Financial Data — SDC

Confidence: overwhelmingly Estimated / Assumed. US LLCs file zero public financials (no equivalent of German Jahresabschluss, Dutch jaarrekening, or Cyprus abridged accounts). Single third-party anchor: RocketReach "~$10.5M (2026)" revenue estimate — itself an algorithmic estimate, not audited. Bear-case bias applied per rules/analysis-rules.md.

Traffic baseline (inputs for estimates)

  • Similarweb: #13,557 global / #382 Adult, March 2026 — Verified
  • Implied monthly visits: ~600k–1.2M (bear 600k, base 900k, bull 1.2M) — Estimated
  • Walled-garden paid-only model → expect higher visit-to-paying-user conversion than freemium rivals (SpicyMatch, JoyClub). Top-of-funnel is structurally smaller but monetization is denser.
  • App footprint: iOS + Android present, but review base is modest — true paying-user share is probably web-dominant — Estimated
  • Geography: US + Western Europe core. Assumed ~50% US, ~30% EU (UK/DE/NL/BE/FR), ~15% LATAM, ~5% RoW.

Revenue (TTM)

  • Third-party anchor: RocketReach 2026 estimate $10.5M ≈ €9.7M at 1 USD = 0.925 EUR — Estimated, unaudited
  • Workspace bear-case range: €6M / €9M / €13M (low / base / high)

Derivation (base case, all Estimated)

Three independent triangulation methods:

Method A — Traffic × conversion × ARPU

  • Monthly visits: 900k → unique monthly visitors ~550k (1.6 sessions/visitor, walled-garden drives repeat logins higher than freemium)
  • Free-trial signup rate: 6% of uniques = 33k/mo new trials
  • Trial-to-paid conversion: 18% = ~6,000 new paying users/mo (walled-garden model pre-selects intent)
  • Steady-state concurrent paying users: ~28,000 (assuming 4.7-month average subscription life)
  • Blended ARPU: ~$24/mo (mix skewed toward 1-mo at $25.95 with meaningful lifetime-buy cohort at $250 one-off)
  • Annualized: 28,000 × $24 × 12 = $8.06M (≈€7.5M)

Method B — Member-claim × realistic paid share

  • Marketing claim: "~4M members" (cumulative registrations, mostly inactive)
  • Realistic active base: 2% of cumulative = 80,000 MAU
  • Paying ratio among MAU: 28% (very high, but walled-garden has no free tier = almost all sustained logins are paid) = ~22,400 paying
  • ARPU $25/mo → annualized $6.72M (≈€6.25M)

Method C — RocketReach anchor

  • $10.5M (≈€9.7M) — Estimated by third party

Method D — Travel vertical add-on

  • Own-branded cruise + resort takeovers (Ibiza, Cap d'Agde, Crete, Cancun)
  • Assume 4–8 takeover events/yr, 200–400 pax/event, €400–€1,200 agency margin per pax (not ticket price — margin only) = €0.3M–€3.8M incremental revenue
  • Base assumption: €1.5M travel-vertical gross margin contribution on top of subscription base
  • Important: travel gross revenue (ticket + resort) could be 10–25x the margin figure and inflate any "gross revenue" claim — diligence must separate gross vs net-of-pass-through

Triangulation: Methods A ($8.1M) + B ($6.7M) sit below Method C ($10.5M); the $2–4M gap is almost exactly the travel-vertical range from Method D → internally consistent. Base €9M adopted.

Profitability (bear-case model)

  • Gross margin (subscription): 78–85% — Assumed. Paid-only = minimal freemium bandwidth waste. Main COGS: hosting/CDN, moderation, payment fees.
  • Gross margin (travel): 15–30% — Estimated. Tour-operator economics, pass-through heavy.
  • Blended gross margin: 65–75% — Estimated
  • EBITDA margin: 35–50% — Estimated. 27-year bootstrapped brand, lean team (6 FTE), paid-only model = very high leverage. The $10.5M / 6 FTE ratio implies $1.75M revenue per head — if real, this is an extraordinarily high-quality asset.
  • Sanity check: 6 FTE is almost certainly an undercount (no way to run cruise takeovers + moderation + 27 years of product with 6 people). Adjust to 10–15 loaded FTE (including contractors, outsourced moderation).
  • EBITDA € (base case): €2.7M – €4.0M at €9M revenue × 30–45% margin

Unit economics (all Estimated)

  • MAU: ~80k
  • Paying users (concurrent): ~22k–28k
  • ARPU: ~$24/mo (≈€22); ~€140/year per paying user after churn
  • CAC: €12–€25 — primarily brand + organic + affiliate; Google/Meta adult-ad bans remove the obvious paid lever
  • LTV: €140–€260 — 6–12 month average subscription, buoyed by meaningful lifetime-buy cohort
  • LTV:CAC: ~6:1–10:1 — walled-garden model filters for high intent
  • Churn: ~18%/month on monthly plans (walled-garden has lower tolerance for lurking = higher churn on monthly) — Assumed
  • Payback: <3 months — Estimated

Cost structure (% of revenue, Estimated)

Line % Notes
Hosting / infra 4–7% Mature infra, 27 years, probably over-provisioned legacy
Payment processing 6–9% US-based high-risk MCC; likely CCBill / Epoch / Segpay
Content moderation 3–6% Small in-house + automated; BBB complaints suggest under-resourced support
Marketing 5–10% Low — brand-led + affiliates + SDC Media content flywheel
Salaries 15–25% 6–15 FTE at US blended $120k
Travel ops COGS 8–15% Pass-through + event staffing (offset by travel revenue line)
Legal / compliance 2–4% 2257, DMCA, state AG exposure
Other (apps, tools) 2–4%
Total OPEX 45–70% Leaves 30–55% EBITDA

Red flags on financial data

  • Zero public filings — US LLCs file no accounts. Even an annual report to NC SoS is a one-page status, not a P&L.
  • BBB F-rating with unanswered complaints — may indicate either support under-resourcing or chargeback/refund disputes. Chargeback ratio is the single most important unknown metric (US acquirers terminate at ~1%).
  • "SDC Media LLC" vs "SDC Media, Inc." naming inconsistency — financial statements (if provided) must clarify which entity earned the revenue.
  • Travel-vertical revenue boundary — gross vs net-of-pass-through is a 10x swing on reported revenue; seller must break this out.
  • RocketReach $10.5M anchor is itself an estimate — not a seller-confirmed number. Real figure could be €5M or €15M.
  • Cash position, processor-held reserves, chargeback ratios, refund rates — all Unknown
  • Tax exposure: LLC pass-through means CEO's personal tax returns would show the real number — obtainable only with seller cooperation under NDA

Sources

  • rocketreach.co (RocketReach SDC.com profile — $10.5M revenue estimate 2026, 6 employees)
  • similarweb.com/website/sdc.com (rank, category rank)
  • bbb.org (SDC Media LLC profile — BBB F, complaints, address)
  • dnb.com (D&B SDC Media, Inc. profile — naming inconsistency, address)
  • beyondages.com, datingscout.com, sdcswinger.net, swingersavenue.com (2025–2026 reviews — pricing verified)
  • cruisecritic.com (travel vertical verification)
  • Missing — required for Phase 2: NC SoS annual reports, seller-provided P&L 3 years, processor statements 24 months, chargeback reports, app-store revenue reports, SDC Media LLC / Inc. consolidation, travel-ops tour-operator bookkeeping, bank statements 24 months, seller's personal tax Schedule K-1 (LLC passthrough)