body: I'm a software developer who wants to charge companies based off any reasonable metric of worth I can find.
  
  
  For public companies, "Market Cap" is a pretty straight-forward choice. It can be defined as a simple function.
  
  
  
  
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  But [for private companies, it's not so easy](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/fundamental-analysis/11/valuing-private-companies.asp).
  
  
  For what I'm doing, I really don't need a high level of accuracy. I could deal with a tolerance of `+/- 10%`, and just take the low end. But I do need something that can be checked by both parties.
  
  
  These are the methods listed in the linked article:
  
  
  * CCA (comparable company analysis) - basically look up a bunch of public companies with similar attributes, average them.
  * Private Equity Valuation Metrics - appears to require a recent merger, acquisition, or IPO... but should one of those happen, there is an evaluation stage
  * Then rest are even more complicated...
  
  
  
  
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  My current idea is that private companies would check out their evaluation through some standardized tool and then be able to archive it.
  
  
  If I had some means of coming up with a number and presenting it, would it be legally acceptable to define that as their company value in a license?
  
  
  What alternatives to legally defining the value of a private company am I missing?
  
  
  
title: Is there a legal way to define the value of a private company that would hold up in court?