How much does due diligence cost in Australia?

Financial due diligence on an Australian small business acquisition generally runs somewhere between about $5,000 and $30,000. Most buyers of owner-managed businesses land in the middle of that, and the spread is wide because the work genuinely varies. That is a market observation rather than a price list: we do not do this work any more, so we are not the ones quoting it.

Worth saying plainly up front. This article used to publish our own fee schedule for diligence, because we ran it. We stopped in September 2026 and now refer every enquiry to an independent specialist. That makes this page less precise than it was and more useful than it was, because nothing in it is an advertisement for a number we want you to pay us.

Why nobody will quote you on the phone

Most diligence in Australia is quoted hourly, after a call, by firms that price each engagement from scratch. Hourly engagements are open-ended: the meter runs until the questions stop, and nobody can tell you at the start what the answer will cost. That is not evasiveness, it is that the scope genuinely is not knowable until somebody has seen the records. It does mean the single most useful question you can ask a specialist is whether they will fix the fee in writing before they start, and what happens to it if the records turn out to be a mess.

What actually moves the number

• The size of the transaction. Bigger deals carry more balance sheet, more contracts and more at risk, and fees scale with all three.
• How deep the work goes. A fast verification that reconciles revenue to BAS lodgements and tests the add-backs is a different engagement from a full earnings analysis with proof-of-cash testing and a report a lender can rely on.
• How many trading entities there are. Groups cost more than a single company, and the jump between two entities and five is usually larger than buyers expect.
• How complete the records are. A business with a clean ledger and lodged BAS is cheaper to examine than one where the reconstruction has to come first.
• Whether you need it fast. Expedited work carries a premium almost everywhere, commonly around 30%.
• Whether the report has to be addressed to a lender. Reliance changes the professional exposure, and it is priced accordingly.

How to read a quote

• Is the fee fixed before they start, or an estimate against an hourly rate? Ask which, and get the answer in writing.
• What happens if the vendor's records are materially incomplete? The good answer is that they tell you before the extra time is spent, not after they invoice.
• Is the fee contingent on anything? It should not be. A fee that depends on the deal proceeding is a fee with an opinion about whether it should.
• What is actually in scope? Working capital analysis, PPSR searches and employee entitlements are not automatic inclusions everywhere, and they are where findings live.
• Can the report be relied on by a lender, and what does that add?
• Have they done this in your sector? Sector operating metrics are where a generalist stops being useful.

What skipping it costs

Small business prices are built on adjusted earnings, and adjusted earnings are built on add-backs. At a three-times multiple, a single $50,000 add-back accepted without evidence moves the price by $150,000. Against that, a five-figure diligence fee only has to catch one soft add-back, one missing owner wage or one unfunded capex line to pay for itself many times over. And if the numbers hold up, you negotiate and borrow with an evidenced earnings case instead of a hope.

Related costs to budget for

• Legal due diligence on the contract, lease and title sits with your solicitor and is priced separately. It is not optional and it is not covered by the financial work.
• Tax and structuring advice, which needs to happen before the contract is drafted rather than after.
• Building, pest or equipment inspections where premises or material plant come with the deal.
• Lender submission documents, if you are borrowing. Those are work we do still do, and every fee for them is published on our pricing page.

One thing that costs nothing: working out which of those you actually need. Tell us about the deal and we will say which disciplines it calls for, which it does not, and introduce you to the right specialist. We are paid nothing for that introduction, in either direction, which is the reason we can be straight with you about it.