How do your business costs compare with your industry?
Compare payroll across 50 curated industries, plus detailed operating costs where official 2024 Census tables publish them. Clear coverage. No opaque score.
A benchmark you can audit.
We turn public industry totals into simple expense-to-revenue shares, then compare those shares with the numbers you enter.
Choose an industry
Pick a curated U.S. industry and its NAICS classification.
Enter your costs
Add annual revenue and only the categories you want to compare. The amounts are not sent to our API.
See the gap
Compare your share of revenue with the Census industry aggregate — in percentage points and relative terms.
Start with an industry.
Accounting Firms (CPA Offices)
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →Law Firms
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →Management Consulting Services
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →Custom Computer Programming Services
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →Dental Practices
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →Full-Service Restaurants
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →Fitness & Recreational Sports Centers
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →Beauty Salons
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →General Automotive Repair
Compare payroll and published operating-cost categories with the industry aggregate.
View benchmark →Aggregate ≠ median.
Census AIES publishes industry totals. We divide a published expense total by published revenue for the same industry. That produces an aggregate expense share — not the median company, not a percentile, and not a recommended budget.
That wording matters. A high or low result is a reason to investigate context, not proof that a business is efficient or inefficient.
Read the methodologyUse benchmarks without false precision.
The useful question is not “am I above average?” but “which cost differences are large enough to investigate, and do the categories really match?”
How to benchmark expenses
A practical five-step process for making an industry comparison meaningful.
Read guide →Choose the right NAICS
How to pick a comparison industry when your business spans several activities.
Read guide →Compare two plausible NAICS choices
Run the same expense against two industry aggregates and see how sensitive the result is to classification.
Open sensitivity checker →Model a revenue + expense scenario
See how one expense-to-revenue ratio changes under your own current and future assumptions.
Open scenario planner →Blend a two-activity business mix
Weight two published industry references by your actual revenue mix and test one shared expense category.
Open business-mix planner →What the benchmark means
Answers about aggregates, suppressed data, privacy, AI and update frequency.
Read FAQ →