Every business, eventually. Solo and micro first.
Simma is built for any business, in any country. It starts with the smallest service businesses in the UK, and climbs from there.
Instructors first: people who teach for a living.
Dance and music teachers, sports and fitness coaches, driving instructors. One person, or a small studio, running a timetable, bookings, payments and a website between classes. That's where Simma is built and tested today.
Then the rest of the beachhead: 17.9m UK and US service businesses with up to nine staff (£51bn a year). Hairdressers, trades and professional services run on the same record; the Cascade gives each its own words and front desk.
What one business pays Simma, size by size.
Two parts: the subscription for its plan, and Simma's cut of the payments it takes by card. Averages for each size, from official turnover and headcount.
| Solono staff | Micro1–9 staff | Small10–49 staff | Medium50–249 staff | Enterprise250+ staff | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| People in the businesson average, owner included | 1.1 | 3.6 | 19.6 | 96.3 | 1,338 |
| The plan | Lite £99 or Starter £229 a month inc. VAT (about £137 a month to Simma) | Starter £229 inc. VAT or Growth £449 + VAT | Pro, £799 a month + extra members | Scale, £1,499 a month + extra members | Contract: about £5,000 a month |
| Subscriptiona year | £1,640 | £3,959 | £10,068 | £19,188 | £60,000 |
| Turnovera year, on average | £94k | £608k | £3.5m | £24.3m | £311.7m |
| Paid by card through Simma Payshare of turnover | 24% | 21% | 19% | 14% | — |
| Simma's cut of each card paymentits own fee, card cost passed on | 1.75% | 1.28% | 0.70% | 0.60% | — |
| Simma Pay revenuea year | £333 | £1,503 | £4,729 | £21,030 | £0 |
| ARPC: revenue per customera year | £1,973 | £5,462 | £14,797 | £40,218 | £60,000 |
| a month | £164 | £455 | £1,233 | £3,352 | £5,000 |
| Of which from payments | 17% | 28% | 32% | 52% | 0% |
| ARPU: revenue per persona month | £149 | £126 | £63 | £35 | £4 |
ARPC is average revenue per customer (one business); ARPU is per person working in it. Card share is an assumption by industry: 60% of turnover for consumer businesses, 20% for trades and professional services, 5% for business-to-business. Simma's cut is its own fee on the plan (the card's cost is passed on to the business and is not counted), with the fixed fee spread over an average £25 payment. In the UK, Free, Lite and Starter prices include VAT, and the model assumes their Simma Pay fee does too, so Simma keeps five-sixths of it (pending accountant review). Enterprises invoice and use their own processors, so no payments revenue is counted. UK: Business Population Estimates 2025. US: Census Bureau 2022, $1.30 = £1.
One head office, many locations.
Franchise networks are a second route to customers: a head office buys, and its locations run on the same platform. For scale, the British Franchise Association counts 1,009 UK franchise systems and just under 50,500 units (BFA), and the IFA projects 845,000 US franchise establishments in 2026 (IFA). Those are the industry, measured differently in each country, not Simma's market: they are not added to the figures on this page. Franchise networks →
Start small. Climb one step at a time.
Each step up has fewer businesses, and each one pays more. Simma earns its place on one step before it takes the next.
What £1bn a year would take.
For scale, not a forecast, and not part of the five-year model: at today's draft prices, about 276,000 paying businesses (with 300,000 more on Free) would bring in about £1.03bn a year, or £943m after Stripe Connect's charges. That is a ten-year-plus picture: service businesses well beyond fitness, and several countries. About 669,000 paying businesses would take it past £2.6bn.
| Plan | Revenue per customer a year | Customers | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | £48 | 300,000 | £14m |
| Lite | £1,652 | 160,000 | £264m |
| Starter | £3,268 | 75,000 | £245m |
| Growth | £7,327 | 27,000 | £198m |
| Pro | £12,462 | 9,000 | £112m |
| Scale | £24,170 | 3,500 | £85m |
| Enterprise | £71,332 | 1,500 | £107m |
| Total | 276,000 paying | £1.03bn |
Revenue per customer at full Simma Pay take-up, before VAT: subscription, AI credits and Simma's payment fees. Illustrative mix; the model's own plan is 53,513 paying customers at the end of year five.
The five sizes, UK and US.
Every count is official. What each business could pay is the plan for its size plus Simma's payment fee on its turnover.
| Size | Businesses | People | Each pays, UK | Each pays, US | All of them | Simma reaches it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solono staff | 22.8m | 23.1m | £1,973 | £1,911 | £43.7bn | Year 1 |
| Micro1–9 staff | 6.2m | 17.2m | £5,462 | £6,045 | £36.9bn | Year 1 |
| Small10–49 | 1.3m | 26.0m | £14,797 | £17,203 | £21.9bn | From year 2 |
| Medium50–249 | 241k | 23.4m | £40,218 | £53,168 | £12.3bn | From year 2 |
| Enterprise250+ | 53k | 92.4m | £60,000 | £60,000 | £3.2bn | From year 3 |
UK Business Population Estimates 2025; US Census Bureau 2022 (solo filers over $10,000). "Each pays" is a year. Enterprise is a contract at the model's average of £5,000 a month, with no payments counted. How each number is built is in the workings at the bottom.
One country at a time. Each opens when Simma Pay does.
The UK first, the US in year three, then the English-speaking markets and the EU. A new country is mostly configuration: the Cascade already holds the currency, tax, formats and law for 23 countries. What gates each one is taking payments there.
