Earned Exits Review (2026): Fees, Track Record and What the Public Record Shows

Disclosure. Earned Exits is a partner of this site and I earn a commission if you engage them. I am telling you that first because this review contains material you would not expect a paid partner to publish, and you should weigh both facts together.

Earned Exits markets itself as the “#1 National Business Broker” for companies doing $1 million to $40 million in revenue. The offer is a free valuation, no retainer, and a fee paid only when the business sells. For a certain kind of seller that is a reasonable proposition, and I will explain exactly which kind.

But their marketing and the public record tell two different stories about how old this firm is and who runs it. Both stories are checkable, so I checked them.

Earned Exits at a glance

Who Earned Exits is actually for

This is the part that matters most, and it is the part most reviews skip.

Earned Exits works in the lower middle market. Their published band is $1 million to $40 million in revenue, and their live listings bear that out: a Midwest finishes contractor at $16 million, an IT managed service provider at $3.9 million, a Texas powersports dealership at $1.275 million.

If you are selling a $70,000 content site, a $200,000 cafe or a small ecommerce store, this firm is the wrong tool. The economics do not work for either side. You want a marketplace, and and our full comparison of places to sell a business, linked further down, lays out which one.

Where they fit is the owner-operated company with real revenue, messy owner-inflected financials, and a seller who has never done this before. That describes a great many trades and industrial businesses, and it is a genuinely underserved segment.

What Earned Exits costs

There is no fee schedule on their website. That is common at this end of the market, but it means you have to work it out from what they do publish.

Their referral programme page gives the clearest figure they have put in writing: a typical company they sell is around $10 million, and their commission on that sale is around $1 million. That implies roughly 10%.

For a $10 million transaction, 10% is toward the top of the range. Lower middle market advisory work more commonly runs 4% to 6%, or on a Double Lehman scale that steps down as the price rises. Main street brokerage at 10% to 12% is normal, but main street deals are usually a fraction of $10 million.

That does not make the fee wrong. A broker who lifts your price by 15% has more than covered a 10% fee. It does mean the fee is worth negotiating, and worth asking whether it steps down above a threshold.

One thing to ask about directly. Their BizBuySell profile mentions refunding “100% of Consulting Package fees from our sales commission at closing.” Refunded or not, that means paid consulting packages exist. No price for them appears anywhere on their own website. Ask what they cost and what happens to the money if you do not end up listing.

The process, in plain terms

Earned Exits publishes a ten step process. Stripped of the branding, it is a conventional sell-side engagement: valuation, agreement, financial preparation, marketing materials, market launch, offer, diligence, contract, closing, transition.

Two pieces of their own vocabulary are worth translating.

“Buyer Ready Financials” and the “Midas Touch” add-backs process mean recasting your profit and loss into seller’s discretionary earnings or adjusted EBITDA. In practice that means identifying personal expenses run legitimately through the business and adding them back so the true earning power shows.

This is standard brokerage practice under a proprietary name, and it is also the single most valuable thing a broker does for an owner-operated company. Most owners understate their real earnings by a wide margin. Fixing that presentation is usually worth more than anything that happens later in the negotiation.

“Trifecta Team” means a three person pod on your account: a partner, a CFO and a senior marketing director, backed by a claimed network of 25 professionals.

The track record, claimed against verifiable

Here is where the marketing and the record separate.

None of that means the people are inexperienced. Combined career figures are a legitimate thing to cite when a new firm is founded by veterans. The problem is the framing: a homepage that says “30+ years” and “$2B+” without the word combined invites you to read it as the company’s record, and it is not.

Reviews and ratings: there are none

I check third party ratings on every company I write about. Star scores from Trustpilot, BBB, Google and Yelp are the first thing most readers want.

Earned Exits has no rating anywhere I could find. No BBB profile. No Trustpilot profile. No Yelp listing. No Glassdoor page. No Clutch profile. Their BizBuySell broker profile exists but carries no rating and no reviews.

For a three year old firm that is not damning on its own. Plenty of good businesses have no review footprint. But it does mean there is no independent customer feedback to weigh, and you should know that before you read the awards.

The awards are paid press releases

The homepage carries award badges and the “#1 National Business Broker” line. I traced where they come from.

• The “Best Business Brokers USA 2026 Rankings” that place Earned Exits first were compiled by IRAEmpire LLC and distributed as a paid press release, with no affiliate or paid placement disclosure.
• IRAEmpire’s own review of the firm gives an “Expert Score” of 4.8 out of 5 while conceding that customer reviews “are not readily available.”
• Every other favourable review I found carries an affiliate disclosure or routes its buttons through affiliate links.

To be fair, this site is an affiliate too, which is why the disclosure sits at the top of this page. The difference I would point to is that we publish the licence records and the regulatory history as well.

What the public record shows

This is the section a partner would rather I left out. I am including it because we publish regulatory history on every company we review, and applying a softer standard to a company that pays us would make every other review on this site worth less.

The registered agent of Earned Exits, LLC is a respondent in a settled 2019 SEC enforcement action.

