What is my automated gate company worth?
What is my automated gate company worth?
How buyers value automated gate & access control companies, what businesses like yours sell for at different sizes, and what moves the price up or down.
It’s the question almost every owner asks us, usually a few minutes into the first conversation. The honest answer is that it depends. Buyers follow a fairly consistent formula, and once you understand it you can get a good sense of where your company lands and what would move it.
- Most gate and access control companies are valued as a multiple of profit, but buyers typically use the fancy term “EBITDA” (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization).
- Size matters most. A small company with up to $2M of EBITDA typically sells for around 4–7x. But once you get over $3M of EBITDA, multiples start to accelerate. The largest platforms in the space have sold for 16x+.
- Within any size range, recurring service revenue, a team that runs without the owner, and clean books push you toward the top.
- The headline price isn’t what you take home. Deal structure, debt, working capital and taxes all matter.
How buyers do the math
EBITDA is a stand-in for the cash your business generates. The multiple reflects how confident a buyer is that those earnings will continue, and grow, after you step back. The lower the perceived risk, the higher the multiple.
Buyers rarely take profit/EBITDA straight off your tax return. They adjust it:
- Add back personal expenses run through the business, one-time costs like a lawsuit or a move, and above-market family payroll.
- Subtract a market salary for whoever replaces you. If you do the work of a general manager and pay yourself little, a buyer will deduct what it costs to hire one.
Most buyers verify all of this with a quality of earnings (QoE) review, done by an outside accounting firm. The closer your own numbers are to what the QoE finds, the smoother the process and the fewer surprises late in the deal.
What gate companies sell for, by size
Size is the single biggest driver of the multiple. Larger companies have deeper management teams, more customers and more ways to grow, and more buyers can compete for them. Here’s how the ranges generally look today.
What buyers typically pay per dollar of profit
Typical ranges for services companies; every deal is different
| Company type | Annual profit (EBITDA) | Multiple | Example value |
|---|---|---|---|
| A small company | $0.3M–$2M of profit | 4–7x | $1M → $4M-$7M |
| A mid-size company | $3M–$5M of profit | 7–10x | $4M → $28M-$40M |
| A large company | $10M+ of profit | 10–14x | $15M → $150M-$210M |
Ranges are enterprise value to adjusted EBITDA and assume a cash-free, debt-free deal. Sources: GF Data (2025), Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report (2026), FIH, Griffin Financial Group (Q1 2026), public deal disclosures, Frostline analysis.
The jump between size ranges is the biggest lever in the whole equation. A company earning $2M at 6x is worth about $12M. The same profit at 9x is worth $18M. That gap is why so many buyers are building platforms: they buy smaller companies, combine them, and the larger group is valued at a higher multiple.
What large deals in the space have looked like
The biggest transactions in access, security and door services show where value ends up once a business is scaled and professionalized. They aren’t comparables for a company earning $2M, but they explain why so much capital is flowing into the space.
| Year | Buyer / Company | What they do | Value | EV / EBITDA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | KKR / A1 Garage Door Service | Residential garage door service platform | ~$2B | ~25x |
| 2026 | Oak Hill Capital / Guild Garage Group | Residential garage door service platform | $800M+ | ~16x |
| 2023 | GTCR / ADT Commercial | Commercial security and fire integration | $1.6B | 11.2x |
| 2022 | Allegion / Stanley Access Technologies | Automatic entrances, installation and service | $900M | 14.5x |
| 2021 | Securitas / Stanley Security | Security integration and monitoring | $3.2B | ~16x |
| 2021 | APi Group / Chubb Fire & Security | Fire and security services | $3.1B | ~15x |
Sources: company announcements and investor materials; FMI Private Equity Sector Brief: Overhead & Garage Door Services (March 2026). A1 value as reported by Reuters (September 2026); terms not confirmed by the parties. A1 and Guild multiples estimated from reported value and EBITDA.
What moves your multiple
Two companies with the same profit can sell for very different prices. These are the factors we see buyers weigh most.
