Where fiber contractors lose money
5 things cost fiber contractors money without ever showing up as 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% gross margin, 14% overhead and 10% net, and the gap of 3 points on the bottom line is where those mechanisms live. Figures for all 7 revenue bands are in the table below.
Fiber sits 3rd of 6 in electrical and technology on net profit, and it carries 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–$50M | $50M–$100M | $100M–$500M | $500M+ | CFOS target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 15% | 14% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 14% |
| Gross margin | 22% | 23% | 24% | 25% | 27% | 28% | 30% | 24% |
| Net profit | 7% | 9% | 11% | 13% | 16% | 18% | 21% | 10% |
SPM The Construction CFO. SPM Trade Benchmark Reference: Fiber. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Management, 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 compiled by SPM The Construction CFO, validated against published CFMA and JMCO benchmarks. The CFOS targets beside them are from the book CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System, published with the full reference at runoncfos.com.
- 2024 Construction Financial Benchmarker, Executive Summary, Construction Financial Management Association, 2024.
- 2025 Performance Benchmarks, Construction Companies, Jones Maresca and Company, 2025.
- SPM Trade Benchmark Reference, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, 2026.
Sourcing and method: the methodology page.
Which bands are measured. The 4 bands above $10M–$25M carry the survey curve further out and have not been reconciled against the licensed CFMA Benchmarker. How every figure was built is set out 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 sitting 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 nobody 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 carry one retainage balance per project and can quote it off the top of their head. You carry retainage on hundreds of individual work orders, released one at a time by a QC desk two companies removed from you. Nobody in the office tracks it 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 keeps the most 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 runs 15% at $1M–$5M and 9% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That sits 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 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 runs 22% at $1M–$5M and 30% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That sits 0.8 points below the electrical and technology average of 22.8%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 24%. The CFOS target is published at $1M to $5M. It's set at whatever gross margin produces the net profit target once overhead is paid, and never below your trade's own 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 runs 7% at $1M–$5M and 21% at $500M+, before taxes, as a percentage of revenue. That sits 0.3 points below the electrical and technology average of 7.3%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 10%. The CFOS target is published at $1M to $5M.
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% sitting 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%.
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 sit against the other trades?
Fiber ties 2 trades in electrical and technology on net profit, all at 7%. Electrical keeps the most at 9%. Its overhead is the leanest too, level with Solar and Telecom. Gross margin ranks 20th of 48 and overhead ranks 17th.
Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL 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 these figures sit inside. More about the author.