A 9-Month-Old VPN Niche Site Making ¥19,000/Month Sold for ¥240,000: How "Rankings Still Climbing" Justified a 13-Month Multiple
A VPN-focused site (a subdirectory, no less) with 9 months of operation, 72 articles, and ¥19,000 in monthly revenue sold at its full asking price of ¥240,000. The fact that its SEO rankings were still rising supported a valuation of 13 months of monthly profit. This was the first of two sales by the same seller.
This is a translation of the Japanese original. The Japanese version and cited primary sources are authoritative for all figures.
The Sale in Numbers
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Sale price | ¥240,000 (closed at full asking price) |
| Monthly revenue | ¥19,000 (high-payout affiliate offers at over ¥3,500 per conversion) |
| Valuation multiple | Monthly profit × about 13 months |
| Operating period | Just 9 months, 72 articles, 6,000 PV/month |
| Negotiation inquiries | 4 |
| Seller fees | ¥0 (transfer handling fee of about ¥16,500) |
Why This Case Matters
What stands out is that the sale closed for a site just 9 months old — and sold as a subdirectory, not a full domain. The seller, Onichan, also sold a side-business media site with over 2 years of history for ¥1 million around the same time, and comparing the two deals reveals what actually drives the multiple.
This one was a young site with SEO rankings still climbing, valued at 13 months of monthly profit. The side-business media site, whose rankings were declining, fetched 15 months — but only through meticulous disclosure of its problems. The seller’s own conclusion: “Sites with rising rankings sell at higher multiples. Honest disclosure without falsehoods builds trust.”
What This Case Teaches
An “upward trend” more than compensates for a short operating history. Buyers are not buying past results; they are buying future cash flow, and a site that is growing at 9 months gets valued with its “what’s next” priced in. Put the other way around, the time to sell is while the site is still growing — waiting until you have confirmed a plateau is already too late.
The option of selling a subdirectory is worth remembering. Carving out and selling just one section of a site, rather than the whole thing, serves both the operator’s portfolio cleanup and demand from small-ticket buyers. The deal also confirms healthy liquidity in the sub-¥1-million bracket (4 negotiation inquiries).
The Time Strategy of “Selling at 9 Months”
This site operated in VPN — a high-payout affiliate genre (over ¥3,500 per conversion) — and was sold in a “still small but growing” state: 72 articles, 6,000 PV/month, ¥19,000/month. The seller’s options were: (a) keep growing it and sell after it reaches ¥50,000/month, or (b) sell now for ¥240,000 and move his time to the next site.
Option (a) looks like the right answer, but affiliate sites permanently carry the exogenous risk of Google algorithm updates. If rankings collapse while you are growing the site, its value heads toward zero. “Selling while leaving upside for the buyer” is a trade that transfers update risk to the buyer in exchange for part of the future growth — a rational portfolio rotation for a seller running multiple sites in parallel.
On the practical side, note that carving out a subdirectory requires technical groundwork (separating the domain and analytics, and documenting the revenue attribution). This deal also confirms how cheap transaction costs are in the sub-¥1-million bracket: zero commission, with only a ¥16,500 transfer handling fee.
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Sources
This article summarizes and analyzes the public sources above. Please refer to the primary sources for details.