What one deal costs to originate, and what a dead one wastes.
Two calculations from published benchmarks and your own numbers: the share of your market your firm sees, and the cost of one signed letter. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
The median private equity firm sees fewer than one deal in five of the ones available inside its own stated market.
Where would your firm land?
If you do not know the market count, leave it blank and the benchmark estimates it. Your numbers are not sent anywhere.
How this was measured: the study took 177 private equity firms. For each one, it listed the deals completed in the industries and sizes that firm says it targets, each with a private equity buyer and a sell-side advisor, and counted how many of those the firm saw. SPS / With Intelligence, Deal Origination Benchmark Report, twelve months to June 30, 2025.
What one signed letter costs. And what a dead one wastes.
The published figures below are the starting values. Change any of them to your own and the totals follow. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
Mapping, outreach, qualifying. The role costs $135,000 to $253,000 a year in total compensation, and cannot run a process at the same time.
How long before a new hire knows which names are unbuyable and why, rather than adding them to the list again.
The average by buyer type, from a family office to a senior lender.
The vertical already mapped, and the diligence view attached before the name reaches you. Scope agreed in writing.
Illustrative defaults. Edit any figure. The result is the estimated staff cost of origination under these assumptions: compensation is total annual cost, months are the share of that person’s year, and the dead-deal figure adds the days under exclusivity at the same daily rate. It is not lost profit.
The associate’s time, at the compensation above, from a filtered list to a signed letter.
The origination cost above, plus the days under exclusivity, before any diligence invoice.
Your count of dead letters, at the cost of one.
Compensation range compiled by a sell-side advisory firm from Glassdoor data, August 2024, for a US M&A associate, total compensation. Days under exclusivity from a lower-middle-market deal platform’s study of broken letters of intent, January 2026, averages by buyer type: 37 days where a family office was the buyer, 159 where a senior lender was. The months per letter and the count of dead letters are yours; the calculator does not supply them. Diligence invoices, legal fees and the time of anyone other than the associate are not included.
Discuss a sectorOne vertical already mapped, and the diligence view attached before the name reaches you. Scope is agreed in writing.
Put your criteria on file.
See the rest of your market.
Capital Row helps buyers see more of their own market, with the financials traced to source before the letter of intent.
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