A combined daycare and grooming site is usually sold as one number. Turnover, profit, done.
It is the wrong shape for the conversation, and it costs sellers money in both directions. The stronger half gets valued at the weaker half's multiple, and the weaker half's problems get attributed to the whole business.
You are running two operations that happen to share a roof, a rates bill and a payroll. Present them that way.
Two profit and loss statements, honestly allocated
Split rent by floor area. Split wages by where the hours actually go, which means someone tracking it for a fortnight rather than guessing. Split the utilities, the insurance, the software, the lot.
Then look at what you have, because most owners are mildly surprised.
Grooming usually turns out to carry a better margin per hour and a worse margin per square metre. Daycare is the opposite: it eats the floor, it fills it, and it produces a steady, predictable, lower-margin day rate. Both are fine. But a buyer valuing a grooming table on a daycare multiple, or the reverse, is a buyer arguing against your price with your own numbers.
If the split shows one side losing money once overhead is allocated, you have a year to fix it or close it. Selling a loss-making line inside a profitable business does not raise the price. It raises the buyer's suspicion about everything else.
The cross-sell is the whole argument
Here is what you have that a standalone salon and a standalone daycare do not: a dog that is already in the building.
The daycare parent who books a groom on a Wednesday does not organise a separate trip, a separate drop-off or a separate morning. They tick a box. That convenience is why the combined model exists, and it is the specific thing a buyer is paying a premium for.
So measure it rather than describe it.
- What share of daycare households booked at least one groom in the last twelve months
- What a cross-sold household is worth per year against a daycare-only one
- What share of your grooming book originates in daycare, and what share came in off the street
- Whether cross-sold households stay longer, which they almost always do
If those numbers are strong, they are the best thing in your data room. If they are weak, you have found the highest-return project of your final year, and it is a project you can genuinely finish: the customers are already on site, the service already exists, and the only missing piece is the ask.
Petboost reports customers and revenue by service and by category, so the overlap is a query rather than a spreadsheet exercise. Run it for three years so the trend is visible.
The risks are not symmetrical, and a buyer knows it
Grooming walks. The grooming half is attached to a person. If you or a senior groomer holds the relationships, that revenue is at risk the day you leave, and a buyer will discount it accordingly. Written agreements and a reasonable restraint of trade for the groomers matter more here than anywhere else in the deal, because the groomer who leaves takes a slice of the daycare book with them.
Daycare is structural. The daycare half is attached to a floor, an approval, a ratio and a routine. It transfers better. It is also capped: you cannot serve more dogs than the consent and the space allow, and the good days are usually already full.
Say both of those out loud in the sale process. A seller who volunteers where the risk sits is believed on everything else.
The collision a buyer will ask about
Every combined site has the same operational tension and an experienced buyer will go straight to it.
The groom happens while the dog is in daycare. That is the offer. It means a member of staff leaves the floor to work the table, which changes the ratio, which means either you were over-staffed on the floor or you are now under-staffed. Somebody has to hold both diaries in their head.
Whoever is doing that today is part of what you are selling. If it is you, standing in the middle translating between two schedules, write down how it works. Which days grooms are accepted. How many per day. Who covers the floor. What happens when a dog is too wound up after play to be groomed safely.
That document is worth real money in a sale, because it turns a skill into a system.
The rest of the preparation
Everything in the standalone posts applies to the relevant half, so work through both.
From the daycare side: the prepaid package liability comes off your price, so stop selling packs, convert regulars to memberships, and run the balance down over twelve months. Present attendance by day of week rather than an average.
From the grooming side: the rebooking rate and the forward diary set the price, and the book needs to be attached to the shop rather than to your hands.
Shared across both: check the development consent covers both activities. A site approved for daycare and used for grooming, or the reverse, has a revenue line the new owner may not be able to keep. Check the lease term and exercise the option before you list. Get the accrued entitlements per employee. And talk to an accountant early about structure, because the small business capital gains tax concessions have tests that take time to satisfy.
Some buyers only want one half
Worth deciding before you list, because it changes who you market to.
A groomer buying their first site may want the salon and view the daycare as a headache. A daycare operator expanding may want the floor and close the table. Either can be a good outcome at the right price, and both will value the combined business lower than someone who wants the whole thing.
If you would rather sell it whole, the cross-sell numbers are the argument. They are the proof that the two halves are worth more together than apart, and without them you are asking a buyer to take that on faith.
See Reporting and Intelligence · Petboost for daycare and grooming · Buying a combined business