Where is my agency's margin actually leaking?

Find which of eight profit leaks apply to your agency, ranked by cost.

For: Any agency owner

Margin leak finder

Find where the margin is going

Eight questions, each tied to a named profit leak. Answer them honestly and the tool ranks which leaks are costing you most, so you know where to look first instead of guessing.

+How the numbers work

Each leak fires at a research-anchored share of your team's productive hours (5 to 12%), priced at the blended rate you set, over a 1,500-hour productive year per person.

A No fires the full share, a Sort of fires half, a Yes fires nothing. The total is a directional estimate to rank where to act, not a precise audit.

Estimated annual leak

Answer the 8 questions below to see your estimated leak.

Team size6

130

Blended hourly rate$125

$50$300

1.Do you track utilisation per person every week?

2.Are 80%+ of projects within 10% of estimated hours?

3.Do you bill at least 90% of the hours actually worked?

4.Can you see live project margin without an export?

5.Are 70%+ of clients on retainers or fixed-price work?

6.Do you re-quote scope changes within 48 hours?

7.Do you write off less than 5% of project hours?

8.Has the team gone two weeks without unplanned rework?

A directional estimate, not an audit. Leak shares are anchored to SPI Research and APA benchmarks. Nothing leaves your browser.

How this is calculated

Each question maps to a named profit leak. Answering Sort of or No fires that leak at a research-anchored share of your team's productive hours, priced at the blended rate you set, over a 1,500-hour productive year per person.

Leak shares run from 3 to 12% and are drawn from SPI Research benchmarks on utilisation, project overrun and revenue leakage, plus the American Psychological Association figure on context-switching. The total is a directional estimate to rank where to look first, not a precise audit.

Sources

2026 Professional Services Maturity BenchmarkSPI Research (Service Performance Insight)509 firms, 160+ KPIs. Healthy billable utilisation 70%+, project margin 35%+, revenue leakage under 5%.
High Growth Study 2025Hinge Research InstituteHigh Growth firms grow 4x faster than peers and are 30% more profitable.
Multitasking: Switching costsAmerican Psychological AssociationFrequent task-switching can consume up to 40% of productive time.
The Economics of Higher UtilisationHarvard Business ReviewProfessional-services research links higher billable utilisation to materially higher net margin.

Frequently asked

What causes margin leaks in an agency?+

The common causes are low utilisation visibility, estimate overruns, unbilled hours, scope creep, write-offs and rework. Each quietly erodes the margin a project was priced to make.

What is revenue leakage?+

Revenue leakage is billable work that never reaches an invoice. SPI Research treats anything above 5% as a problem worth fixing, since it falls straight off the bottom line.

How do I stop scope creep eating margin?+

Write a specific scope, track hours against it live, and re-quote changes within a couple of days. Catching drift at 60% of budget is recoverable, catching it at 120% is not.

How is this different from the profitability calculator?+

The profitability calculator sizes two fixed leaks. This tool diagnoses which of eight leaks apply to your agency and ranks them, so you know where to act first.

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