Where fiber contractors lose money
5 things cost fiber contractors money without ever becoming a line item, and each one traces to a step you can install. Fiber contractors average 22% gross margin, 15% overhead and 7% net profit at $1M–$5M of revenue. The CFOS target at that size is 24.5% gross margin, 14% overhead and 10.5% net, and the 3.5 points left on the table is where those mechanisms live. Figures for all 7 revenue bands are in the table below.
Fiber ranks 3rd of 6 in electrical and technology on net profit, and it has leaner overhead than the 48-trade average. Here is every figure, across all 7 revenue bands.
Fiber by revenue band
| Metric | $1M–$5M | $5M–$10M | $10M–$25M | $25M–$50MModeled | $50M–$100MModeled | $100M–$500MModeled | $500M+Modeled | CFOS target at $1M–$5M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 15% | 14% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 14% |
| Gross margin | 22% | 23% | 24% | 25% | 27% | 28% | 30% | 24.5% |
| Net profit | 7% | 9% | 11% | 13% | 16% | 18% | 21% | 10.5% |
| Metric | $1M–$5M | $5M–$10M | $10M–$25M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 14% | 13% | 12% |
| Gross margin | 24.5% | 25.5% | 26.5% |
| Net profit | 10.5% | 12.5% | 14.5% |
Modeled extension of the survey curve, not reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker. That applies to the 4 bands above $10M to $25M, and no CFOS target is published for them.
Gross margin and overhead come from CFMA, Jones Maresca and SPM's own trade data, because those are the figures those sources report by trade and size. Net profit is calculated from them as gross margin minus overhead, so the three rows tie. That makes it an operating profit figure: what is left before interest, other income and expense, and the tax planning choices owners make, such as bonuses, depreciation methods and retirement contributions.
Surveys report net income before taxes after those items, so a reported net can run below the figure here. At the typical contractor the difference is small: CFMA's 2025 medians are 7.1 percent before interest and taxes and 6.7 percent net income before taxes. It grows with size. Against the separate measured net profit dataset, the calculated net runs 0.8 points higher at $1M to $5M, 2.2 points at $5M to $10M and 3.5 points at $10M to $25M, because the gross margin and overhead rows change faster with size than reported net profit does.
Above the $10M to $25M band the gross margin and overhead rows are a modeled extension of the same curves. They have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker, and the calculated net there runs well above survey medians, so read those bands as a model and not as a survey result.
Run On CFOS. Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference: Fiber. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC. https://runoncfos.com/trades/fiber. CC BY 4.0.
Figures on this page were last revised 2026-08-21. Published under CC BY 4.0, which permits reuse of any figure here, including commercially, as long as the credit above travels with it. The same figures in machine-readable form: /benchmarks.json.
Trade level gross margin and overhead come from figures CFMA, Jones Maresca and other sources publish, and Run On CFOS derives net profit as gross margin minus overhead. The CFOS targets beside them are from the book CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System, published with the full reference at runoncfos.com.
- 2024 Construction Financial Benchmarker, Executive Summary, Construction Financial Management Association, 2024.
- 2025 Construction Financial Benchmarker, Executive Summary, Construction Financial Management Association, 2025.
- 2025 Performance Benchmarks, Construction Companies, Jones Maresca and Company, 2025.
- Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference, Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC, 2026.
Sourcing and method: the methodology page.
Which bands are measured. The 4 bands above $10M–$25M extend the survey curve further out and have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker. How every figure was built is explained on the methodology page.
