You've got inbound interest. Maybe it's a micro-PE shop, a strategic buyer, or another founder rolling up complementary tools. The first email feels flattering. The second asks for "a quick overview of metrics." The third wants MRR history, churn, and platform breakdown — by Friday.
Welcome to indie SaaS diligence. It's less glamorous than the LOI headline suggests, and the founders who navigate it smoothly share one trait: they already had the answers.
Here's what acquirers actually evaluate before they wire money — and how to be ready without building a data room from scratch.
Clean MRR data (not just a dashboard screenshot)
Buyers want a time series, not a number you read off a dashboard this morning. Specifically:
- Monthly MRR for at least 12 months, ideally 24+
- Subscriber counts aligned to the same date boundaries
- Refunds and chargebacks accounted for — net, not gross wishful thinking
- One currency, one definition, one source of truth
The red flag isn't a dip in month seven. It's when your Paddle export, App Store Connect report, and spreadsheet don't reconcile. Inconsistency signals either sloppy ops or numbers being massaged — neither helps your multiple.
If you run multiple apps, portfolio-level rollups matter too. Buyers evaluating a bundle want total MRR, blended churn, and per-app contribution without waiting for you to stitch together three CSV exports.
Churn rate: the silent multiple killer
Churn is the metric acquirers trust least when you hand-wave it. "Pretty low" isn't an answer. They want a number, a trend, and context.
Monthly logo churn under 3% is generally healthy for indie SaaS. Above 5%, expect hard questions. Above 8%, expect the multiple to compress — sometimes dramatically.
What they're really asking: if I buy this, how much of the revenue will still be here in six months? An app at $8k MRR with 2% churn is a different asset than one at $8k with 7% churn, even if the headline numbers match today.
Show churn alongside MRR trend. A growing app with rising churn is a warning sign. A flat app with falling churn might actually be improving as an asset.
Platform dependency risk
Single-platform revenue is the most underrated diligence item. If 95% of your MRR runs through one App Store listing, one Paddle account, or one Gumroad product, the buyer is taking platform policy risk alongside product risk.
Acquirers ask:
- What happens if this account gets flagged or suspended?
- Are you compliant with marketplace terms?
- Is there a direct channel, or is everything rented?
Founders with diversified revenue — Paddle plus App Store plus direct sales, for example — present lower transfer risk. You don't need perfect balance across five channels, but concentration above 80% on one platform deserves an honest narrative about mitigation.
Documentation: the difference between 2.5× and 3.5×
Documentation isn't sexy. It's also one of the few diligence factors you control entirely before a process starts.
Buyers want:
- Financial history they can verify without fifteen email threads
- Technical overview — stack, hosting, third-party dependencies
- Operational notes — support volume, known issues, roadmap commitments to existing customers
- Revenue source clarity — what's recurring, what's LTD, what's manual or one-off
The founder who sends a coherent package on day one signals competence. The founder who promises "I'll pull that together this week" signals risk — and risk gets priced in.
This is exactly what an M&A tearsheet is for. Not a pitch deck. A one-document summary: TTM revenue, MRR trend, valuation range, health grade, platform mix, and key risk indicators. It's the format micro-acquirers expect because it answers their first ten questions without a call.
Growth trend: direction matters more than the headline
Current MRR gets the headline. Trajectory gets the multiple.
Acquirers look at:
- Month-over-month growth rate over 6–12 months
- Whether growth is organic or driven by discounts and promotions
- Seasonality patterns (especially for B2B tools with Q4 spikes)
- Consistency — steady 5% beats volatile swings between +20% and -10%
An app growing 8% MoM with clean data and low churn is a different conversation than one that peaked six months ago and has been flat since. Be honest about which story your chart tells.
How Portco packages this for diligence
You shouldn't need a week to assemble what buyers ask for on day three. Portco connects Paddle, App Store Connect, and Google Play into a unified portfolio dashboard — daily MRR time series, per-app health scores, and blended portfolio metrics in one place.
When diligence starts, the free tearsheet generator exports a PDF with:
- TTM revenue and current MRR
- Valuation range using standard 2.5×–4× ARR multiples
- Health grade and component breakdown
- Platform and revenue source labelling
Manual revenue sources (Gumroad, direct sales, consulting) and LTD revenue from AppSumo, PitchGround, and DealMirror codes sit alongside connected platform data — so buyers see the full picture, not just what's in Paddle.
The founders who negotiate from strength aren't the ones with the highest MRR. They're the ones who can say "here's everything" and mean it.
Generate your acquisition-ready tearsheet: portco.io/tearsheet