"What is my beauty brand worth?" is the question as founders type it. The honest answer is that value depends less on a formula than on a few things a buyer or investor can check: how the business makes its money, how much of that money repeats, and how much of it would carry on without the founder at the centre. Which of those matters most changes with the stage the business has reached, so a brand with no sales is judged on different evidence from one preparing for a sale. This is a commercial view of what moves value at each stage. It is not a valuation, and for a figure on a specific business, a corporate finance adviser is the right person to ask.
Before revenue: evidence that customers will pay the intended price
Before the first sale, value rests on evidence that strangers will pay the price the plan assumes, and on whether the numbers still work once someone else takes a share.
The evidence that carries weight at this stage is specific:
- pre-orders or first sales taken at full price, not at a launch discount;
- if retail is part of the plan, a retailer's interest put in writing, with the terms it was offered on;
- a unit cost from the manufacturer that leaves margin after the costs of serving the planned channel, including the retailer's share where relevant;
- a formula, supplier and name the brand has secured, rather than ones it is still negotiating.
If retail is part of the plan, calculate what remains at the proposed wholesale price after manufacturing and the costs of serving that account, and compare it with the direct channel before approaching a stockist. If only direct sales leave the required margin, record that limit in the launch plan. The six decisions behind that plan are set out in brand launch strategy, and at this stage much of what can be shown is how well those decisions are evidenced.
Early trading: whether customers come back
Once the first customers have bought, the evidence that matters shifts from whether people will pay to whether they return at a price and cost that still leave a margin.
The evidence is repeat purchase read by first-purchase cohort, each cohort given the same time to return. What this stage adds is that a founder can show customers choosing the brand a second time at full price, with any paid remarketing that brought them back counted as a cost of that sale, rather than only a first purchase that launch activity may have bought. Beside that, put product and customer contribution after returns, discounts and acquisition costs, because at this stage the question is no longer whether the total grew but which part of it would recur.
Growth: margin that holds across channels
When a brand adds retail, wholesale or a marketplace, assess revenue growth alongside channel contribution and dependence on individual accounts.
Consider two invented brands, each selling £1m a year. One sells most of it through a single retailer at a trade margin, with promotions in four months of twelve. The other sells across its own site and three stockists, at full price for most of the year. These descriptions identify different exposures; they do not settle which brand has more dependable earnings. For the first, check the retailer's order history and terms. For the second, check what acquisition, fulfilment and returns leave after each sale. Then compare the contribution each channel actually earns, with net revenue and the costs of serving each stockist set beside its orders, so a large account's sales cannot conceal what it costs to keep.
Three readings separate them: contribution by channel after each channel's own costs, the share of revenue sold below full price, and the share that depends on the largest account. How pricing, packaging and range can pull apart between the two channels is the subject of when direct and wholesale want different brands.
An established brand or clinic: what runs without the founder
For an established brand or clinic, the evidence moves from what the business sells to what it holds: relationships, records and routines that would stay if ownership changed.
Dependence on the founder is part of that reading, and the founder's face built the brand names the discount valuers can apply to it. At this stage it is read alongside everything else that is written down and repeatable. In a clinic or studio, that means rebooking by practitioner, memberships or treatment plans that renew, and a lease that secures the rooms. In a product brand, it means records showing margin by product, supplier terms and how supply would continue through a change of ownership. If one product or factory carries the business, examine alternative supply, the time and cost of switching, and demand for the rest of the range. The change from the growth stage is that evidence of performance is now expected to come with evidence that it can be handed on.
Preparing for a sale: read published multiples within their limits
For sale preparation, published multiples are background to the commercial discussion before a sale, and their usefulness depends on knowing which businesses and periods they describe.
