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.

List your business See pricing →
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.

01 — 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).

02 — 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.

03 — 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 01
$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 02
$3,500
$750K – $2M asking price
  • Everything in Tier 01
  • Deeper financial normalization (3-yr trend analysis)
  • Lease & real estate risk review
  • Supplier concentration where relevant
  • Buyer-introduction matchmaking
Tier 03
$5,000
$2M – $5M asking price
  • Everything in Tier 02
  • 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 02 is $3,500 flat, refundable. We're not the broker. We're the verification that makes the listing trustworthy enough to move.
Example Diligence Card

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 (owner labor at market, related-party labor adjustments, personal expenses removed, one-time items separated), quantifies channel concentration that listing materials had described as "diversified," and surfaces the three risks a buyer needs to underwrite up front.

The card doesn't appraise the business or set a price — that's between buyer and seller. What it does is verify that the financials in the listing materials are real, complete, and properly normalized. Buyers can use it instead of running 40 hours of their own diligence. Sellers can use it to filter tire-kickers from serious offers.

Verification, not appraisal. The card surfaces what's true. The market sets the price.
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
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 →