Post-tension
No survey separates post-tension on its own, so this page shows Concrete's figures as the nearest comparable trade, labelled as derived, and lists 2 mechanisms that cost post-tension contractors money and the step that fixes each.
No survey separates post-tension, and it isn't one of the 48 trades in the SPM reference. The figures on this page are Concrete's, the nearest comparable trade that's in it, and every table and export labels them as derived. They describe a trade that works like this one, not post-tension itself. Use them to find the neighbourhood, then let your own job costing be the answer.
Post-tension by revenue band
| Metric | $1M–$5M | $5M–$10M | $10M–$25M | $25M–$50MModeled | $50M–$100MModeled | $100M–$500MModeled | $500M+Modeled | CFOS target at $1M–$5M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 14% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 8% | 13% |
| Gross margin | 21% | 22% | 23% | 24% | 25% | 26% | 28% | 23.5% |
| Net profit | 7% | 9% | 11% | 13% | 15% | 17% | 20% | 10.5% |
| Metric | $1M–$5M | $5M–$10M | $10M–$25M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 13% | 12% | 11% |
| Gross margin | 23.5% | 24.5% | 25.5% |
| 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: Post-tension. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC. https://runoncfos.com/trades/post-tension. 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.
2 problems specific to post-tension
The bundle was cut for one building and one slab edge. You pay a licensed engineer and a detailer to seal a tendon layout, then wait on somebody else's desk before a strand gets cut.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a post-tension problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| A moved slab edge scraps a bundle you already paid for | A drywall sub orders stock-length board and sends the leftovers back on the same truck. Post-tension has no stock and no return: the material is engineered to one structure's geometry and becomes scrap the moment that geometry changes. That's why the change-order clock on a PT job starts at the fabrication release and not a day later. | Project management |
| Fabrication doesn't release until the EOR approves | The gate is the whole point. A framer with a slow submittal can still buy studs and stage them on the deck, while a PT contractor can't, because the fabrication order is keyed to the approved layout and the plant won't cut against a drawing that hasn't cleared review. A submittal-heavy owner buys more of your engineering hours than the last one did, and nothing in a standard chart of accounts tells you which owner that was. | Overhead calculation |
Other concrete and masonry trades
What owners ask
What gross margin should a post-tension contractor run?
No survey reports post-tension on its own, so there's no figure of its own to give you. The nearest comparable trade in the reference is Concrete, which runs 21% gross margin at $1M–$5M. That's the number this page shows, labelled as derived. Treat it as the neighbourhood, because post-tension can run above or below it.
Where do the figures on this page come from?
From Concrete. In the surveys post-tension rolls into 238110 Poured Concrete, which mixes it with several other trades, so the reference pairs it with the nearest trade it does measure. Gross margin and overhead are that trade's, and net profit is calculated as gross margin minus overhead, so the three tie out. Every table and every export says "Derived from the nearest comparable trade."
What costs a post-tension contractor the most money?
A moved slab edge scraps a bundle you already paid for. The bundle was cut for one building and one slab edge. Move that edge after fabrication release and roughly 100 coiled tendons become scrap with no credit memo behind them. That's one of 2 on this page, and 1 of the 2 resolve to step 06, project management.
Which steps does post-tension keep pointing to?
step 06 project management on 1 of them, step 03 overhead calculation on 1 of them. That distribution is the install order for this trade, because the step with the most mechanisms is the one holding the most money.
What should a post-tension contractor use instead?
Work the mechanisms on this page first, since they're specific and actionable. For a rough sense of the economics, read the concrete and masonry group, which is the nearest published context. Your own job costing beats any industry average once step 01 is installed.
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 post-tension 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.