The chain is a matter of public record and you can follow it yourself:

• Colorado Secretary of State records show Earned Exits, LLC (entity 20231832302, formed 9 August 2023) with registered agent Michael Anthony DeJager at a Highlands Ranch address.
• The same records show TitleCard Capital Group, LLC with the identical registered agent.
• SEC administrative order IA-5350, dated 17 September 2019, names as respondent “Michael A. DeJager, age 42, a resident of Highlands Ranch, Colorado,” who “has been the chief financial officer, chief compliance officer, and valuation committee member of TCCG,” meaning TitleCard Capital Group.

The SEC found that DeJager “helped draft the quarterly reports and PPM Supplement, which included the materially false valuations.” He was found to have caused violations of Section 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act and Rule 206(4)-8, ordered to cease and desist, and ordered to pay a $15,000 civil money penalty.

Context that matters. This was settled without admitting or denying the findings, which is how the large majority of SEC administrative matters conclude. It dates from 2019, it concerned a different company, and it predates the formation of Earned Exits by four years. It was a civil regulatory matter, not a criminal one, and no criminal charge was brought against him.

The Freedom Factory connection

The wider matter is worth understanding because of where both Earned Exits principals worked before founding it.

The 2019 SEC actions arose from schemes run by Tyler Tysdal of Lone Tree, Colorado, the founder of a business brokerage called Freedom Factory. Tysdal settled with the SEC for disgorgement, interest and a $320,000 penalty plus a three year associational bar.

Separately, the Denver District Attorney announced in June 2021 that Tysdal pleaded guilty to securities fraud in two cases, involving Cobalt Sports Capital and Curious Cork Imports, with restitution obligations exceeding $18 million.

To be completely clear about what this is and is not: Tysdal’s criminal case concerned Cobalt Sports Capital and Curious Cork Imports. It did not concern Earned Exits, which did not exist at the time, and the Earned Exits principals were not criminally charged in it. What is fair to say is that the people now running Earned Exits came out of an organisation whose founder was convicted of securities fraud, and that one of them settled a related civil matter with the SEC.

You can weigh that however you like. Some readers will consider a $15,000 settled civil penalty from seven years ago at a different company to be old news. Others will want to ask about it on the first call. Both are reasonable. What is not reasonable is not being told.

Licensing

Colorado has no dedicated “business broker” licence. A real estate broker licence is required only when the transaction involves a change in an interest in real estate, and Colorado reads that broadly enough that a leasehold can be sufficient, which captures a lot of bricks and mortar deals.

Their BizBuySell profile states “Licensed in Colorado.” I searched the Colorado Division of Real Estate current licensee dataset and the DORA professional licence dataset and found no current record under either principal’s surname. That wording may simply mean the states they serve rather than a licence held, so I am not going to claim they are unlicensed.

What I would do is ask directly: does the person handling my sale hold a Colorado real estate broker licence, and will my transaction involve real property or a lease? If the answer to the second is yes, the answer to the first matters.

Pros and cons

• Free valuation with no obligation and no retainer, so the cost genuinely sits with them until closing
• Specialised in the $1M to $40M revenue band instead of trying to serve every seller
• Add-backs work on the financials before going to market, which is where most of the value is won in an owner-operated sale
• Dedicated three person team rather than a single agent juggling twenty listings
• Consulting package fees are refunded out of the commission if you list with them
• No independent rating anywhere: no BBB, Trustpilot, Yelp, Glassdoor or Clutch profile exists
• The firm is three years old, while the marketing leads with “30+ years” and “$2B+” without saying those are combined career figures
• The registered agent is a respondent in a settled 2019 SEC action, disclosed above
• No fee schedule published, and the implied 10% is high for a $10M transaction
• Consulting package prices are not disclosed anywhere on their own site
• No about page, no named team, and none of the claimed 25 professionals are identified
• The “#1 National Business Broker” badge comes from a paid press release, not independent recognition

Should you use them?

If your business does $1 million to $40 million in revenue, a free valuation with no retainer costs you nothing but a conversation, and the add-backs work is real value. Take the valuation. Then ask the questions below before you sign anything.

If you are below that band, this is not your firm, and no amount of good service changes that. Use the comparison box below to find the right marketplace instead.

Whoever you use, do not sign an exclusive longer than six months, and get the fee in writing with any step-downs spelled out.

Questions to ask on the first call

• What is your fee, and does it step down above a threshold? (See what other brokers actually charge for comparison.)
• What do the consulting packages cost, and what happens to that money if I do not list?
• How long is the exclusive, and what happens if I bring my own buyer?
• Who specifically will be on my three person team, and what have they sold in my industry?
• How many businesses has Earned Exits, LLC itself closed since 2023?
• Does anyone on my deal hold a Colorado real estate broker licence?

Related reading

• How much can you sell your business for, the valuation guide to read before any broker call
• How to sell a business in 2026, the full process from preparation to closing
• Selling a business in Colorado, which is where Earned Exits is based
• Selling a business in Texas, one of the states they list in
• Selling a business in Tennessee, another state with a live Earned Exits listing

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Amine Rahal

Amine is an entrepreneur, investor and financial writer that covers the US economy, inflation, alternative investments, cryptocurrencies and more. He has been involved in the space for over a decade.