Agency 2.0 Profit Benchmarks

If you are not shooting for these numbers at your marketing agency, you have lost before you even started.

I’m Nick Avaria, agency owner, and founder of Agency Acquisitions. Every week I share a client story, insights, and tips into scaling your agency faster. For longer insights and more in-depth analysis, follow me on YouTube for real stories of scaling agencies to 7 and 8 figures. Watch the latest videos here.

Running an agency 5, 10, or even 20 years ago is very different from today.

The benchmarks are not the same.

Reminder: AGI = Agency Gross Income = Top line revenue minus passthrough costs (meaning media spend on behalf of clients etc.)

So here they are - All %’s are generated by using Agency Gross Income as the denominator:

1. Payroll = 45%

2. SG&A = 20-25%

3. Profit = 30-35%

Let me break this down further.

Payroll:

• Billable staff = 30% (of AGI)

• Non-Billable staff = 15%

SG&A: you should be on the lower end if your marketing and sales support spend is lower. If you are on the higher end it's because you are investing in growth.

Profit: Yes - 30-35% is a high bar; but is it in 2025? Between AI generating efficiencies, the ability to hire anywhere in the world, and non-AI tools, getting to this profitability is not rare anymore in 2025.

I have clients that have achieved 40%+ month-over-month and quarter-over-quarter.

Most agency business models can get to 30%+ with just good business practices and slightly above average operations.

Look, it's no longer the 90’s or early 2000’s. Yet we have people out here saying that 15% is good.

It's not good. It's the average. 

The average by definition is not good or great.

Being average is not what we need to shoot for. What we aim for we will get. 

Agency owners pay with too much blood, sweat, and tears to just to average.

The kicker is that the difference between being average and good, or even great, is not as big as you may think. 

If you find any of this interesting let me know and check out this free training on how to make these benchmarks real:

Want to get the KPIs in place your agency needs to hold your team accountable?

Book a time with me this week to find out how to get started.

Nick