Tilt-up
No survey separates tilt-up on its own, so this page shows Concrete's figures as the nearest comparable trade, labelled as derived, and lists 4 mechanisms that cost tilt-up contractors money and the step that fixes each.
No survey separates tilt-up, 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 tilt-up itself. Use them to find the neighbourhood, then let your own job costing be the answer.
Tilt-up 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: Tilt-up. 2026. Sulphur Prairie Operations, LLC. https://runoncfos.com/trades/tilt-up. 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.
4 problems specific to tilt-up
You pour the building's floor slab and then beat it up for weeks as a casting bed. The crane is booked for the 14th and the cylinder results decide whether you can use it. The building is three years old and water is coming through a joint. You know your price per square foot of panel cold.
Each one below points at the item, the unit, the clock, or the party that makes it a tilt-up problem, and it says which step fixes it.
| Mechanism | Why it's specific to this trade | Step |
|---|---|---|
| You bid the floor slab once and build on it twice | Most trades damage somebody else's substrate and get back-charged for it. Tilt-up is the one trade whose deliverable is also its work platform, so the contractor signs for both conditions and only gets paid for one. The estimator prices a slab while the field builds a factory on it, and the difference between those two things is a job no scope was ever written for. | Job cost structure |
| The longest lead item is a date on a crane calendar | For most subs the long lead item is a product, and a product can be expedited, substituted, or air-freighted. Here the long lead item is somebody else's iron on somebody else's schedule. What has to be ready on that date is concrete strength, which answers to weather and to a break result, so you're matching a fixed calendar slot to a curve you don't fully control. | Equipment cost basis |
| Panel joints leak years after you booked the profit | Callbacks usually go to whoever installed the failing part. Here the failing part is the seam between two pieces you cast and set, so the panel contractor gets the first call no matter which sub bought the caulk. The gross profit on that job was recognized three fiscal years ago, and nothing was held back against a joint that was always going to age out. | Standards and accountability |
| Nothing you buy for a panel comes in square feet | A trade that buys and sells in the same unit closes its own loop by accident, because the hours that go in are the hours that come back out. Tilt-up sells in one unit and buys in seven, so the loop only closes if the job setup records panel count and panel square feet as quantities every code can divide by. Skip that and your history is a pile of invoices in mismatched units. | Software and bookkeeping alignment |
Other concrete and masonry trades
What owners ask
What gross margin should a tilt-up contractor run?
No survey reports tilt-up 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 tilt-up can run above or below it.
Where do the figures on this page come from?
From Concrete. In the surveys tilt-up 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 tilt-up contractor the most money?
You bid the floor slab once and build on it twice. You pour the building's floor slab and then beat it up for weeks as a casting bed. The repair pass was never in the number, so you fix it on your own dime. That's one of 4 on this page, and 1 of the 4 resolve to step 01, job cost structure.
Which steps does tilt-up keep pointing to?
step 01 job cost structure on 1 of them, step 02 equipment cost basis on 1 of them, step 08 standards and accountability on 1 of them, step 05 software and bookkeeping alignment 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 tilt-up 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 tilt-up 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.