# What is a normal margin for an agency?

**Short answer.** In financial year 2024, half of Belgian agencies sat between 7 and 22 percent EBITDA on gross margin. Anything in between is ordinary, and an agency at 15 percent is neither a bargain nor an alarm.

For a Belgian agency the usable measure is EBITDA margin on gross margin: what remains before depreciation, financial charges and tax, divided by the fee portion of revenue.

## The distribution in financial year 2024

Measured in IKAg's [Agency Barometer](https://www.ikag.be/barometer), across all Belgian agencies with filed annual accounts:

- **Median: about 22 percent.** The middle agency of the market.
- **First quartile: about 7 percent.** A quarter of agencies sit below that.
- Everything **in between** is the middle half of the market, and that is by far the most common outcome.

So an agency at 15 percent sits exactly there: below the median, well above the first quartile, and completely normal. That is the most important sentence in this answer, because a number without a distribution around it is almost always read too harshly.

## Why you should not look at margin on revenue

At agencies, net margin on revenue says nothing, because revenue includes pass-through costs such as media, print and production. A media agency placing ten million in media and earning half a million in fees shows a laughable revenue margin while being perfectly healthy. So always calculate on gross margin.

## The movement matters more than the level

Between 2021 and 2024 the third quartile lost 6.7 percent of its margin, and the first quartile 45.5 percent. The bottom of the market lost almost half its profitability while the top barely moved.

That makes "where does this agency sit in the distribution" a more useful question than "does this agency have a good margin". Two consecutive years of decline at an agency already at the bottom is a different story than at one in the top quartile.

## What a low margin does and does not mean

It measures continuity risk, not quality. An agency at 6 percent margin may think more sharply than its competitors; it simply has less buffer when something goes wrong. So do not use the figure to reject, use it to know which question to ask.

See also: [what an agency earns on you](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/wat-verdient-een-bureau-aan-mij) and [how to know whether an agency is financially healthy](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/is-een-bureau-financieel-gezond).

## Related questions

- [What does an agency actually earn on me?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/wat-verdient-een-bureau-aan-mij): Less than most advertisers assume: in 2024 the median Belgian agency kept about 22 percent of its gross margin as EBITDA, the bottom quarter 7 percent. One in seven ran a loss.
- [How do I know whether an agency is financially healthy?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/is-een-bureau-financieel-gezond): Four of the five numbers you need are free at the National Bank: EBITDA margin, gross margin per employee, the three-year trend and equity. Only the share of the largest client has to be asked.
- [Is my agency too expensive?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/is-mijn-bureau-te-duur): That is not a question about rates but about how much work you get per euro. Measured on identical proposal lines across agencies, that varies by up to a factor of eight while the totals barely differ.

---

IKAg is the business consultant for marketing and agencies in Belgium and the Netherlands. Market figures come from the Agency Barometer, calculated on the annual accounts agencies filed with the National Bank themselves. Figures on pitches and satisfaction come from IKAg-guided processes, and are always presented as such.

- All questions: https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq
- Last updated: 2026-08-19