The thing that stalls a listing is almost never revenue. It's the boardroom-and-audit plumbing a public company has to have — things that take 9 to 18 months to build and can't be rushed with money (the two usual culprits go by SOX 404 and an independent audit committee — both explained plainly further down). Founders and CFOs usually discover them after they've set a timeline and told the board. Score your company against every published Nasdaq & NYSE listing standard below, then get the full report: gate analysis, governance grade, venue fit, and your 12–36 month roadmap.
Built by an operator who took a deep-tech company public end to end and raised $50M+ across venture rounds. I've sat in the issuer's seat, not just advised from across the table.
Prefer to talk before sharing any numbers? A free 15-minute intro call comes first — no financials required. Email inha.journey@gmail.com and I'll walk you through my background and how the report works before you commit a dollar or a data point.
The same core engine as the paid report, run on a handful of inputs. Nothing leaves your browser. Don't know a number exactly? A rough estimate is fine — set the sliders to your own scale and watch the score move.
This just sets the starting point of the sliders below — you can drag any of them past it. If you don't know your stage, leave it on the middle one and adjust from there.
Your listing-day cap isn't set until you list — so this is a best guess, and that's fine: it's meant to be. Your last funding round's post-money valuation is the simplest anchor. For a rough range: growth SaaS companies around $50M revenue have tended to list somewhere near $400–600M, faster-growing ones higher. Because it's a guess, nudge it up and down a little to see how sensitive your score is — the full report scores you across a cap range, not a single point, and flags any result that hinges on this one number.
The "total equity" line on your balance sheet. If you're not sure, the market-cap slider alone still drives most of the result.
These are the governance pieces a listing requires. They all start unchecked — check only the ones your company has genuinely built, so the score reflects you and not a template. New to a term? Hover it for a one-line plain-English definition. Leaving one unchecked counts as "not yet," which is the safe, honest answer.
We'll send your readiness snapshot plus a 1-page listing-readiness checklist you can bring to your board — usually same day. Optional; your inputs stay in your browser until you send.
Which standards it runs. To stay fast, it tries just one standard per venue: Nasdaq Global Select (Cap + Revenue, Rule 5315), Global Market (Equity Standard, Rule 5405 Std 2 — the $30M-equity gate), Capital Market (Market Value Standard, Rule 5505 — the $50M gate), and NYSE (Global Market Cap Test, §102.01B), then weights your governance toggles (CFO/IR credit assumed). Most venues publish several alternative standards — Global Market alone also has an Income test ($1M pre-tax income) and a Market Value test (Std 3, ≥ $75M listed-securities value) you could qualify under — and this screen only runs the one named. That's why a shortfall here means "look closer," not "no": you may clear the venue under a standard this screen never tried. It also skips public float, round-lot holders, bid price, and operating history. The full report runs every alternative standard, metric by metric, on all five venues — plus the non-US module and roadmap — and is the only version to rely on. Every threshold above traces to a specific published rule you can check on the methodology page and in the Nasdaq standards guide.
How the two numbers combine. The quant score is how far your numbers sit past (or short of) the published gates — that part is pure rule arithmetic. The Overall number then blends it with governance as 60% best-venue quant + 40% governance. That 60/40 split is IPOPath's own weighting, not an exchange rule — exchanges don't publish a blended readiness score; we chose that split because governance lead times (not the numbers) are what usually stall a listing, and the report uses the same weighting so you can explain the figure. On the current inputs that's 60% × — + 40% × —.
Educational benchmarking against public rules — not underwriting, securities, legal, or accounting advice, and not a determination of eligibility.
How it works
A banker sizes you up once you're already at the table, when you have less leverage. Big-4 advisory runs on a retainer. Neither one hands you a scored, venue-by-venue readiness map on your own numbers before you've committed to anyone. That's the gap this fills — nothing more.
Your financials — revenue, income, equity, expected market cap, float, holders, price — and where your governance stands: audit, board, committees, SOX. Ten minutes, and your numbers go nowhere but back to you.
It runs gate checks against every published Nasdaq & NYSE standard, weights your governance, ranks the venues (non-US venues included), and bands your timeline and cost. Same logic as the calculator above, run at full depth.
