Pricing
What membership costs, what the default path costs, and what preparation returns at a multiple - kept deliberately separate. No blending, no fine print.
The return
Businesses sell at a multiple of profit, so every pound of profit you add - or defend - lands multiplied at completion. The aim of membership is to add hundreds of thousands of pounds of value before you sell. Here is what even modest results are worth:
| Value added before you sell | At completion, at five times | Against the fee |
|---|---|---|
| £100,000 | £500,000 | 40× the annual fee |
| £250,000 | £1,250,000 | 100× the annual fee |
| £1,000,000 | £5,000,000 | 400× the annual fee |
Illustrative, at a five-times profit multiple. Multiples vary; the arithmetic doesn't.
Even the modest first row repays the fee several times over - and the modest row is not what we're aiming for. One avoided mistake - a bad earn-out, the wrong adviser, going to market a year too early - is worth more than a decade of dues.
And preparation decides the biggest outcome of all: whether you complete. Most businesses that go to market never do. The prepared ones are the exception.
The cost
£12,000 a year · On a twelve-month term
That is the whole of it. The experiences, your circle, the Panel, the Black Book, the Minutes and the annual valuation review all sit inside the fee. There is no joining fee, no success fee, and no percentage of anything you sell. The fee is typically treated as a business expense.
The comparison
There are three ways to walk into a sale: alone, advised at the end, or prepared.
| Term | On your own | Sell-side advisory | Rare Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| When it begins | On your ownNever. The first time you learn the rules is at the table | Sell-side advisoryIn the final year, once you've already decided | Rare CompanyYears out, while everything is still movable |
| The retainer | On your own£0 | Sell-side advisory£2,000–£10,000 a month | Rare Company£1,000 a month |
| On completion | On your ownWhatever the buyer decides you're worth | Sell-side advisoryA success fee - typically 1–5% of everything you've built | Rare CompanyNo success fee. No percentage. Nothing. |
| The incentive | On your ownEvery adviser at the table is paid by the other side | Sell-side advisoryPaid when the deal closes - whichever deal that is | Rare CompanyNothing to sell you, and no stake in which way you decide |
| What you're buying | On your ownYour first attempt, at full stakes | Sell-side advisoryOne firm's process, at full occupancy | Rare CompanyOwners who have done it, on call - and the advisers worth hiring, rated by members |
| A £5m sale, all-in | On your ownLooks free. Costs the most - in value lost at completion, often hundreds of thousands | Sell-side advisoryOften £150,000 or more | Rare Company£12,000 a year |
To be clear: when you sell, you should have a good adviser, and a good lawyer, and probably a good tax specialist. Rare Company is how you arrive prepared, and how you know which ones - chosen from the Black Book, on better terms, rather than from a beauty parade in your final year.
The promise
If, ninety days in, you don't believe membership will pay for itself many times over, we'll return your dues in full and part as friends.
No forms, no argument, no hard feelings
Your Rare Value puts a number on what membership has been worth: your valuation, tracked against £12,000 of dues. If the value isn't clearly there, we'll say so before you do - and we won't ask you to renew. A membership that has to re-earn its place is the only kind worth keeping.