Where marine contractors lose money
6 things cost marine contractors money without ever showing up as a line item, and each one traces to a step you can install. Marine 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.
Marine sits 3rd of 3 in specialty on net profit, and it carries leaner overhead than the 48-trade average. Here is every figure, across all 7 revenue bands.
Marine 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% | 25% | 26% | 27% | 28% | 30% | 24% |
| Net profit | 7% | 9% | 12% | 14% | 16% | 18% | 21% | 10% |
SPM The Construction CFO. SPM Trade Benchmark Reference: Marine. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC. https://runoncfos.com/trades/marine. 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.
6 problems specific to marine
The mill gave you a November rolling slot and the barge is booked for September. You signed in March and couldn't put a hammer in the water until October, and the permit that held you up belongs to the owner. Every cutoff on the barge is footage you already paid for and will never invoice. Ten percent of your scope sits behind a hydrographic survey the owner commissions and a mitigation report your crew has no control over.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a marine problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| The Mill Rolling Schedule Owns Your Barge Date | A shoreside trade can start on something else while a long lead item catches up. A marine sub can't, because the pile is the foundation, the trestle, and the work platform all at once, so nothing moves until steel or timber gets delivered to the water. Waiting isn't cheap either: equipment stays on charter by the day, crewed and tied off, burning money whether or not a hammer swings. | Equipment cost basis |
| Corps Permit Conditions Hit After Your Price Is Locked | The permit is held by the owner, so you've no standing to push the agency and no contract clock running in your favor while you wait. A shoreside trade's permit problem is a plan check with a local reviewer who answers the phone. Yours is a federal district office plus a state certifier plus a consultation you aren't party to, and the answer comes back changing how you're allowed to drive pile. | Project management |
| You Buy Pile by the Ton and Bill It by the Foot | Most trades buy and sell in the same unit, so waste reads as an obvious overage against the takeoff. Marine buys in tons and in scow yards and sells in linear feet and surveyed in place yards, so the loss hides inside the conversion. No purchase order ever looks wrong, and the whole thing turns up months later as a job that just came in light. | Estimating system |
| Retention Releases on a Survey You Never Ordered | Other subs get retention released off a punch walk a superintendent can knock out on a Tuesday afternoon. Marine retention waits on a survey vessel, a licensed hydrographer, and sometimes a resource agency biologist, and none of them are on your calendar or the GC's. That turns retention from a date you can chase into a date you can only sit and wait for. | Monthly cadence |
| One Mob Line Never Covered Three Barge Tows | A shoreside trade remobilizes by driving the truck back, burning fuel and a couple of hours of drive time. A marine remobilization is itself a marine operation with a crew, a weather window, and tow time, and it spends real money before anybody picks up a tool. The interruption is the same on both jobs, and the two price tags aren't close. | Job cost structure |
| The USL&H Audit Reopens a Year You Already Closed | A shoreside trade gets one policy, one mod, and one audit, and the only argument is which class code applies. Marine has the same guy on shore Monday, on a spud barge Wednesday, and assigned to a vessel Friday, and the rate spread between those buckets is wide enough that the audit is really a payroll allocation fight. With no day level records tied to a vessel, the carrier allocates for you and you pay whatever number they pick. | Overhead calculation |
Marine against the other 47 trades
| Metric | Marine | Specialty average | All 48 average | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 15% | 16% | 15.1% | 17th of 48 |
| Gross margin | 22% | 23.7% | 22.1% | 20th of 48 |
| Net profit | 7% | 7.7% | 7% | 21st of 48 |
Marine sheds 6 points of overhead between $1M–$5M and $500M+, against 6.3 for specialty as a group. Inside that group, Tank and vessel, Scaffolding all keep 8%, the most in the group, and Marine, Tank and vessel all run 15% overhead, the leanest. The leanest one is this trade.
Proof from this trade
What owners ask
What overhead should a marine contractor run?
Marine 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 1 point below the specialty average of 16%. 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 marine contractor run?
Marine 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 1.7 points below the specialty average of 23.7%. 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 marine contractor run?
Marine 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 0.7 points below the specialty average of 7.7%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 10%. The CFOS target is published at $1M to $5M.
What profit margin should a small marine business run?
Owners usually mean net profit when they say profit margin, and for marine 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 marine business holding 7% net is at the published figure for its size, and the CFOS target at that revenue is 10%.
Does marine get more profitable as it grows?
Overhead is the number that moves. Marine sheds 6 points between $1M–$5M and $500M+, which is in line with the 6.3 points specialty 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 marine sit against the other trades?
Marine is 3rd of 3 in specialty on net profit. Tank and vessel, Scaffolding keep the most at 8%. Its overhead is the leanest too, level with Tank and vessel. 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 marine 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.