What Stapilo is worth today, and how we got there
Stapilo is valued at about $3.6M before new money. The page follows the reasoning in order: where Stapilo can be in three years, what that is worth today, four independent checks, and how they combine.
Chapter 1
Where Stapilo can be in three years
These businesses run webinars, sell courses and fill high-ticket programs through Stapilo. Six of them already pay Stapilo about $2,200 a month in total ($200–550 each; one only for the AI support bot; one of the six, at $450, is the founder's own coaching business). Until the company is registered they pay the founder by bank transfer, without contracts; from then on they are invoiced by the company; this round funds selling subscriptions at scale. Of the $430k+ (approximate: three businesses' client counts × their programs' prices), about $46k was paid through Stapilo's own checkout and can be checked in the system; the rest is high-ticket programs closed by phone from leads Stapilo's webinars and funnels brought in, across its earlier and current versions (the businesses' records, available on request). Activity counts are read from Stapilo's database on 25 October 2026.
1 · What we expect each customer to pay: about $350 at first, about $128 on average by year 3
The first customers are the heaviest users, businesses that run everything on Stapilo. Six businesses already pay Stapilo today, averaging about $369 a month, and early marketing targets more businesses like them, so the first new customers are expected to pay about $350 a month. As Stapilo grows, cheaper entry offers (a single product such as only booking, only the AI support bot, or webinars plus CRM) widen the base, so the average falls to about $128 by year 3.
Why this level holds. We researched more than 80 products: 16 all-in-one competitors and about 65 single-purpose tools, their official prices, and the real average revenue public companies report per customer. Stapilo offers more than any course, community or funnel platform (#2 of 16 on an objective list of 84 features) and is priced 20% below the market leaders. That research puts the long-run average for a broad customer base at about $110 a month: below what Kajabi and Thinkific earn per customer, above single-purpose tools. Stapilo's year-3 average of about $128 sits just above it, because the early heavy users keep paying. Full price research →
2 · How many paying customers we expect: about 2,600 by year 3
We built a channel-by-channel model from Stapilo's marketing plan: founder-led content, guru partnerships, a podcast, paid masterclasses, and countries where the big platforms can't take local buyers' payment methods. It uses published conversion and churn rates, and we checked it against the size of the market and how fast comparable companies actually grew. Three cases come out of it. Full customer model →
Why these weights: we give the realistic case half the weight, and lean the rest toward the cautious side (30% conservative against 20% ambitious), because the ambitious case needs several big partnerships early. The realistic case is about 0.5% of the businesses already paying for such tools.
3 · Expected revenue in year 3: about $4.6M a year (three cases weighted; the realistic case alone is $4.0M)
4 · What Stapilo is worth in year 3: about $18.7M
Software companies sell for about 3–4× yearly revenue: private deals nearer 3× (Aventis, Q1 2026: 3.1×), the public software index between 3.3× (Software Equity Group, Q2 2026) and 4.1× (Q3 2026). The smallest deals sit at the low end, and Thinkific, a slow-growing listed course platform, trades below 1×. We use 4× because Stapilo is still growing about 30% a year in year 3 of the realistic case; at 3× the combined value is about $3.2M (see the stress test), still above step 1's $2.5M.
Chapter 2 · Method 1
Bringing that value back to today
A value three years out isn't today's value: it still has to be earned, and most companies at this stage don't make it. This is the method early-stage investors use most.
Why the value is lower today
Early-stage investors require a high return for the risk, typically 40–60%+ a year at pre-seed, because most companies at this stage fail and the winners have to cover the losses. So the year-3 value is brought back to today one year at a time, dividing by (1 + the required return) each year:
Adjusting for where the investors are
Does money cost more where these investors live, and should that lower the price? We worked it out rather than guessing.
- Local bank rates. Local-currency deposits pay about 8.9% a year, but dollar deposits pay about 2.5% (promotions up to about 3.9%). The gap is mostly the risk of the local currency losing value. In dollars, the investor's safe alternative is about the same as an American's.
- So the honest adjustment is small. What really differs is that there are fewer buyers for the shares later and fewer competing investors today. We price that as +6 points on the required return: 51% instead of 45%.
- The effect over three years: (1.45 ÷ 1.51)³ = 0.89, so about 11% lower, not half. Over five years the same 6 points would give about 18% lower.
Allowing for later rounds
Why each setting is where it is
- Multiple 4×. See "What Stapilo is worth in year 3".
- Required return 45% a year. Most young companies fail, so early investors need the winners to grow a lot; 40–60%+ a year is standard at pre-seed. We use the lower end because the product is already proven in use: businesses sell through it every month. 45% means the value has to grow about 3× in three years just to satisfy the investor.
- Future dilution 20%. Stapilo will likely raise again later. Each later round gives new investors a slice, so today's investors keep about 80% of what they bought.
Chapter 3
Checking it four other ways
Method 1 rests on Stapilo's own forecast. So we check it with four standard methods that don't use the forecast at all: what similar companies are valued at, a scorecard against a typical company, a checklist for companies without revenue, and the cost to rebuild.
