems partner on the bench, builds the data room and the reconciliation tooling when the inputs are scattered across systems.

Every engagement runs through Leaders ADAPT. I take the first call, match the partner and stay in the room.

Quality of earnings cost FAQ

How much does a quality of earnings report cost in 2026?

Published 2026 figures put most reports for owner led companies between about $20,000 and $90,000. BD Emerson lists $20,000 to $35,000 under $5 million in enterprise value, $25,000 to $50,000 from $5 million to $15 million, and $45,000 to $90,000 from $15 million to $75 million. Small local firms can go lower, and Big Four teams start far higher. Your books decide where you land.

Is a sell side quality of earnings more expensive than a buy side one?

The published sources disagree. BD Emerson says sell side work runs roughly a tenth to almost a third above the matching buy side scope, because it takes longer and has to hold up in front of several buyers. CT Acquisitions puts a sell side report at about half the cost of a buy side one. The difference is scope and firm tier, so compare scope letters, not headline prices.

Who pays for the quality of earnings report?

The party who orders it. A buyer pays for their own report during exclusivity after the letter of intent. An owner pays for a sell side report ordered before going to market. On larger deals both reports often exist, one paid by each side. Some owners also pay for a later refresh of their sell side report if the process runs long.

What makes a quality of earnings report cost more?

Messy inputs and time pressure. BD Emerson lists cash basis or hybrid books, extra legal entities or accounting systems, spreadsheet consolidation outside the ledger, rush timelines and mid engagement delays that force a roll forward. Each one adds hours, and hours are what you pay for. Audited statements and a ready data room push the fee the other way.

How can an owner lower the cost of a quality of earnings report?

Do the work the accountants would otherwise bill you for. Move to accrual books, close every month on time, document each add back with receipts, collapse unnecessary entities and build the data room before the firm starts. BD Emerson says audited statements cut the fee by roughly a tenth to a quarter and an organized data room saves a tenth to a fifth.

How long does a quality of earnings report take?

Published timelines run from about 30 to 45 days at Morgan and Westfield to four to six weeks for a buy side report and five to eight weeks for sell side work at BD Emerson. The clock depends on how fast your team answers questions. A stalled engagement can add a monthly roll forward charge, which BD Emerson lists at $5,000 to $15,000.

Is a cheap quality of earnings report worth it?

Sometimes. A small local firm can produce a useful limited scope report for a simple company, and Morgan and Westfield cites $10,000 to $20,000 for some companies under $10 million in revenue. The risk is that a buyer's lender or investment committee does not trust the name on the cover. Ask the likely buyers which firms they accept before you choose on price.

Is a quality of earnings report the same cost as an audit?

No, and the two do different jobs. BD Emerson gives an example of a $30 million revenue company where an audit runs $60,000 to $120,000 and a QoE runs $50,000 to $85,000. An audit tests compliance with accounting rules. A QoE tests whether the earnings will survive a new owner. Having the audit makes the QoE cheaper, not unnecessary.

Price the report against the price of the company

The quality of earnings fee is one of the smaller numbers in a sale. What it finds is one of the larger ones. Owners who argue hardest about the fee are often the ones least ready for the findings.

Before you sign any engagement letter, find out whether you are ready for the sale you are now excited about. Our exit readiness read looks at leadership, operations and technology together, and the prepare a business for sale guide and the exit readiness checklist show the sequence. The report is one step. It should not be the first.