Buying a Med Spa
First, the Ownership Rule
Med spas deliver medical services (injectables, laser treatments, IV therapy), and many states apply corporate-practice-of-medicine doctrines that restrict non-physician ownership of medical practices. Buyers in those states typically use a management services organization structure: a physician-owned entity holds the clinical practice while your company owns the brand, systems, and operations under a management agreement. This is settled practice, but it is state-specific lawyering, and it belongs at the start of your process, not the end. Several states also tightened scrutiny of supervision and MSO structures through 2025.
What Med Spas Trade For
An advisory firm's 2025 review, published on the association's site, puts smaller med spas under about $4M of revenue at roughly 3x to 6x EBITDA, mid-sized groups at 5x to 8x, and regional platforms above that. Read it as an adviser's account rather than the association's research, because that is what it is. The association's own survey measures the shape instead: the average practice runs $1,398,833 of revenue and 81 percent are single-location. Consolidators are active across the category, which supports exits and inflates seller expectations at searcher size in equal measure. Anchor on the small-practice band, not platform headlines.
The Injectors Are the Revenue
Aesthetic patients follow their injector more than the brand, and a practice's production usually concentrates in a few nurse injectors or the selling owner. Underwrite them like the asset they are: production by provider, tenure, compensation against a competitive hiring market, non-solicitation coverage, and whether the seller personally injects a large share of revenue. A med spa where the departing owner is also the star injector is a very different deal from one with an employed, retained clinical team.
Membership Turns Visits Into Revenue Quality
The category's best operators converted episodic treatments into monthly memberships and packages, and 2025 coverage treats a membership base around a third of revenue as a meaningful premium driver. Memberships smooth the demand curve, fund inventory, and make retention measurable. In diligence, read the membership terms honestly: churn, banked-but-unredeemed treatment liabilities, and whether deferred obligations are carried on the books or waiting to surprise you.
What to Verify in Diligence
Compliance first, because it can kill the deal overnight: the medical director agreement's substance (not just its signature), scope-of-practice and supervision protocols for every service on the menu, adverse-event documentation, and controlled-inventory handling for prescription products. Then the commercial layer: revenue by service line and provider, patient retention and cohort behavior, discounting habits, review profile, equipment leases on lasers and devices (often surprisingly large), and any franchise or brand obligations.
Financeability Notes
Med spa acquisitions finance under SBA 7(a) where the structure satisfies state ownership rules, and lenders increasingly know the MSO pattern; expect legal-structure review in underwriting alongside the usual earnings questions. Provider retention agreements materially help the file. Model debt service on earnings net of a replacement medical director's cost and the marketing spend the category actually requires, which sellers routinely understate in add-backs.
Terms in This Industry
Injector retention
Keeping the providers who perform the injectables, because the clients belong to them.
Membership model
Monthly plans that prepay for treatments, turning occasional spending into predictable revenue.
Medical director
The physician who supervises the medical side, required in states where a layperson may not.
Rebooking rate
The share of clients who book the next visit before they leave, which fills the calendar.
Unredeemed packages
Treatments already paid for and not yet delivered, which the law often does not secure.
What the Data Says
An M&A advisory firm's 2025 review, published on the association's site, places med spas under $4 million of revenue at 3x to 6x EBITDA, $4 to $20 million operations at 5x to 8x, and larger platforms at 7x to 12x, while noting that more than 90% of med spas remain independently owned; directional tiers, not comps for any specific practice.
Source: Med spa M&A review by an advisory firm, on the association's site (2026)
The loan program's own requirements use med spas as their worked example: a business needing a professional license is eligible only where its ownership structure meets the state's requirements, and from October 2026 the lender must document that structure in the loan file. In a corporate-practice-of-medicine state that means a management-services structure, and the lender has to see it rather than take it on trust.
Source: SBA SOP 50 10, lender and development company loan programs
The association's own industry survey puts the average med spa at $1,398,833 of annual revenue, 81 percent of them single-location, with 245 patient visits a month, $527 of average spend per visit, and 73 percent of patients returning. A single-location practice near that revenue is the shape a searcher actually buys, and repeat share is the loyalty figure the association measures.
Source: American Med Spa Association, State of the Industry survey figures
Enter earnings to apply this industry's cited band.
A sanity check against asking prices, not a valuation.
Holding a live deal in this industry? Underwrite it with the comps, cited band, and charge-off rate pre-loaded.
Compare bands across industries in the cited multiple bands by industry.
Who Else Is Buying in This Industry
- Thurston Group · Chicago, IL
A healthcare-services firm dating to 1986 whose Alpha Aesthetics platform assembles independent med spas nationally, backed by a $93M financing closed in early 2026 to keep buying.
- Privé Med Spa (into Alpha Aesthetics) · 2025 · A Lexington, Kentucky injectables and aesthetics practice joining the Alpha network.
- 1 more confirmed on the firm's profile
- New Harbor Capital · Chicago, IL
Lower-middle-market healthcare, education, and tech-enabled services; its first aesthetics bet built a med-spa platform from a founder-owned twelve-clinic group.
- MD Esthetics · 2025 · A founder-built medical aesthetics company with twelve clinics in three states, now a platform.
- Shore Capital Partners · Chicago, IL
The most prolific small-business buyer in American private equity: a microcap buy-and-build machine with 87 platforms and roughly $17B managed, built from Main Street-sized acquisitions.
- Empower Aesthetics · 2023 · A medical-spa platform of aesthetic and cosmetic-treatment practices, formed as a national platform headquartered in Austin.
Buyers is the shelf these come from, ordered by who closed something most recently.
Who the Law Lets Own This
Corporate-practice-of-medicine rules in many states restrict non-physician ownership of medical services.
How buyers structure around it: Management services organization (MSO) split: physician-owned clinical entity, buyer-owned operations.
Licensing is set state by state and changes, so confirm the current rule with the state board and your attorney before it shapes an offer. Every trade with a recorded rule is on Ownership & License Rules.
What It Costs to Replace the Owner
The multiples above are quoted on SDE, which adds the owner's pay back into earnings, so they hold only if you do the owner's job. Hire someone instead and the going rate for the role comes back out. For this trade that is usually the administrator of a clinic or care facility, paid a median of $123,860 a year nationally. Subtract it from SDE before applying any multiple, because at a 3x multiple that wage also takes about $371,580 off what the business is worth to you.
Medical and health services managers, BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (2025), national, all industries, before payroll taxes and benefits. Every role, and the same arithmetic worked end to end, is in Manager Wages.
The Numbers That Run This Business
- Revenue per provider
- Membership revenue share and churn
- Rebooking rate
- Injector retention
- Deferred-treatment liability balance