Method 2 · What similar young companies are valued at
| Benchmark | Typical value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed median, United States | $5.16M | Equidam, H1 2026 |
| Pre-seed median, worldwide | $5.20M | Equidam, H1 2026 |
| US rounds under $250k from friends and family (cap) | $7.5M | Carta, 2025 |
| Pre-seed median, Europe | $3.30M | Equidam, H1 2026 (Q1 2026: $3.48M) |
| Pre-seed median, Europe (smaller sample) | €2.4M | PitchBook, Q1 2025 |
Method 3 · The scorecard: compared with a typical company at this stage
Start from the typical value (Method 2: $3.30M). Then score Stapilo against an average company at the same stage on seven factors. 100% means average; above 100% is better.
| Factor | Weight | Stapilo | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 30% | 125% | A founder with 26 years in marketing who built the product. No technical co-founder; a small paid team. |
| Size of the opportunity | 25% | 105% | $0.5–1.1B a year already spent on these tools by 400,000–600,000 businesses. A big but crowded market. |
| Product and technology | 15% | 150% | Fully built and working: #2 of 16 on features, with an AI agent nobody else has. Most companies at this stage have a prototype. |
| Competition | 10% | 80% | Strong, well-funded leaders (Kajabi, HighLevel). |
| Marketing and sales channels | 10% | 110% | A professional marketer with a clear partner plan. No audience yet; no affiliate program yet. |
| Need for more investment | 5% | 100% | Average. |
| Other | 5% | 100% | Six businesses already pay Stapilo about $2,200 a month in total ($200–550 each), and they've sold $430k+ through it (69,000 contacts). Revenue is still small, the company is being formed, and the dollar checkout is still to be built. |
| Weighted score | 115% | ||
Method 4 · The checklist method (Berkus)
A simple method for companies without meaningful revenue: up to $500k for each of five things that reduce risk.
| What reduces risk | Up to | Stapilo | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| A sound idea | $500k | $400k | A proven market; a new angle (an AI that runs the whole business) |
| A working product | $500k | $500k | Fully built and used by real businesses |
| A quality team | $500k | $300k | A strong founder; the team is still small |
| Strategic relationships | $500k | $150k | The partner plan exists; no partner signed yet |
| Sales | $500k | $350k | Six businesses pay about $2,200 a month in total, and $430k+ sold through it; revenue still small |
| Total | $1.7M | ||
Method 5 · What it would cost to build Stapilo again
A traditional team building this from scratch: about 10 engineers plus design and product, for about two years. At $60–100k a year per person (Eastern European rates), that's about $1.5–2.5M. We use $2.0M.
Chapter 4
Combining the five methods
Each method looks from a different direction. The ones built on Stapilo's own plan and on real market prices get the most weight; the cautious floors get less.
Chapter 5
What it means for an investor
An investor's money buys a part of the company. To know how big a part, both sides need one number: what the company is worth.
Chapter 6
How the value rises as the plan is delivered
Today's value carries three years of risk. Each year the plan is delivered, one year of risk drops away and the required return falls, because a company with paying customers and growth is far less likely to fail. The value is then re-priced from the same year-3 target, realistic-weighted.
An illustration, not a promise: it assumes the expected year-3 revenue is on track. Required returns are assumed to fall from 51% today (pre-seed) to about 40% after year 1 and 30% after year 2, as proof accumulates. Values are before new money in each later round.
Each step of proof (paying customers, signed partners, growth) lowers the risk and the return investors require. That's why later rounds are priced higher, and why this round offers the most ownership per dollar.
What raises the value next
- Subscription revenue at scale. Six businesses already pay about $2,200 a month in total; growing that to dozens and then hundreds removes the biggest remaining risk in every method above. For example, reaching the month-3 goal of 20 paying businesses from outside the founder's circle is what lifts the price from $2.5M (step 1) to $3.5M (step 2).
- Signed guru partners, which lift the checklist and scorecard methods.
- The dollar checkout and the affiliate program going live.
Chapter 7
What a careful investor would challenge
We read this valuation as a sceptical investor would. These are the strongest objections, with our answer to each.
