We Just Published Every Contractor Benchmark We Have

The Problem with Contractor Benchmarks

Search "contractor profit margins" or "HVAC benchmarks" and you'll get one of two things: a survey where 200 contractors self-reported their numbers (with all the accuracy that implies), or a blog post telling you to "aim for 35-50% gross margins" without any data behind it.

I've been on the other side of this. As Director of Growth Product at BuildOps, I worked closely with over 1,000 commercial contractor teams — sitting in on financial reviews, building accounting products around their real workflows, and seeing firsthand how invoicing, job costing, and collections actually played out. Before that, I was in private equity, underwriting contractor acquisitions where the gap between what owners thought their margins were and what the P&L actually showed could be seven figures.

The industry doesn't have a data problem. It has a publishing problem. The real numbers exist. Nobody puts them out there.

So we did.

Introducing the Level Index

Today we're launching The Level Index — a free, public benchmarking resource for contractors in the trades.

It's not a survey. It's not a gated whitepaper. It's a live tool built from anonymized operational data across 2,242 contractor companies representing $13.25 billion in job revenue, 2.5 million invoices, and 50,753 employees across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, refrigeration, fire protection, and controls.

These are the same benchmarks we use internally at Level when we advise $3-30M contractors on pricing, cash flow, and profitability. The difference is now anyone can see them.

The 9 Metrics That Matter

We didn't try to benchmark everything. We focused on the nine metrics that, in my experience reviewing over a thousand P&Ls, are the strongest predictors of whether a contractor builds wealth or grinds through 80-hour weeks breaking even.

Why these nine? Because they map to the three things a CFO can actually move: cash (collection rate, billing speed, DSO), margin (SA profitability, bill rates, cost variance, labor utilization), and growth (quote conversion, pull-through, revenue per employee). Every contractor I've worked with who systematically improved across these metrics saw it hit the bottom line within two quarters.

For the full breakdown on each metric with context and case studies, see our master post: What I Learned Reviewing 1,000+ Contractor P&Ls.

Benchmarks by Job Type

Not all work is created equal. A service call has a completely different margin profile than an install project. That's why the Level Index breaks benchmarks down across six job categories:

• Service Calls — highest volume, fastest billing cycle, where labor margin matters most
• Maintenance Contracts — the recurring revenue engine; most contractors underprice these
• Install Projects — bigger tickets, longer cycles, where cost variance kills you
• Commercial Projects — retainage, progress billing, and the cash flow drag that comes with large-scale work
• Time & Materials — the margin comparison between T&M and flat rate that most contractors get wrong
• Service Agreements — pull-through revenue, renewal rates, and why the median SA margin is double what industry surveys claim

Each page shows margin distributions, revenue patterns, and cost structure — all from real operational data, not what contractors told a surveyor they think their numbers are.

Benchmarks by State

Bill rates vary dramatically by geography. A technician billing $128/hr in Illinois is priced very differently from one at $85/hr in the Southeast — but they might have similar margins. The Level Index includes state-by-state data so you can benchmark against your actual market, not a national average that doesn't reflect your competitive landscape.

A few examples from the data:

For the full geographic breakdown and what drives regional variation, see Contractor Bill Rates by State and Trade. The Level Index includes interactive state-level views at levelcfo.com/benchmarks.

Why We're Giving This Away

This is the question I get from other founders: why publish your best data for free?

Two reasons.

First, contractors making decisions blind hurts the industry. I've seen a contractor lose $3.8 million per year on service agreements because they had no benchmark to tell them their -23% margin was catastrophically below the 43.8% median. I've seen another leave $45 million in uncollected receivables on the table because they didn't know that 96% collection was achievable. When contractors can't see where they stand, they can't fix what's broken. The data already exists — keeping it locked up doesn't help anyone.

Second, this is how Level works. We're a fractional CFO service. Once you see that your collection rate is 72% and top quartile is 92.7%, you don't need us to convince you there's a problem. You need us to fix it. The Level Index is the diagnostic. Level is the treatment.

We'd rather compete on execution than on information asymmetry.

Honest Caveats

A few things to keep in mind when using the Level Index:

The data skews commercial. The majority of contractors in the dataset are commercial and industrial operators — HVAC, mechanical, refrigeration, fire protection. Residential-only contractors will see different margin profiles, faster payment cycles, and no retainage. The benchmarks are directional for residential, but most precise for commercial.

Not all trades are equally represented. HVAC and mechanical have the deepest data. Electrical, plumbing, and controls are well-represented but thinner. Trades like landscaping and roofing have limited coverage in this dataset.

Benchmarks are not targets. A 96% collection rate is achievable — but if you're at 70%, the goal isn't to jump there overnight. It's to understand the gap, identify the root causes (slow invoicing, retainage management, weak AR follow-up), and close it systematically.

Local market conditions matter. A $90/hr bill rate is the national median, but that means very different things in Manhattan vs. rural Alabama. Always benchmark against your regional data first.

The Bottom Line

Most contractors don't lack revenue. They lack visibility into how they compare — and where the highest-leverage improvements are hiding. The Level Index gives you that visibility for free. No paywall, no gated PDF, no sales call required.

Explore the Level Index →

If you want to go deeper — connect your QuickBooks and FSM, get ranked against the index on all nine metrics, and get a roadmap for closing the gaps — that's what Level's free profitability audit is for. We'll show you where you stand in 48 hours, before you pay a dollar.

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Q: Is the Level Index free? A: Yes. The full benchmark tool at levelcfo.com/benchmarks is free to use. No account required. We also offer a downloadable Level Index 2026 report with additional context and analysis.

Q: Where does the data come from? A: Anonymized operational data from 2,242 contractor companies — real invoices, job costs, payroll records, and quotes. Not surveys, not self-reported. The dataset covers $13.25 billion in job revenue across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, refrigeration, fire protection, and controls.

Q: How do I compare my specific business to the Level Index? A: Book a free profitability audit. We connect to your QuickBooks and field service software (BuildOps, ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro), pull your actuals, and rank you against the Level Index on all nine core metrics. Takes 48 hours, and the audit is free.

Q: How often is the Level Index updated? A: Annually. The current version is the Level Index 2026. We refresh the underlying dataset and update all benchmarks each year as new operational data becomes available.

Q: What trades does the Level Index cover? A: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, refrigeration, fire protection, controls, and landscaping. Coverage depth varies by trade — HVAC and mechanical have the richest data. We're expanding coverage as our dataset grows.

Q: I'm a residential contractor. Are these benchmarks relevant to me? A: Directionally, yes — the core metrics (collection rate, billing speed, quote conversion) apply regardless of market segment. But the margin benchmarks and bill rate data skew commercial. Use the numbers as a starting point, not a direct comparison. We're building residential-specific benchmarks for a future update.