My 90-day checklist to prep a site for sale

My 90-day checklist to prep a site for sale

I sold a recipe site for $31k at a 34x multiple. My first flip attempt, I'd listed cold and got lowballed to 22x because the books were a mess. The second time I prepped for 90 days. Here's the list.

— Days 1-30: clean the P&L. One spreadsheet, every income source screenshotted monthly, every expense itemized. Buyers pay for trust in the numbers
— Verify every affiliate account is transferable or has a clear path; one of mine wasn't, knocked value off
— Days 30-60: kill traffic concentration. My top page was 41% of traffic — terrifying to a buyer. I built up 3 other pages to spread risk to 24%
— Document everything: a Loom walkthrough, the content SOP, the publishing calendar
— Days 60-90: stabilize, don't grow aggressively. Buyers want a smooth 12-month chart, not a risky spike
— Get 12 clean months of analytics with no tracking gaps

The diversified traffic and clean books got me 34x instead of 22x — roughly $9k more on the same site.

The setback: I'd had a 3-week analytics gap from a tag mistake. Buyers grilled me on it. Never let tracking break again.

The takeaway: You're not selling a website, you're selling de-risked predictability. Spread the traffic, clean the books, document the machine — 90 days before you list.