| Objection | Our answer |
|---|---|
| "It's your own forecast." The future-back method rests on the founder's customer model. | True, which is why it carries only 35% of the weight. The four methods that don't use our forecast give about $3.2M on their own. The forecast moves the result by only about $0.4M. |
| "Revenue is tiny." | Yes, for now: six businesses pay Stapilo about $2,200 a month in total ($200–550 each; one pays only for the AI support bot), paid by bank transfer while the company and its own checkout are being set up. But they pay the kind of price the plan starts from, in different combinations of products, they've sold $430k+ through Stapilo, and they manage 69,000 contacts in it, so price and product are both proven in use. Every method still prices how small revenue is: the scorecard and checklist mark it down, and the future-back method uses a 51% required return. |
| "4× revenue is generous for a company with so little revenue today." | 4× is applied to year-3 revenue, not today's, and it's the median for private software companies; growing companies usually get more. At 3× the combined value falls to about $3.3M. |
| "The conversion and churn rates are optimistic." | They sit inside published ranges: 12% of accounts becoming paying, against 18% for free trials without a card and 3–8% for free plans; churn of 10% a month early, then 4.5%. The conservative case (8% conversion, 6% churn) is shown and carries 30% weight. |
| "You scored yourselves on the scorecard." | Yes. Every score and its reason are on the page. Product gets the highest mark (150%) because it's finished and #2 of 16 on features; competition is marked below average and revenue is marked as still small. |
| "It was built with AI, so anyone can copy it." | It was engineered over about 18 months of development (an earlier version, then the current codebase since February 2026), at least 8 of them with a team of five, with 3,173 automated test files, not prompted in an afternoon. Still, code is cheaper to copy than it used to be, which is why the rebuild method carries only 10%. The real defences are distribution (a founder who markets professionally, plus partner gurus) and that incumbents can't easily rebuild around an agent: see Chapter 8. |
| "One founder, no technical co-founder." | A real key-person risk, reflected in the team score (125%, not higher). Part of the round funds a dedicated team. |
| "It can't sell internationally yet." | Correct: dollar checkout and an affiliate program still have to be built. Both are scoped and funded by this round, and both are milestones to watch. |
| "The leaders are adding AI too." | Kajabi and HighLevel are moving: HighLevel has an AI Employee suite and workflow agents, Kajabi has Expert Agents. Neither has one agent across the whole business today. Stapilo's lead here is real but time-limited, which is why the plan spends on distribution now. |
| "The investor-location adjustment is too small." | Some would argue for more than 6 points. At +10 points the combined value is about $3.6M: the method weights keep the result stable. |
Are we overfitting to a nice number?
We checked whether the result depends on choices tuned to land somewhere convenient. Moving every major setting to a cautious or a generous but defensible value:
Chapter 8
Why the leaders can't simply become what Stapilo is, and where the lead ends
A fair question after the stress test: if Stapilo's direction is right, why won't Kajabi or HighLevel just do the same? They are moving, and the lead in AI alone will narrow. Three reasons make the full step much harder for them than it looks, and the last section says plainly what Stapilo has to win on instead.
- Systems built over 10+ years, before AI agents existed
- AI added on top: assistants and agents inside one product area at a time
- Hundreds of thousands of customers trained on today's screens
- Every redesign risks losing the customers they already have
- Built AI-first: one agent that works across every part of the business
- Every area designed to be operated by that agent from day one
- No old habits to protect: new customers learn it as it is
- One simple, tabbed workspace that lowers the barrier for newcomers
1 · Rebuilding a working system is harder than building a new one
The leaders' platforms work, and they earn money. To become what Stapilo is, an AI agent that builds and runs every part of a knowledge business, they would have to redesign their core so that every area (pages, courses, webinars, campaigns, inbox, ads, payments) can be operated by one agent. Adding a chat assistant on top is easy; re-architecting a ten-year-old system is not. They are moving: HighLevel now has an "AI Employee" suite and agent tools that run multi-step workflows inside its CRM, and Kajabi ships narrower "Expert Agents" for selling and teaching. Each works inside the leader's existing product areas; neither has one agent that builds and runs pages, courses, webinars, campaigns, inbox and ads together.
2 · Their customers are used to how it works
Kajabi's customers have built their pages, funnels and routines on today's interface. A fundamental redesign risks confusing them and losing them, so incumbents change slowly and carefully: they have a working business to protect and little reason to take that risk. Stapilo has no such constraint. Its main market is the new wave of experts entering online business, who learn a platform once. For them, a platform where the AI sets things up removes the biggest barrier to starting.
3 · It was engineered, not just prompted
Stapilo was built with AI, but not by prompting it. It's about 18 months of development (an earlier version, then the current codebase since February 2026), at least 8 of them with a team of five, with every area designed, tested and rebuilt. The current codebase alone shows the depth:
AI made it possible for a small team to build this much; it didn't make it easy. Copying the code is cheaper than it used to be, but reproducing the product decisions behind it, and the breadth already working together, still takes a team and time.
Where Stapilo has to win
The honest conclusion: Stapilo is ahead today in how broadly one agent works across a knowledge business, and that lead buys time, not safety. The leaders can and will move toward it. Stapilo wins if, in that time, it turns the lead into customers: an experience that lets a newcomer launch a working business in days, the first-500 success program, and distribution through founder content, guru partners and countries the leaders serve poorly. That is why most of this round goes to winning customers, not to more product.
See how Stapilo is built: a visual, non-technical tour →
Sources and linked documents
- Price research · Customer model · Milestones and use of funds · How Stapilo is built
- Equidam pre-seed valuations · Carta State of Pre-Seed 2025 · PitchBook European valuations Q1 2025
- Private SaaS revenue multiples 2026 (SEG 2Q26, Aventis Q1 2026)
- National bank policy rate · Local deposit rates, July 2026
- Orrick on early-round dilution