Where marine contractors lose money
6 things cost marine contractors money without ever becoming 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 24.5% 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.
Marine ranks 3rd of 3 in specialty on net profit, and it has 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–$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% | 25% | 26% | 27% | 28% | 30% | 24.5% |
| Net profit | 7% | 9% | 12% | 14% | 16% | 18% | 21% | 10.5% |
| Metric | $1M–$5M | $5M–$10M | $10M–$25M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 14% | 13% | 12% |
| Gross margin | 24.5% | 25.5% | 27.5% |
| Net profit | 10.5% | 12.5% | 15.5% |
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: Marine. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Operations, 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 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.
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 is stuck 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 right 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 wait on. | 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 averages 15% at $1M–$5M and 9% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That is 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 industry 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 averages 22% at $1M–$5M and 30% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That is 1.7 points below the specialty average of 23.7%. 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 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 averages 7% at $1M–$5M and 21% at $500M+, before taxes, as a percentage of revenue. That is 0.7 points below the specialty average of 7.7%. 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 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% 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 10.5%.
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 rank against the other trades?
Marine is 3rd of 3 in specialty on net profit. Tank and vessel, Scaffolding are the most profitable at 8%. Its overhead is the leanest too, level with Tank and vessel. Gross margin ranks 20th of 48 and overhead ranks 17th.
That's the industry average and the CFOS target for marine 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 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 behind these figures. More about the author.