Independent diligence on small-business listings

Vetted listings.
Verified financials.
No surprises at close.

A small-business marketplace for buyers who want financials they can trust and sellers who want their listing to actually move. Every listing comes with a one-page Diligence Card produced by an independent team of analysts, former bankers, and private business specialists — normalized SDE, customer concentration, the three real risks. Flat-fee pricing. No commissions on close.

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From $2,500
Flat fee. Refundable if we decline to list.
0%
Broker commission on close. Ever.
7–10 days
From documents in to Diligence Card delivered.
12 months
Listing live on Cleansheet, or until sold.
The problem

Most small-business listings sit unsold for months because buyers can't trust the financials.

SDE that doesn't tie

Add-backs that are inflated, family on payroll, personal expenses run through the business, and one-time revenue treated as recurring. Buyers spend 40 hours unwinding it. Most walk away.

Concentration buried in marketing copy

"Diversified revenue mix" usually means one channel does 50% and one customer does 30%. The listing materials almost never quantify it. The Diligence Card always does.

No third-party verification

No one is independently checking the financials in the listing materials. Buyers know it. A seller's own broker can't credibly be the verifier — the structural conflict means buyers discount the package and serious deals stall before LOI.

How it works

Three steps. No surprises.

Cleansheet is intentionally narrow. We focus on the asking-price range and business categories that are hardest to verify without 40 hours of buyer-side work — the deals where independent diligence shifts the closing timeline by weeks.

INTAKE

30-minute call. Documents in 5 days.

Walk through the business, the financials, and your role day-to-day. Pay the listing fee. Send the document checklist (P&Ls, tax returns, bank statements, customer concentration, lease).

DILIGENCE

Real verification. By analysts who read books for a living.

Every line is justified and verifiable. Normalized SDE, channel concentration, owner-hours assessment, lease and supplier risk, three real risks. 7–10 business days to draft.

DECISION

Listed for 12 months — or refunded.

If the business passes, the Diligence Card goes live on Cleansheet for 12 months or until sold. If it doesn't pass, full refund within 14 days. No commission on close. No success fee. Ever.

Pricing

Flat fees. Tied to deal size.

No commissions on close. No success fees. No percentage of sale. The fee is paid up front and refundable in full if Cleansheet declines to list the business after diligence.

Tier 1
$2,500
$200K – $750K asking price
  • One-page Diligence Card
  • Normalized SDE with line-by-line add-back review
  • Customer & channel concentration analysis
  • Owner role / hours / replaceability
  • Three biggest risks, plain English
  • 12-month listing on Cleansheet
Tier 2
$3,500
$750K – $2M asking price
  • Everything in Tier 1
  • Deeper financial normalization (3-yr trend analysis)
  • Lease & real estate risk review
  • Supplier concentration where relevant
  • Buyer-introduction matchmaking
Tier 3
$5,000
$2M – $5M asking price
  • Everything in Tier 2
  • Working capital & debt-like-items review
  • Quality-of-earnings narrative for buyer financing
  • Direct intro to qualified buyers in our network
  • Priority placement on Cleansheet listings page
For context: a traditional business broker takes 8–10% on close — six figures on a $1.5M deal. Cleansheet's Tier 2 is $3,500 flat, refundable. We're not the broker. We're the verification that makes the listing trustworthy enough to move.
For Buyers

Listings that don't waste your time.

Every Cleansheet listing comes with a one-page Diligence Card you can read in ten minutes. Skip the listings that don't tie. Spend your hours on the ones that do.

If you're an active buyer — search-fund operator, individual searcher, holdco, or strategic — get notified when new verified listings go live in your range and category.

Get notified when listings go live →

What you'll see on every Cleansheet listing

  • Reported vs. normalized SDE — and what changed and why
  • Channel and customer concentration, in real percentages
  • Owner role, hours, replaceability, and 90-day transition risk
  • The three biggest risks the buyer needs to underwrite
  • Asking price translated into implied multiples vs. category comps
Diligence Example

This is what verified looks like.

An anonymized example for a DTC apparel listing. The card normalizes reported SDE through a line-by-line add-back review, quantifies channel concentration that listing materials had described as "diversified," and surfaces the risks a buyer needs to see up front.

Verification, not appraisal. Our review of the financials leaves buyers with fewer surprises and serious sellers with credible signal.
Download the full PDF ↓
Anonymized example Cleansheet Diligence Card showing snapshot, financials, normalized SDE, customer concentration, owner hours, and three risks for a DTC apparel business
Who's behind Cleansheet

Built by the buyers and sellers who got frustrated by the process.

Cleansheet was built by buyers and sellers who'd lived inside the small-business deal process and watched it fail the same way every time — inflated SDE, opaque listings, and the time wasted pulling apart financials nobody else had checked.

We're a team of buy-side analysts, former bankers, investment professionals, and bookkeepers who've spent thousands of hours in the weeds of small-business financials. We built Cleansheet because we wanted a better way to vet listings and surface real signal before LOI, not after.

Ready to list?

Find out if your business is Cleansheet-ready.

30-minute intake call to walk through the business, the financials, and the refund policy. No payment until you decide to move forward.

Book a 30-min intake call Send us a note →