Who pays and who might buy?
Customer: Agencies delivering recurring automation services
Acquirer hypothesis: An automation agency, SDK/tool vendor or small software operator
Acquisition motives: Buy the head start · Strategic capability tuck-in
Minimum proof to seek
10 paying agencies; 25 live client portals; 200 real approval runs; 2-week independent support/operation drill.
Competition and stop rule
Existing portal tools and the source widget. Vendor licensing and ownership of workflow credentials require prior confirmation.
Stop when: Stop if commercial licensing breaks economics or agencies require unlimited bespoke connectors.
Different tiers, different businesses
A $1k–$10k portal starter can transfer as a clearly labelled code asset. A $10k–$50k business adds paying agencies, deployed portals, clean integrations and a low-support operating record.
Price against verified operating profit OR a buyer-confirmed payback/buy-versus-build case. The target price is a negotiation hypothesis, not a valuation.
The $1m version needs renewals across independent agencies and repeat deployments with measured support cost. The $10m version becomes a multi-workflow client-experience layer with partner distribution. A $100m thesis would require a major embedded-software platform or distribution asset; one portal implementation is not that business. These are distinct future business models, not 30–90-day valuation forecasts. The economics lab backsolves the selected price only after its assumptions are accepted.
- Microns / seller · N8N Chat Widget Builder listingChecked 2026-09-14. Reported exit comes from sold homepage. Detail contains one-time licenses and prepaid credits; do not treat its ARR label as clean recurring revenue.
- n8n · n8n license use-case guidanceChecked 2026-09-14. Client-owned instances, hosting client credentials, and embedding have different licensing needs. Confirm the proposed architecture with vendor.