A ~70-page report: per-metric gate analysis, a governance checklist with a plan to close each gap, venue-fit ranking, path overview, and your 12–36 month roadmap. Flat fee. No equity, no success fee.
| Do it yourself | Investment bank | Big-4 / IPO advisory | IPOPath | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | Assesses you when engaged (spread on the deal) |
$50k–250k+ readiness engagement directional — your quote varies |
Flat $490 one-time |
| Turnaround | Days — if you know the rules | Once you've picked them | Weeks, on a retainer | Self-serve report on your inputs |
| Scores you vs published standards | Only if you find and read every rule | Yes | Yes | Yes — every venue, per-metric |
| Names your governance gaps | Only if you know to look | Eventually | Yes | Yes — weighted, with lead times |
| Includes a non-US listing path | Rarely | US-focused | Sometimes | Yes — including a pre-profit tech-special track |
| Carries legal / audit / underwriting weight | No | Underwrites the deal | Signs audit / advisory work | No — planning & benchmarking only, not a substitute |
To be clear about what a $490 report is not: it has no legal, audit, or underwriting standing and doesn't replace a bank, auditor, or counsel. It's the scored gap-list you bring to those people so their (far more expensive) hours go further — not a cheaper version of what they do.
Bank and advisory figures are directional; your actual quotes vary. If you already have a full IPO working group engaged, they're doing this live — use them. This is for the stage before that, when you want your gap list before you commit spend.
What arrives
These pages show a made-up company (Northwind Data) — an illustrative layout, not a benchmark. The scores below were constructed to show what each section looks like; they are not a target or a "good result" to measure yourself against. Your own report is computed only from your numbers, and the outcome for a real company that isn't yet ready reads very differently.
Every score comes with a plain-English band, so the number isn't abstract: 80+ = "listing-ready on your best venue," 60–79 = "within reach, defined gap list," 40–59 = "on the runway," under 40 = "early." 78 means eligible on the numbers, held back only by governance.
| Metric | You÷Req | |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap | 0.73× | GAP |
| Revenue | 0.69× | GAP |
| Public float | 2.89× | PASS |
| Holders | 1.27× | PASS |
| Nasdaq Global Market | 100 |
| NYSE | 100 |
| Nasdaq Capital Market | 100 |
Perfect quant score on three US main venues — you can file on the numbers now.
| Nasdaq Global Market | 100 |
| NYSE | 100 |
| Non-US venue (no nexus) | 82 |
Some non-US venues run a tech-special track that lets pre-profit tech list on an external evaluation — no profit test.
Direct costs $3–6M + underwriting spread band, sequenced against your target window.
Read the complete ~70-page sample report (fictional company, real engine) →
Pricing
Three ways in, all one-time. The engine scores every tier the same way; what changes is how many scenarios I run and how much I sit with you afterward. The report always runs the full per-metric, per-venue engine — but it's only as precise as the numbers you give it: the two required inputs (revenue, expected market cap) already produce a real scored report, and each of the six optional figures you add replaces an assumption-flagged estimate with a directly scored gate. Give only the two and the liquidity gates (float, holders, bid price) come back as flagged ranges rather than confirmed passes.
The full readiness report, built from your numbers.
Everything self-serve, re-run under your own growth scenarios.
A board-ready deck + a live session with an operator.
How ordering works right now: we're in an early-access validation phase — fulfilment is manual and there's no on-page card checkout yet, so you send your numbers through the order form and get payment instructions back within one business day. For the self-serve and bespoke tiers that's a secure card link handled by a merchant of record (Lemon Squeezy / Gumroad) — a named, established payment company that is the legal seller of record and handles sales tax / VAT, so your card details never touch us. Only higher-value orders ($900+) are settled by bank wire; the invoice you receive names the registered billing entity, its jurisdiction, and its bank details, and you confirm them before any money moves (email us and we'll send the entity name and country first if your AP process needs it). Prices above are firm; nothing is charged until you approve.
Straight guidance by stage, pulled from the methodology. The report earns its keep when a listing is real but not yet in motion.
| Your situation | Typical readiness driver | What the report surfaces |
|---|---|---|
| Series B, listing 24–36mo out | Governance runway | Which gates to start now given the SOX / director-search lead times. |
| Series C, listing 12–24mo out | Venue & path choice | Which venues you clear today, and Global Select as an upgrade target. |
| Pre-IPO / profitable growth | Final gap closure | The last governance items and a filing-timeline sanity check. |
| Asia-nexus company (any stage) | Non-US vs US | A side-by-side incl. a pre-profit tech-special track — from an operator who took a company public. |
Guidance is directional, derived from the engine and public listing rules. Your real position depends on your audited numbers and executed governance. If a listing is 3+ years out or you already have a full working group engaged, we'll tell you to wait or to use them.
