I’ve been doing this long enough to remember when selling your MSP meant a handshake with the local competitor who wanted your customer list. Maybe a round of golf first. Those days are gone.
Last year, deal volume for transactions north of $100M grew 9%, per EY-Parthenon, according to EY-Parthenon. PE firms raised funds specifically earmarked for technology services. Shield Technology Partners cut a deal with OpenAI to build AI-native MSP platforms. The money isn’t flowing into this space. It’s flooding in. The cybersecurity M&A landscape is seeing the same dynamics, with PE exit playbooks getting rewritten in real time.
Here’s what I tell every MSP owner who calls me after their first LOI lands — and there’s a real debate about whether PE is turning the channel into a corporate machine — the buyer doesn’t care about your revenue. They care about your EBITDA margin and the contract terms underneath it. And if you’re PE-backed, the employee churn data should inform how you structure the deal. If your margins are under 15% and your customers are on month-to-month agreements, that 8x multiple they dangled in the meeting? It’ll be 5x by the time the quality of earnings report comes back. I’ve watched it happen more times than I can count.
The smart move in 2026 isn’t selling. It isn’t holding, either. It’s getting your house in order — understanding the MSP profitability paradox and where you sit in it — so you can do whichever one makes sense when the time comes.