5 problems specific to fiber
You applied in the spring, wired make-ready money to the pole owner, and the transfers still aren't done while the bucket crew waits. The crew rolled at seven, the gas marks weren't there, and by three you had paid eight guys for a day with no footage on it. You signed the same rate sheet two years ago, diesel and wages went up, and the P&L looks busier and thinner every quarter. You put forty thousand feet in the ground and the traces pass, but you can't send the invoice because the redlines are still in review.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a fiber problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| Make-ready is months of cash out before a billable foot | Most subs wait on a general contractor who at least wants the job finished. You wait on a power company and a cable incumbent who hold no contract with you and have no deadline you can enforce, and neither of them has a reason to move your poles this month. You paid them first, which makes fiber one of the few places where a sub funds another utility's labor months before earning a foot of his own. | Project management |
| Standby for locates has no line on your rate sheet | A plumber who loses a morning still bills hours. You bill footage, so a locate failure produces nothing to invoice and the loss gets absorbed into the price of the feet you did produce. Congested urban routes are where it compounds, because six or seven facility owners can be on one ticket and any single one of them can stall the whole crew. | Estimating system |
| A frozen MSA rate sheet bleeds a point a quarter | A roofer eats a bad bid one time and then moves on. You eat the same bad unit price across four hundred work orders, which is why no one in your shop can point at the job that went wrong. The damage also splits by operation: your bore rate can still be healthy while restoration and drops have been losing money for a year, and the blended P&L hides both. | Estimating system |
| Placed footage isn't money until QC accepts the package | A concrete sub pours, the inspector signs, and they bill that week. You can have a route built, tested, and passing and still be unable to raise an invoice because one splice report is missing a required field. Closeout is a whole office function separate from the field, and most fiber subs never staffed it, so the bottleneck is usually one overloaded person with a laptop. | Software and bookkeeping alignment |
| Retainage releases per work order, and you're third in line | Most subs hold one retainage balance per project and can quote it off the top of their head. You hold retainage on hundreds of individual work orders, released one at a time by a QC desk two companies removed from you. The office tracks nothing at that grain, so it ages out of view a few thousand dollars at a time until the total reaches six figures. | Monthly cadence |
Fiber against the other 47 trades
| Metric | Fiber | Electrical and technology average | All 48 average | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 15% | 15.5% | 15.1% | 17th of 48 |
| Gross margin | 22% | 22.8% | 22.1% | 20th of 48 |
| Net profit | 7% | 7.3% | 7% | 21st of 48 |
Fiber sheds 6 points of overhead between $1M–$5M and $500M+, against 6 for electrical and technology as a group. Inside that group, Electrical is the most profitable at 9%, and Fiber, Solar and Telecom all run 15% overhead, the leanest. The leanest one is this trade.
Other electrical and technology trades
What owners ask
What overhead should a fiber contractor run?
Fiber shares its overhead figure with 14 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 15% at $1M–$5M and 9% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That is 0.5 points below the electrical and technology average of 15.5%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 14%. The CFOS target is one point leaner than your trade's industry average at your revenue.
What gross margin should a fiber contractor run?
Fiber shares its gross margin figure with 12 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 22% at $1M–$5M and 30% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That is 0.8 points below the electrical and technology average of 22.8%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 24.5%. The CFOS target recalculates at your revenue: whatever gross margin produces the net profit target once overhead is paid, never below your trade's own industry average.
What net profit should a fiber contractor run?
Fiber shares its net profit figure with 16 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 7% at $1M–$5M and 21% at $500M+, before taxes, as a percentage of revenue. That is 0.3 points below the electrical and technology average of 7.3%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 10.5%. The CFOS target recalculates at your revenue: 10 percent before taxes, or 3.5 points better than your trade's industry average, whichever is higher.
What profit margin should a small fiber business run?
Owners usually mean net profit when they say profit margin, and for fiber at $1M–$5M that's 7%. Gross margin is a different number, 22%, and it's what's left after job costs but before overhead. Overhead is the 15% between the two. A small fiber business holding 7% net is at the published figure for its size, and the CFOS target at that revenue is 10.5%.
Does fiber get more profitable as it grows?
Overhead is the number that moves. Fiber sheds 6 points between $1M–$5M and $500M+, which is in line with the 6 points electrical and technology sheds as a group. Net profit starts 0 points under the 48-trade average, so the room is in the overhead line before it's anywhere else.
Where does fiber rank against the other trades?
Fiber ties 2 trades in electrical and technology on net profit, all at 7%. Electrical is the most profitable at 9%. Its overhead is the leanest too, level with Solar and Telecom. Gross margin ranks 20th of 48 and overhead ranks 17th.
That's the industry average and the CFOS target for fiber at every size. Want your own books set beside them? The Financial Health Snapshot builds a CEO Report from your last twelve months, sets every figure against your trade, and walks you through it on a 60 minute call. SPM The Construction CFO (Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC) is a separate firm, and the same author runs it.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, and CONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for fiber contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.