Each count is the latest official figure, and they are not like for like: Canada counts employer businesses only; the EU counts the business economy. The plan and the calculator include only the UK and the US. The Cascade's 23 countries are configuration, not markets served: see Status.
Pick a scenario. Then move the customers around.
Three starting points for year five. Drag each size up or down and the revenue, the mix and the people it reaches change with it.
Revenue per customer is the market average for its size and country, from official turnover. Plan is the financial model's 53,513 paying customers at the end of year five, its plans mapped to sizes; at market-average revenue it differs from the model's £166m run rate, which uses the plan's own payment volumes. Scenarios, not forecasts.
Proof the model works, by month six.
The pre-seed (about £1.5m) is raised from month five, on the Angel round's evidence: 30 paying customers by month six, two Local Partners winning about 10 each and keeping them, and what each one costs. Its final size and price are set by that evidence.
- 01Evidence before size. UK companies at the earliest stage (the British Business Bank's seed stage, where the typical round was £0.6m) had a median pre-money valuation of £3.2m in 2025, the highest on record (Small Business Equity Tracker 2026). The pre-seed's final size follows what the first six months show; the funding roadmap sets out the steps after it.
- 02The trend, not just the total. New paying customers per Partner each month, how many stay and how much runs through Simma Pay, shown month by month.
- 03A repeatable way in. Partner #2 wins customers the way Partner #1 did, through the wedge of instructors and studios and the channels on the Go-to-market page, so the next hundred look like the first thirty.
Revenue per customer: about £2,790 a year before VAT (subscription, AI credits and Simma's payment fees, with 60% using Simma Pay), for the model's first-customer mix of 55% Lite at £1,650, 35% Starter at £3,270 and 10% Growth at £7,330. Year one's monthly revenue is the model's month 12, before Simma Pay is fully taken up. About 271 is the plan's year-one figure, an output of the monthly model; the first round's target is 30 by month six. See The ask for the six-month budget.
AI expands both the market and what Simma can earn from it.
Today's small businesses are the market these numbers measure. We believe AI could also raise the number of viable solo and small businesses, by giving individuals capabilities that used to need a team. And AI lets software reach work that businesses have always bought as services. The market sizing on this page counts software and payments only. It excludes AI labour and Partner-delivered services.
Every number, and how it's built.
What each business could pay Simma, by size and country
United Kingdom
| Size | Businesses | Avg people | Subscription | Simma Pay fees | Per business | Size band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 4,255,280 | 1.1 | £1,640 | £333 | £1,973 | £8.4bn |
| Micro | 1,150,875 | 3.6 | £3,959 | £1,503 | £5,462 | £6.3bn |
| Small | 220,085 | 19.6 | £10,068 | £4,729 | £14,797 | £3.3bn |
| Medium | 38,435 | 96.3 | £19,188 | £21,030 | £40,218 | £1.5bn |
| Enterprise | 8,335 | 1338.0 | £60,000 | £0 | £60,000 | £0.5bn |
United States
| Size | Businesses | Avg people | Subscription | Simma Pay fees | Per business | Size band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 18,499,489 | 1.0 | £1,640 | £271 | £1,911 | £35.3bn |
| Micro | 5,063,176 | 2.6 | £3,959 | £2,086 | £6,045 | £30.6bn |
| Small | 1,084,689 | 20.0 | £10,068 | £7,135 | £17,203 | £18.7bn |
| Medium | 202,975 | 97.0 | £19,188 | £33,980 | £53,168 | £10.8bn |
| Enterprise | 44,795 | 1814.4 | £60,000 | £0 | £60,000 | £2.7bn |
Per business = the plan for its size + Simma's payment fee on the share of its turnover taken by card. v10: solo half Lite (£99 inc. VAT) half Starter (£229 inc. VAT); micro half Starter half Growth (£449 + VAT); small Pro (£799); medium Scale (£1,499); extra members at the model's averages; enterprise a £5,000-a-month contract, no payments counted. Before VAT; outside the UK the UK price before VAT.
The assumptions
- Share of turnover taken by card through Simma Pay: 60% for consumer businesses (retail, hospitality, education, health, arts and leisure, personal services), 20% for construction and trades, motor trade, professional, admin and support services, and 5% for everything else (manufacturing, wholesale, transport, IT, finance, property, farming, utilities).
- An average payment of £25, which turns each plan's fixed fee into a percentage. $1.30 = £1.
- Simma's payment fees (v10): Lite 1.5% + 15p, Starter 1% + 10p, Growth 0.75% + 10p, Pro 0.5% + 5p, Scale 0.4% + 5p. The card's cost is passed on to the business at what Stripe charges and is not counted; Stripe Connect's charges are a cost in the financial model, not taken off here.
- SAM: UK and US businesses of every industry with fewer than 250 staff. Beachhead: UK and US service businesses (the wedge) with up to nine staff, solo included.
- World: UK + US spend per head scaled to each World Bank income group by income per head (x3.43 overall, unchanged from v9).
Sources and what they leave out
- DBT Business Population Estimates 2025, detailed tables, Table 6 (start 2025).
- US Census Bureau: Statistics of US Businesses 2022; Nonemployer Statistics 2022.
- UK: 16 size-band rows suppressed in Table 6 and left out; finance turnover is not published.
- US: 11,312,006 solo filers with receipts under $10,000 left out; the 200-299 band is split half to medium, half to enterprise. Employer-firm employment counts employees, not owners.
- British Business Bank, Small Business Equity Tracker 2025 (calendar 2024), as reported by The Carry, June 2026.