Buying a print or sign shop in Treasure Coast
Treasure Coast has 19 established print and sign shops by our count: companies in business at least 15 years that still file with the state every year and aren't part of a larger group. Of those, 63% have been in business 20 years or more. Most will never be listed for sale, and many of their owners have never been asked.
What it takes to own one
Print and sign shops in Treasure Coast come in every size. Here's what owning one could look like at three levels, from a solid company to one of the leaders, with a small business loan covering most of the price.
- Earns about
- $67,000 a year
- Price about
- $201,000
- Your cash
- $28,000
- Could pay you
- up to $31,000 a year
- Earns about
- $237,000 a year
- Price about
- $711,000
- Your cash
- $100,000
- Could pay you
- up to $109,000 a year
- Earns about
- $401,000 a year
- Price about
- $1.2 million
- Your cash
- $168,000
- Could pay you
- up to $184,000 a year
Earnings are owner earnings: profit plus what the owner pays themselves, before loan payments and taxes. They and the prices are our estimates from public records, not the owners' figures, and we value companies like these at about 3.0 times a year's owner earnings. Your cash covers the down payment and closing costs, and what the business could pay you is what's left after the loan payments and the cushion lenders require. The more cash you bring, the further up you can go.
Age, size and location
Revenue is our estimate from public records, grouped into wide ranges.
| In business | Companies |
|---|---|
| Under 20 years | 7 |
| 20 to 29 years | 6 |
| 30 to 39 years | 4 |
| 40 years or more | 2 |
| Estimated yearly revenue | Companies |
|---|---|
| Under $1M | 9 |
| $1M to $2M | 2 |
| $2M to $4M | 1 |
| $4M to $8M | 1 |
| County | Companies |
|---|---|
| St. Lucie | 8 |
| Martin | 7 |
| Other counties | 4 |
| Town | Companies |
|---|---|
| Stuart | 6 |
What the best print and sign shops have in common
- A base of business accounts that reorder often, with no single customer dominating sales.
- Equipment that's current, well maintained, and owned or on reasonable leases, since an aging press can mean a large purchase soon after you buy.
- Prices that cover ink, materials and labor, set with estimating software rather than guesswork.
- Designers who can produce finished work without the owner.
- For sign work: a permit process that runs smoothly, installers with good safety records, and good relationships with local building departments.
- An online ordering portal for repeat customers, which keeps reorders coming without sales effort.
- Steady work from schools, local governments or builders that buy year after year.
What to check before you buy
- The equipment list with age, condition, service contracts and lease terms, and whether leases can be transferred. Press leases with service agreements can be expensive to break.
- Revenue and gross margin by customer and by product line. Promotional products and outsourced work often carry thinner margins than work done in-house.
- Installation problems: signs that failed, leaks into buildings, storm damage claims.
- Insurance, including liability for installations and coverage for installation trucks.
- Who holds the sign or electrical license and pulls permits.
- Design files and customer artwork: who owns them and where they're stored.
- Supplier pricing for ink and materials, and how much inventory is on hand.
- Deposits taken on jobs not yet delivered or installed, which you'd owe in finished work.
- Waste ink, solvents and cleaning rags, and how they're stored and disposed of.
Questions to ask the owner
- Which customers reorder every month, and what do they buy?
- How old are the main printers, and when will they need replacing?
- What work do you send out to other shops?
- Who holds the license for sign installation, and who pulls permits?
- Have any signs you installed failed or been damaged in storms?
- How do you price jobs, and when did you last raise prices?
- Which customers deal with you personally rather than with your staff?
To learn what these companies do, which licenses they need and how ownership works, read our full guide to buying a print or sign shop in Florida.
Owning a company in Treasure Coast
The local economy
This region covers Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties on the Atlantic coast and Okeechobee and Highlands counties inland: Stuart, Palm City, Port St. Lucie, Fort Pierce, Vero Beach, Sebastian, Okeechobee, Sebring and Avon Park. Port St. Lucie is the largest city and has grown quickly as a suburb within reach of Palm Beach County to the south.
The coast draws retirees and winter residents, and health care, construction, real estate, boating and sport fishing are big parts of the economy. The coast lies in the Indian River citrus district, named for the lagoon. Inland, Okeechobee and Highlands are cattle, dairy and citrus country around Lake Okeechobee and along the ridge near Sebring, with many retirees of their own. Home service companies, the building trades, marine businesses and medical practices find steady customers here.
What's different about owning a company here
The coast is seasonal, with winter residents filling restaurants, golf courses and service schedules, and summer is quieter. Hurricane Nicole came ashore near Vero Beach in November 2022, and the region has a long history of storms, so check insurance, flood zones and how a business came through recent ones.
Water quality in the St. Lucie River and the Indian River Lagoon is a recurring problem, and in a bad year it can hurt fishing, boating and tourism businesses. Inland, distances are longer and the labor pool thinner. A company in Sebring or Okeechobee may be one of very few of its kind nearby, which can mean loyal customers and little competition, but also few people to hire. Most new homes on the coast are going up in and around Port St. Lucie.