Where masonry contractors lose money
5 things cost masonry contractors money without ever showing up as a line item, and each one traces to a step you can install. Masonry contractors average 21% gross margin, 14% overhead and 7% net profit at $1M–$5M of revenue. The CFOS target at that size is 23% gross margin, 13% 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.
Masonry sits 2nd of 5 in concrete and masonry on net profit, and it carries leaner overhead than the 48-trade average. Here is every figure, across all 7 revenue bands.
Masonry by revenue band
| Metric | $1M–$5M | $5M–$10M | $10M–$25M | $25M–$50M | $50M–$100M | $100M–$500M | $500M+ | CFOS target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 14% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 8% | 13% |
| Gross margin | 21% | 22% | 23% | 24% | 25% | 26% | 28% | 23% |
| Net profit | 7% | 9% | 11% | 13% | 15% | 17% | 20% | 10% |
SPM The Construction CFO. SPM Trade Benchmark Reference: Masonry. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC. https://runoncfos.com/trades/masonry. 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 masonry
You take the full brick package in one or two drops at buyout, then lay it out over the next eight months while the cash sits in a stack on the ground. Your top mason and a tender spend three days building a wall that gets walked, argued over, and torn down. You set structural block right behind the foundation, and the ten percent held on it sits untouched until substantial completion, a year and a half later. Steel slipped four weeks, your scaffold stands on an elevation you can't advance, and the rental invoice still comes in right on time.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a masonry problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| The whole brick package hits cash before course one | Plenty of trades buy material early. Masonry is the one where splitting the order damages the finished product, so the early buy is mandatory and it can't be staged to match the billing curve. A drywall sub can take another truck of board next month and nobody will ever know. A second kiln run bands the wall for the life of the building. | Monthly cadence |
| Three days of your best mason, buried in general labor | Other trades submit paper and then wait. Masonry submits a built assembly, so the submittal itself consumes your highest-paid mason, a tender, scaffold time, and real material before the job has produced a billable square foot. On a time card the panel reads like ordinary wall work, which sends those hours into general job labor where nobody finds them again. That's how a week of premium production disappears into a code with no story attached to it. | Job cost structure |
| Block laid in month two, retention released in month twenty | Most trades earn where their retention sits, late in the job, so the hold and the work sit near each other on the calendar. Masonry goes vertical early and finishes late under a single number, which stretches the distance between earning and release further than any other subcontract on the building. The block scope alone can be held longer than some subs are even on site. Your estimator sees the bid margin and never sees the eighteen months the cash was gone. | Software and bookkeeping alignment |
| Standby scaffold has no line on the pay application | Scaffold is the mason's largest non-labor cost and it runs on a calendar the GC controls. A trade that pulls up with a van and a scissor lift can walk off a stalled elevation and lose nothing that day, while your access is bolted to the building and metered by the month. Schedule slip converts directly into equipment cost for masonry in a way it simply doesn't for the trades working behind you. | Equipment cost basis |
| You go back to clean a wall you finished a year ago | No other trade leaves its finished surface exposed for the entire build. Drywall gets covered, painted, and protected within weeks, while face brick is the final product from the day it goes up and stays out there as a work surface for everyone who follows. That's why cleandown and repair is a genuine second mobilization for masonry and a punch list walk for everybody else. | Standards and accountability |
Masonry against the other 47 trades
| Metric | Masonry | Concrete and masonry average | All 48 average | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 14% | 14.6% | 15.1% | 6th of 48 |
| Gross margin | 21% | 21.8% | 22.1% | 33rd of 48 |
| Net profit | 7% | 7.2% | 7% | 21st of 48 |
Masonry sheds 6 points of overhead between $1M–$5M and $500M+, against 6 for concrete and masonry as a group. Inside that group, Concrete flatwork keeps the most at 8%, and Concrete, Concrete flatwork and Masonry all run 14% overhead, the leanest. The leanest one is this trade.
Other concrete and masonry trades
What owners ask
What overhead should a masonry contractor run?
Masonry shares its overhead figure with 10 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It runs 14% at $1M–$5M and 8% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That sits 0.6 points below the concrete and masonry average of 14.6%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 13%. The CFOS target is one point leaner than your trade's average at your revenue.
What gross margin should a masonry contractor run?
Masonry shares its gross margin figure with 5 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It runs 21% at $1M–$5M and 28% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That sits 0.8 points below the concrete and masonry average of 21.8%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 23%. 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 masonry contractor run?
Masonry 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 20% at $500M+, before taxes, as a percentage of revenue. That sits 0.2 points below the concrete and masonry average of 7.2%. The CFOS target at $1M–$5M is 10%. The CFOS target is published at $1M to $5M.
What profit margin should a small masonry business run?
Owners usually mean net profit when they say profit margin, and for masonry at $1M–$5M that's 7%. Gross margin is a different number, 21%, and it's what's left after job costs but before overhead. Overhead is the 14% sitting between the two. A small masonry business holding 7% net is at the published figure for its size, and the CFOS target at that revenue is 10%.
Does masonry get more profitable as it grows?
Overhead is the number that moves. Masonry sheds 6 points between $1M–$5M and $500M+, which is in line with the 6 points concrete and masonry 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 masonry sit against the other trades?
Masonry ties 3 trades in concrete and masonry on net profit, all at 7%. Concrete flatwork keeps the most at 8%. Its overhead is the leanest too, level with Concrete and Concrete flatwork. Gross margin ranks 33rd of 48 and overhead ranks 6th.
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 masonry 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.