Capstone Partners' Annual Consumer M&A Report, as reported by [Il Sole 24 Ore, 23 May 2026](https://en.ilsole24ore.com/art/beauty-consolidation-slows-but-market-prepares-new-season-but-AIWciLED) (English edition, translated by AI). Reported scope and limits: Average enterprise value to revenue multiples of cosmetics deals, by two-year period. The article does not state the sample's geography, deal sizes or number of deals.. Figures reported: 6.1 times in 2020 to 2021, 4.6 times in 2022 to 2023, 2.5 times in 2024 to 2025
The same Capstone report, as reported in the same Il Sole 24 Ore article. Reported scope and limits: Enterprise value to EBITDA multiples, which the article reports alongside the revenue series without separately describing their sample or calculation.. Figures reported: 16 times in 2020 to 2021, 14.5 times in 2022 to 2023, 12.6 times in 2024 to 2025
Il Sole 24 Ore's own reading of the Capstone figures attributes the decline to higher interest rates, weaker consumption and increased focus on profitability. The article also describes the market as beginning to favour assets with stronger fundamentals, sustainable margins and clear positioning in the wellness, dermocosmetics and mass premium segments. Those are the publication's explanations, not separate measurements of what set each deal's price.
On the reported figures, the average revenue multiple for cosmetics deals in 2024 to 2025, at 2.5 times, was less than half the 6.1 times reported for 2020 to 2021. That comparison is our arithmetic on the published averages. It does not show how any one business changed in value, where a small private brand or clinic would sit within these averages, or whether it would be assessed on the same basis at all.
Questions founders ask about what their brand is worth
Is a product brand valued differently from a clinic?
The constraints a buyer tests are different. For a clinic, appointment length, practitioner availability and room use set what the current site can deliver. For a product brand, production lead times, minimum order quantities and the cash tied up in stock do. Comparing what it would cost to change each constraint gives both growth plans a practical test, without assuming a product business has unlimited capacity or assigning either a value.
Do followers or a waiting list add value?
Treat them as evidence to test, not a sum to add to a valuation. For followers, trace attributable full-price orders and later purchases. For a waiting list, record who was offered an appointment, who accepted and who attended, keeping those stages separate, because an uncontacted name and a declined appointment answer different questions. That record describes the demand you can demonstrate.
Does depending on one hero product hold a brand's value back?
It raises a question a buyer will want answered. A hero product that carries the brand is not a weakness in itself; the exposure sits in what happens if its sales slow, a competitor copies it, or its supplier fails. Evidence that customers who start with the hero go on to buy the rest of the range, and that the range earns its own margin, answers a good part of that question.
Do memberships and other recurring revenue make a business worth more?
Recurring revenue can support a value discussion when retention, contribution and capacity hold together. Track how long members stay, pauses and cancellations, and the cost of serving the membership base at its actual mix of usage. Judge the model on whether the base as a whole earns a contribution, not on losses from some frequent users, and check whether heavy use displaces other profitable bookings before deciding what needs to change.
What the founder can move, and what the market sets
The stages above all end in the same split, and it is worth seeing it whole:
Full-price sales and, if retail is planned, written retailer interest before launch. What no founder sets: The average multiple deals happen to reach in a given period
Repeat purchase by cohort, separated from discounted repeats. What no founder sets: Interest rates and the cost of money for buyers
Contribution by channel and by account. What no founder sets: How many buyers are active in the sector that year
Relationships, records and routines that do not rest on one person. What no founder sets: Which segments buyers currently favour
Read the reported cosmetics-deal multiples as background to the left-hand column, not as a verdict on it: they are averages of other deals and do not isolate what preparation did for any one of them. The left-hand column is where preparation goes, and it is what a buyer reads about the business itself, whatever the right-hand column is doing that year.
To talk about your own business, start a conversation.
Kirsty Newman is Founder of The Boutique Consultancy. She spent almost two decades at some of the largest corporate powerhouses in beauty and luxury, including YSL Beauty, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Lancôme and Rimmel (L'Oréal Group and Coty). She went on to work with a number of startups as they scaled, before striking out on her own. Across this time, she has run seven-figure P&Ls and teams of 16, with direct engagement in venture capital funding and expansion.