How much are legal fees for a business?

How much, as a percentage, did you pay in legal fees when selling your business?

• I am selling a SaaS business with annual revenues of $5MM.  I owe 45% and my partner and another friend are buying me out.  How much should I expect to pay in legal fees? Any approximation is appreciated.

• Answer:

  As a ballpark in your situation, I would think a top tier small or boutique firm in might charge you $5,000 to $10,000 for your end of the transaction assuming it's in the $20 million range if you can get the buyers to prepare most of the paperwork, which would cost them somewhat more.  More at a big firm, if you have to do all the paperwork, or if there are complications like a dispute to resolve or an earn-out / loan strategy.  These projects can go way over budget / estimate if you don't watch the legal fees and manage the process - see if you can get a firm estimate or cost not to exceed.  It should be a simple transaction without many representations, due diligence, or disclosures, because presumably buyer and seller are all aware of the material facts of the business to begin with.  Just make sure your business partners don't have something up their sleeve, like a buyer lined up with plans to flip your interest for an immediate profit.  Also beware of any lingering third party liability, personal guarantees you've made, etc.  You should also get some personal tax advice. Selling a business outright to a third party buyer, as the question implies, is a much more complex transaction.  It's not a fixed percentage.  Selling a SaaS business for $100,000 might take $5-10K in legal fees and perhaps 10% for a business broker.  Selling a business for $100 million might be $150,000 in fees.  Other than the obvious fact that a bigger business has more moving parts to deal with in a sale, when the dollar amount gets higher both parties give the deal more attention and therefore tend to hire higher-priced lawyers and go over the details more thoroughly.  Also, a SaaS business is probably less expensive to sell because it doesn't have a lot of complex business relationships, inventory, leases, assets, personnel issues, etc., the assets and liabilities should be pretty straightforward and clean.  Selling, say, a retail clothing chain is going to be more costly at the same dollar level.