Pushes value up
- Maintenance agreements and monthly revenue from access control, call boxes and monitoring
- Service work that leads to upgrades and new installs
- Commercial, HOA, multifamily, storage and industrial customers
- No single customer above about 10% of revenue
- A manager or No. 2 who runs the day to day
- Trained W-2 technicians with low turnover
- Monthly accrual financials, job costing and field service software
- Steady growth and consistent margins
Pulls value down
- Mostly one-time installation projects
- Heavy reliance on new construction or a few general contractors
- A few customers driving most of the revenue
- The owner holds the licenses, key relationships and most of the sales
- A thin technician bench or heavy use of 1099 subcontractors
- Cash-basis books with personal expenses mixed in
- Earnings based on a single strong year or quarter
Recurring revenue deserves special mention. Buyers pay more for maintenance agreements, access control subscriptions, cloud call-box fees and monitoring than for repair work billed as it happens, because contracted revenue shows up again next year whether or not the phone rings. In the neighboring garage door industry, service-heavy platforms have earned some of the highest multiples in home services.
How buyers think about a deal
Who is buying
- Manufacturers and strategic buyers. Companies such as ASSA ABLOY, Allegion and Nice buy dealers and product companies to extend their service reach.
- Private equity platforms. Several PE-backed groups are actively buying gate, door and access companies, including IronSite (Aurora Capital), Guardian Access Solutions (CenterOak Partners), Citadel Access Solutions (West Edge Partners), Cobalt Service Partners (Alpine Investors) and PassCo (Halle Capital).
- Owner-operators and search funds. Individuals or small teams who plan to run the business themselves or partner with the current owners, often keeping the name and team in place.
- Coalition groups. Groups that bring several local companies together while each keeps its own name, crew and customers. This is where Frostline operates. Owners take cash at closing for the majority of their business, keep a meaningful stake, and keep running what they built. We take the back office off their plate so they and their techs can focus on customers. Down the road, their stake is paid out again at the higher price a larger group earns, often called the “second bite.”
- Competitors. A local or regional company folding your customers and technicians into its own.
How the price gets paid
Most deals combine a few pieces:
- Cash at close, usually the majority of the price.
- A seller note, where part of the price is paid over time with interest.
- Rollover equity, where you keep a stake (commonly 10–30%) and share in the upside when the larger company is sold later.
From headline price to take-home
Most deals are cash-free and debt-free. You keep the cash, pay off debt at closing, and leave a normal level of working capital in the business. After taxes, fees and any debt payoff, what you net can differ meaningfully from the headline number. Ask any buyer to walk you through the full picture before you sign a letter of intent.
Why buyers are interested in gates right now
- Repairs aren’t optional. When a gate at an HOA, storage facility or distribution center stops working, it gets fixed quickly, in good economies and bad.
- A large, aging installed base. Millions of automated gates and more than 100 million garage and overhead doors are in service across the U.S., and all of them need parts, service and eventual replacement.
- Safety and compliance. Automated gates must meet standards such as UL 325 and ASTM F2200, and property owners and insurers increasingly want documented inspections and maintenance.
- Technology upgrades. Cloud access control, smartphone entry, video call boxes and license plate recognition are replacing keypads and remotes, creating new installation work and monthly revenue.
- A fragmented industry. Most gate companies are small and owner-run. In the neighboring garage and overhead door industry, FMI counts more than 15,000 independent operators, about 90% of them with under $10M of revenue.
What you can do now
Even if a sale is years away, a few steps can raise what your company is worth:
- Track recurring revenue separately, and turn repeat repair customers into maintenance agreements.
- Move to monthly, accrual-based financials with job costing, and keep personal expenses out of the business.
- Develop a No. 2, and make sure licenses, key relationships and sales don’t sit only with you.
- Invest in technician training and retention.
- Document safety compliance and inspections.
- Watch customer concentration so no single customer is a large share of revenue.
Curious what your company is worth?
We’re happy to talk it through, confidentially and with no obligation. Many owners find it useful to get a buyer’s perspective years before they’re ready to make a decision.
Start a confidential conversationThis article is for general information only and is not financial, tax or legal advice. Ranges reflect published market data and reported transactions as of 2026, and any specific business may fall outside them.