Owners ask what a broker charges and are usually really asking what selling will cost them. The broker is one line of five, and the others are frequently larger in aggregate than owners expect. Costing all of them before starting is not pessimism, it is the only way the number that reaches your account at completion is the number you were expecting. This page lists the five and says which are avoidable, which are fixed and which depend on choices you are about to make.
The broker, and the lawyers
The broker's fee is the visible one and it is contingent on a sale in most engagements. Legal fees are not contingent: they are incurred as work is done, they scale with how complicated the deal turns out to be, and they are the cost most often underestimated because the complication is not knowable at the start. Ask early how your solicitor charges and what would make it grow.
The accountants, and preparing the business
Accountants get involved in the financial material, in the tax structure and often in diligence responses. And there is the cost of getting the business ready: fixing what a buyer would reprice, catching up on records, sometimes formalising arrangements that were informal. This last one is real money and it is spent before there is any certainty of a sale.
The cost that is not a fee at all
Your own time, and the attention taken off running the business during a process that lasts months. It does not appear on any invoice and it is frequently the largest item. It is also the one most reduced by preparation, because a prepared seller spends the diligence period answering rather than searching, and that difference is measured in weeks of an owner's attention.
Questions people ask about how much do brokers charge to sell a business
Which cost is most often underestimated?
Legal fees, because they scale with complication that is not visible at the start. Asking your solicitor what would make the bill grow is a better question than asking for an estimate.
Can any of it be made contingent?
Broker fees usually already are, in part. Professional fees generally are not, and arrangements that make them so are unusual and worth reading carefully.
How do I estimate my net proceeds?
Take your expected price, subtract each of the five, and be conservative on the professional lines. What tax then applies is your accountant's question and this site publishes no answer to it.