Review: Boondoggle

Boondoggle is een creatief bureau uit Leuven. De bezetting ligt rond 34 VTE. Ze werken rond creatie & reclame, strategie en branding & identiteit.

ContinuityUnder pressure0,5 months of wages without income · median 3,0

littlea lot

Team stabilityMore churn39,9% a year, roughly 1 in 3 · median 33,7%

stablea lot

SenioritySenior profile€ 84.022 per FTE, € 7.002 a month · median € 61.872

juniorsenior

Price levelKeenly priced€ 36 per hour worked · median € 45

keentop

Awards

2× Effie Awards Belgium

1× Eurobest

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

202220232024

Latest year: € 1,91 mln gross margin, growth -18,8% against a sector median of -0,2%.

Shrinking

MarginEBITDA / gross margin · value-added coverage

202220232024

BoondoggleSector median

EBITDA margin -21,9%, sector median 17,9%. Value-added coverage 0,85 (median 1,17).

Loss-making

Revenue per headGross margin per FTE, against payroll cost

€ 56.649

Median (2024) € 72.673

Against a payroll cost of € 84.022 per FTE. The ratio between the two is the coverage rate above.

Below the median

Yield levelYield per hour worked, against payroll cost

€ 36

Median (2024) € 45

52.770 hours worked, 1.566 per FTE. Against that sits € 54 of payroll cost per hour worked, leaving € -17 for premises, equipment, depreciation and profit.

Below the median

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: 2,6 months (median 6,7 mo). Equity in the latest year: € 623.152.

Thin buffer

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

Cash € 116.946. Liquidity ratio 0,85: current assets cover short-term debt not in full. Solvency 19,5%.

Not covered

Payment behaviourTowards suppliers and towards the NBB

Trade payables correspond to 50 days of supplier credit, sector median 73. The accounts were filed 420 days after closing; the legal deadline is seven months.

Filed late

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

Warnings active

Signals in the last 24 months

Late filing · 24 Feb 2026 · NBB
The annual accounts were filed after the statutory deadline. Over a third of the sector does this; rarely alarming in itself.
Thin buffer · 31 Dec 2024 · NBB
Equity covers less than three months of payroll. Not an alarm, but a limited reserve.
Low value-added coverage · 31 Dec 2024 · NBB
Every euro of payroll generates less than 95 cents of added value. The team is not fully earning itself back.
Loss-making year · 31 Dec 2024 · NBB
A financial year closed at a loss. On its own that need not be alarming (investments, a lost client); watch for repetition.
Late filing · 27 Dec 2024 · NBB
The annual accounts were filed after the statutory deadline. Over a third of the sector does this; rarely alarming in itself.

Click a signal for a plain-language explanation.

What this agency does well

Stable team (no meaningful FTE loss)

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.

3 financial years, 2022 to 2024Result, staff and balance sheet

	2022	2023	2024
Result
Gross margin	€ 2,15 mln	€ 2,35 mln+9,2%	€ 1,91 mln-18,8%
EBITDA	€ 278.652	€ 713.611	€ -418.057
EBITDA margin	12,9%	30,3%	-21,9%
Staff
FTE	29,0	33,5+15,5%	33,7+0,6%
Gross margin per FTE	€ 74.278	€ 70.219	€ 56.649
Payroll cost per FTE	€ 75.658	€ 95.611	€ 84.022
Balance sheet
Equity	€ -19.266	€ 1,20 mln	€ 623.152
Cash	€ 250.871	€ 119.762	€ 116.946
Liquidity ratio	0,84	1,11	0,85

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 2024, filed on 24/02/2026. 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 27 Jul 2026. Sector medians based on financial year 2024: the last year for which nearly all accounts have been filed.

What the agency actually does 35 services

Strategy & Insights

AI & innovation strategy Brand strategy & positioning Customer & audience strategy

Branding & Design

Brand identity & design Packaging design Product & service design

Advertising & Campaigns

Campaign concepts & big ideas Campaign execution Performance creative & DCO

Content & Production

Content strategy & editorial

Media

Digital & programmatic buying Media strategy & planning Offline buying (TV, radio, print, OOH) Search advertising (SEA)

Social, Influencer & Community

Influencer & creator marketing Organic social content Social strategy & platform mix

Digital Experience & Tech

E-commerce (incl. payment) Mobile apps & PWAs SEO & GEO Website development Website strategy & UX

CRM, Email & Loyalty

CRM & lifecycle strategy Direct marketing & lead management Marketing automation

Data, Measurement & Governance

Dashboards & reporting Data science & analytics (incl. predictive modelling)

PR & Reputation

Corporate communication PR strategy & media relations

Employer Brand & Internal

Employer brand strategy Internal communication Recruitment campaigns

Events, Sponsoring & Activation

Brand activation (incl. guerrilla) Events & experiences Sponsorship & partnerships

Sector focus

Financiële sector/banken & verzekeringen, retail, FMCG/voeding, overheid & defensie, non-profit, farma

Publicly known clients

Beobank, Federale Assurance, Fnac, Leerdammer, HiPRO, Keytrade, Novy, Oxfam, Belgische Defensie, Findus, Opel Finance, NCOI Learning, Payconiq/Bancontact, NATO, Pfizer, Argenta, Yuzzu, VRT, Elia, Cevora, Interpolis

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

1

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

€ 84.022

+36% versus the median

Team composition

33,7 VTE

66% women
34% men

€ 84.022

Median Creatief bureau (2024) € 61.872All agencies (2024) € 59.129

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.

2

Will your team stay?

Inflow and outflow from the social report. This series only counts people on the payroll: freelancers who invoice do not appear in it. A low figure therefore means two very different things, a stable permanent team or a small core with heavy outsourcing. A high figure usually points to short contracts. Compare only within the same type of agency.

Exits 2024

43,3%

Median for this type of agency (2024): 33,7%

Inflow 2024

3,0%

1,0 FTE in, 14,6 FTE out

Net team change

-13,6 VTE

202220232024

Source: annual accounts and social reports (NBB), collected by IKAg. Financial year 2024. 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.

Award-winning work 3 award(s)

2025

Effie Awards Belgium Bronze“Feed your progress — HIPRO” · source ↗

2022

Effie Awards Belgium Bronze“Hop, c'est bipé ! — Payconiq” · source ↗

2017

Eurobest GoldCreative Data · “Tahra's Workout / Wereldsolidariteit” · source ↗

As published by the organising award shows, collected by IKAg.