Where tank and vessel contractors lose money
6 things cost tank and vessel contractors money without ever becoming a line item, and each one traces to a step you can install. Tank and vessel contractors average 23% gross margin, 15% overhead and 8% net profit at $1M to $5M of revenue. The CFOS target at that size is 25.5% gross margin, 14% overhead and 11.5% 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.
Tank and vessel ranks 1st 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.
Tank and vessel by revenue band
| Metric | $1M to $5M | $5M to $10M | $10M to $25M | $25M to $50MModeled | $50M to $100MModeled | $100M to $500MModeled | $500M+Modeled | CFOS target at $1M to $5M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 15% | 14% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 10% | 9% | 14% |
| Gross margin | 23% | 24% | 25% | 27% | 28% | 30% | 32% | 25.5% |
| Net profit | 8% | 10% | 12% | 15% | 17% | 20% | 23% | 11.5% |
| Metric | $1M to $5M | $5M to $10M | $10M to $25M |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 14% | 13% | 12% |
| Gross margin | 25.5% | 26.5% | 27.5% |
| Net profit | 11.5% | 13.5% | 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 figures CFMA, Jones Maresca and other sources publish by trade and size, and they are before tax figures. Net profit starts from gross margin less overhead and is then adjusted for taxes and a few other expenses, so it is stated after taxes. It is published as its own average and is not calculated from the other two on the page.
CFMA reports net income before taxes, so a CFMA figure is higher than an after tax figure on the same business. CFMA's 2025 medians are 7.1 percent before interest and taxes and 6.7 percent net income before taxes. Read a net profit figure here against CFMA's with that difference in mind.
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, so read those bands as a model and not as a survey result.
Run On CFOS. Run On CFOS Trade Benchmark Reference: Tank and vessel. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC. https://runoncfos.com/trades/tank-vessel. 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 publishes net profit as a separate average stated after taxes. 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 to $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 tank and vessel
You bid the tank in March, won it in July, and bought the plate in August against a mill quote that expired in April. The plate is six weeks late and there's nothing else on that site your welders are allowed to touch. Four welders spent two weeks cutting and testing coupons, and none of that time had a job number behind it. The tank has been holding water for eighteen months, the city loves it, and the owner still has your retainage.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a tank and vessel problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| The Plate Quote Expired Before You Won the Job | Most trades buy material in weeks, in lots small enough that a price move is noise. On an API 650 or AWWA D100 tank, plate is 30 to 45 percent of contract value and it all buys in one heat lot at one moment. SteelBenchmarker had USA standard plate at $1,520 per tonne in August 2026 against an $860 low in January 2025, so the swing across a normal municipal award cycle is bigger than the margin on the job. | Estimating system |
| Late Plate Puts a Certified Crew on the Bench | A GC covers a material slip by pulling another trade forward. A tank erector has one to four dedicated crews and holds a single scope on that site, so the mill date moving is the whole job moving. The delay also belongs to the mill, which leaves no GC to file a claim against and no party to bill standby to. | Project management |
| You Pay for Coupons Before You Bill a Weld | Most subs mobilize and start billing in the same week. A tank sub uses two to five weeks of engineering review plus a week of crew time on test coupons before a production weld exists to bill against. No billable milestone is attached, so that spend almost always gets dumped into overhead, where it never posts against the job that caused it. | Job cost structure |
| You Finish First and You Get Paid Last | Trades that finish near the end of a project wait weeks for retention. A tank goes up early and gets tested early because everything built after it depends on it, so the stretch between your last day of work and your last dollar is the longest on the job. You're also funding the next tank's plate package during that same stretch, which is how a shop with good margin still ends up with no cash. | Monthly cadence |
| Year Two Blisters Come Back to a Closed Job | For most trades a callback is a truck, a man, and a day. Yours is a complete recoat cycle on a structure that has to come out of service first, priced like a small job of its own. It also comes two fiscal years after you recognized the revenue, so there's nothing left on the balance sheet to absorb it and the current year pays for it. | Standards and accountability |
| You Sell in Gallons and Buy in Pounds | Most trades sell in roughly the unit they buy in: square feet of board, feet of conduit, and cubic yards placed. A tank is sold in gallons, bought in pounds, and built in weld inches, and nothing in the estimate, the contract, or the pay app is denominated in the unit the money moves in. That missing translation is why a design revision can take your margin without ever looking like a change to anyone reviewing it. | Estimating system |
Tank and vessel against the other 47 trades
| Metric | Tank and vessel | Specialty average | All 48 average | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overhead | 15% | 16% | 15.1% | 17th of 48 |
| Gross margin | 23% | 23.7% | 22.1% | 13th of 48 |
| Net profit | 8% | 7.7% | 7% | 8th of 48 |
Tank and vessel sheds 6 points of overhead between $1M to $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 have 15% overhead, the leanest. This trade is one of them on both counts.
What owners ask
What overhead should a tank and vessel contractor have?
Tank and vessel shares its overhead figure with 14 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 15% at $1M to $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 to $5M is 14%. The CFOS target is one point leaner than your trade's industry average at your revenue.
What gross margin should a tank and vessel contractor have?
Tank and vessel shares its gross margin figure with 6 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 23% at $1M to $5M and 32% at $500M+, as a percentage of revenue. That is 0.7 points below the specialty average of 23.7%. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is 25.5%. 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 tank and vessel contractor have?
Tank and vessel shares its net profit figure with 12 other trades at this revenue, which is what the published data resolves to. It averages 8% at $1M to $5M and 23% at $500M+, after taxes, as a percentage of revenue. That is 0.3 points above the specialty average of 7.7%. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is 11.5%. The CFOS target recalculates at your revenue: 10 percent after taxes, or 3.5 points better than your trade's industry average, whichever is higher.
What profit margin should a small tank and vessel business have?
Owners usually mean net profit when they say profit margin, and for tank and vessel at $1M to $5M that's 8%. Gross margin is a different number, 23%, and it's what's left after job costs but before overhead. Overhead is the 15% between the two. A small tank and vessel business holding 8% net is at the published figure for its size, and the CFOS target at that revenue is 11.5%.
Does tank and vessel get more profitable as it grows?
Overhead is the number that moves. Tank and vessel sheds 6 points between $1M to $5M and $500M+, which is in line with the 6.3 points specialty sheds as a group. Net profit is already above the 48-trade average, so the room is in holding it while revenue rises.
Where does tank and vessel rank against the other trades?
Tank and vessel ties 1 trade in specialty on net profit, all at 8%. Nothing publishes more, and Scaffolding matches it. Its overhead is the leanest too, level with Marine. Gross margin ranks 13th of 48 and overhead ranks 17th.
That's the industry average and the CFOS target for tank and vessel 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 leads 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 tank and vessel contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, led by the same author.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.