How big is Brand Story?

Around 1 full-time equivalent (financial year 2025).

Review: Brand Story

Brand Story bestaat sinds 2016 en profileert zich als strategiebureau uit Zemst. De opgegeven expertise is strategie.

1

How this agency makes money

Revenue, margin and what an hour of work brings in. Everything on the earning side sits together here.

Revenue trendgross margin per financial year

20212022202320242025

Latest year: € 177.606 gross margin, growth -30,5% against a sector median of +17,9%.

Shrinking

MarginEBITDA / gross margin · value-added coverage

20212022202320242025

Brand StorySector median

EBITDA margin 44,1%, sector median 39%. Value-added coverage 1,86 (median 1,47).

Healthy margin

Revenue per headGross margin per FTE, against payroll cost

€ 222.007

Against a payroll cost of € 113.461 per FTE. The ratio between the two is the coverage rate above.

No data

Yield levelYield per hour worked, against payroll cost

€ 155

1.145 hours worked, 1.431 per FTE. Against that sits € 79 of payroll cost per hour worked, leaving € 76 for premises, equipment, depreciation and profit.

No data

No hourly rate follows from this. Gross margin is already net of services and sundry goods, which mixes rebilled production with the agency's own overhead, and the accounts do not say how many hours were billable. Deriving a rate from this systematically understates it.

2

Can the agency take a hit

Buffer, cash position and payment behaviour side by side, so you can see where they disagree.

Bufferequity in months of payroll

Buffer: 168,3 months (median 6,2 mo). Equity in the latest year: € 1,27 mln.

Adequate buffer

Cash positionAvailable cash, and whether it covers short-term debt

Cash € 3.876. Liquidity ratio 17,12: current assets cover short-term debt in full. Solvency 53,4%.

Amply covered

Payment behaviourTowards suppliers and towards the NBB

Trade payables correspond to 36 days of supplier credit, sector median 109. The accounts were filed 195 days after closing; the legal deadline is seven months.

Pays and files on time

3

Signals and strengths

Events from the CBE and the Official Gazette over the past 24 months, plus positive markers derived from the figures.

Continuity

Points to ask about

Signals in the last 24 months

Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Aug 2026 · Google Autocomplete
Zichtbaarheid verschoven · 1 Aug 2026 · Google Autocomplete
Loss-making year · 31 Dec 2025 · NBB
One financial year closed at a loss. The size is not shown here: it can be a few thousand euros, a one-off settlement, or a deliberate investment. Ask the agency what was behind it.
Late filing · 14 Aug 2025 · NBB
The annual accounts were filed after the statutory deadline. Over a third of the sector does this, usually because of the accountant's calendar. Rarely a story in itself.

Click a signal for a plain-language explanation. Each signal is a fact from a public source, without the agency's own context. Best to ask them directly.

What this agency does well

EBITDA margin above the sector median (44,1%)
Strong buffer: 168,3 months of payroll in equity
Stable team (no meaningful FTE loss)
Value-added per euro of payroll above the sector median (1,86)
Healthy working capital (current ratio 17,12)

Each point is a fact from the filed annual accounts, measured against the same thresholds and sector medians as the signals above.

4

All the figures

Reference material, not a starting point. Expand it if you want to read the series yourself.

5 financial years, 2021 to 2025Result, staff and balance sheet

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Result
Gross margin	€ 223.196	€ 259.147+16,1%	€ 138.602-46,5%	€ 255.621+84,4%	€ 177.606-30,5%
EBITDA	€ 159.097	€ 183.575	€ 53.188	€ 161.657	€ 78.306
EBITDA margin	71,3%	70,8%	38,4%	63,2%	44,1%
Staff
FTE	0,8	0,80%	0,80%	0,80%	0,80%
Gross margin per FTE	€ 278.996	€ 323.934	€ 173.253	€ 319.526	€ 222.007
Payroll cost per FTE	€ 79.498	€ 94.465	€ 106.767	€ 107.116	€ 113.461
Balance sheet
Equity	€ 1,23 mln	€ 1,34 mln	€ 1,35 mln	€ 1,36 mln	€ 1,27 mln
Cash	€ 160.979	€ 116.394	€ 23.087	€ 21.823	€ 3.876
Liquidity ratio	5,21	5,34	13,99	14,52	17,12

Payroll cost per FTE comes from the social report where available, otherwise from the Remuneration line. Both are gross costs including employer contributions.

What this factsheet does not know

How good the work is. Figures do not measure creativity, strategy or chemistry.
How the client portfolio is spread. Concentration is not in the accounts.
Freelancers and subcontractors are not in the FTE figures. An agency with 40 staff may in practice run with 70 people.
The figures cover financial year 2025, filed on 14/07/2026. At a fast-moving agency reality today may differ.

Based on publicly filed annual accounts (NBB) and official records (CBE, Belgian Official Gazette). An indication, not financial advice. Sector medians calculated on 21 Sep 2026. Sector medians based on financial year 2024: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.

What the agency actually does 1 services

Strategy & Insights

Marketing strategy

Sector focus

Solo coaching/opleidingspraktijk (Pascale De Snijder), sales- en communicatietrainingen voor bedrijven; geen uitvoerend marcombureau.

From our own research. The agency hasn't listed its sectors yet.

Based on IKAg research and public sources. Incomplete or outdated? Let us know.

1

People 2 people mapped

PD

Pascale De Snijder

Sales and Business partner

ST

Sabine Thielemans

Strategy and Business partner

Based on public profiles. Something wrong? Let us know.

2

Seniors or juniors?

Payroll cost per FTE is the best public proxy for a team's experience level. Higher is not automatically better, but it says something about who sits at the table.

Payroll cost per FTE

€ 113.461

Team composition

0,8 FTE

€ 113.461

All agencies (2024) € 59.045

Read with care. Directors and partners invoicing through a management company are not in the payroll cost. At small agencies this skews the picture downwards considerably.

Source: annual accounts and social reports (NBB), collected by IKAg. Financial year 2025. Calculations by IKAg; an indication, not financial advice. Sector medians based on financial year 2024: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.