Who's behind this
Built by a practitioner in investor relations and corporate development who took a deep-tech company public end to end on a technology-special (pre-profit) listing track and raised $50M+ across venture rounds. I lived the listing standards, the governance build, the auditor and sponsor relationships, and the disclosure grind — from the issuer's seat, not the advisor's.
The standards themselves are public: Nasdaq's rulebook, NYSE's manual, and the published rules of the non-US venues. That's why the engine is deterministic and auditable. What you pay for is the layer around them — how far you are from each gate, what to build in what order, and which venue and path fit your story. The scoring is open-book on the methodology page.
Why no name on the page. The listing I ran was a small, identifiable market where the issuer, its bankers, and I are all traceable from a single detail — so naming it publicly on a sales page would tie a former employer's confidential process to a commercial pitch, which I won't do. That's a real limitation, and you shouldn't take an anonymous claim on faith. Here's the thing, though: you don't have to trust the résumé to trust the report. Verify the work first, then the person:
inha.journey@gmail.com — I reply within one business day. Cross-border companies (Korea ↔ US) especially welcome; I work in either language.
Every threshold traces to Nasdaq / NYSE and published non-US venue standards plus SEC/PCAOB rules. No black box — the full scoring logic is at /methodology.
If the engine genuinely can't score your company, or the report is unusable, you get every dollar back. I'd rather tell you it's too early than sell you a bad fit.
Written by someone who actually took a company through an exchange listing — including the non-US venue module most US advisors can't credibly speak to.
Flat fee, full stop. No success fees, no equity, no securities activity, no underwriting. That's exactly why I can be blunt about your gaps.
Straight talk
Questions
A listing is a multi-year, multi-million-dollar program, and the most expensive mistake is discovering a governance lead time — SOX 404 runs 9–15 months — after you've picked a banker and set a timeline. The report surfaces your exact gap list and your eligibility across venues before any of that spend. A single hour of the bankers, securities counsel, or Big-4 advisors who'd otherwise walk you through this costs more than the report, and they typically won't hand you a scored, venue-by-venue readiness map. Try the calculator at the top to see your own snapshot first.
No. It is educational benchmarking of your reported numbers against publicly published exchange standards. Only an exchange determines listing eligibility, and it applies qualitative judgment beyond these numeric tests. The report tells you how far you are from each published gate and where — so you can plan and brief your advisors faster. Every page states plainly that it is not underwriting, securities, legal, or accounting advice.
All public sources: Nasdaq Listing Rules (5300–5600 series), the NYSE Listed Company Manual (§102.01 and §303A), and the published listing rules of non-US venues (such as KOSDAQ, HKEX and TSE) for the international module, plus SEC EDGAR and PCAOB standards for audit and disclosure expectations. Non-US figures are USD-equivalent restatements of published local-currency thresholds — verify the current rule and FX. The full scoring logic is open on the methodology page; nothing is a black box.
Bring it to those conversations as a planning and benchmarking tool. It's not a substitute for them, and it's not a legal or eligibility opinion. What it does is make your talks with bankers, counsel, and your auditor faster, because you walk in already knowing your own gap list. It's built by someone who has actually taken a company through an exchange listing, so it reflects what the process really demands. The exchange, your underwriter, and your counsel still make the calls.
Series B+ growth companies (founders / CFOs) weighing a listing in the next 12–36 months who want their gap list before engaging bankers. It's less useful if you already have a full IPO working group (they're doing this live) or if a listing is 3+ years out. If you're far from any standard, you'll get a candid "not yet, here's the runway," not a sales pitch. The self-qualify grid above shows where different stages land.
The rules are free; reading, cross-referencing, and scoring your own company against every alternative standard on five venues — plus grading governance and building a roadmap — is the work. You're paying for the structured, scored output and the interpretation layer from an operator who has done a listing: what your numbers mean, what to build first, and which venue and path fit. Flat $490 is a fraction of a single billed hour of the advisors who'd otherwise walk you through it.