Review: Purple Panda: Growth Agency

Purple Panda is een full-service bureau met thuisbasis in Antwerpen. Met ongeveer 9 VTE is dit een middelgroot bureau. Het aanbod is gericht op paid media (sea/social/display) en webdevelopment. Sectorieel richt het bureau zich vooral op kmo's / start- & scale-ups; challenger brands.

ContinuitySolid3,6 months of wages without income · median 2,7

littlea lot

Team stabilityHigh churn59,7% a year, roughly 1 in 2 · median 33,9%

stablea lot

SeniorityMixed profile€ 55.799 per FTE, € 4.650 a month · median € 57.493

juniorsenior

Price levelKeenly priced€ 34 per hour worked · median € 43

keentop

Expertise
Purple Panda helpt bedrijven groeien met digitale marketing, en het bouwen van digitale platformen en producten.
Kernactiviteiten:

- Digitale marketing en leadgeneratie
- Performance marketing
- Ontwikkeling van WordPress-websites
- AI-gedreven marketingtechnologie
Soort klanten & gemiddelde klantgrootte:

- Voornamelijk KMO’s en scale-ups in België
- Marketingbudgetten van €50.000 - €100.000 per jaar (excl. media)
- Klanten spenderen gemiddeld €5.000 - €10.000 per maand
Team:
Purple Panda werkt met een team van ±16 mensen, verdeeld over vier afdelingen:

- Development (4 mensen): gespecialiseerd in WordPress
- Creatief team (4 mensen): digital design & branding
- Digital marketing team (4 mensen): SEO, SEA, performance marketing
- Projectmanagement (2 mensen)
Zelf omschreven cultuur:
Purple Panda is een jonge, ambitieuze organisatie, met een no-nonsense mentaliteit en een sterke focus op meetbare resultaten. De cultuur wordt omschreven als "jonge wolven die voor resultaat gaan", met een balans tussen gestructureerd werken en gecontroleerde chaos.

Referentieklanten: Van Moer Logistics, Rombouts Koffie, Jorssen Groep, Fietsen Mintjens, Brixster & A-Star (real estate), Atlas Copco (project via EasyCatalog), Geberit
Tech stack: WordPress (voor webontwikkeling), AI-tools voor marketing automation en leadgeneratie
Gepercipieerde concurrenten: Upthrust, freelancers
Ondernemingsnummer: BE0683.775.368
Gemiddelde klantgrootte: 50k

Partnerships

Google Ads Partner

Who do they see as competitors?

Upthrust

As indicated by the agency itself.

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

2021202320242025

Latest year: € 526.617 gross margin, growth +70,8% against a sector median of +3,1%.

At or above sector pace

MarginEBITDA / gross margin · value-added coverage

2021202320242025

Purple PandaSector median

EBITDA margin 4,7%, sector median 16,3%. Value-added coverage 1,05 (median 1,18). Value-added coverage sits in the sector-wide grey zone (0.95-1.15): context, not an alarm.

Below sector level

Revenue per headGross margin per FTE, against payroll cost

€ 59.170

Median (2024) € 73.245

Against a payroll cost of € 55.799 per FTE. The ratio between the two is the coverage rate above.

Below the median

Yield levelYield per hour worked, against payroll cost

€ 34

Median (2024) € 43

15.303 hours worked, 1.719 per FTE. Against that sits € 32 of payroll cost per hour worked, leaving € 2 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: 8,7 months (median 5,5 mo). Equity in the latest year: € 358.022.

Adequate buffer

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

Cash € 147.260. Liquidity ratio 2,04: current assets cover short-term debt in full. Solvency 51,8%.

Amply covered

Payment behaviourTowards suppliers and towards the NBB

Trade payables correspond to 132 days of supplier credit, sector median 59. The accounts were filed 183 days after closing; the legal deadline is seven months.

Pays slower than average

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

No serious signals

Signals in the last 24 months

Late filing · 29 Nov 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

Strong buffer: 8,7 months of payroll in equity
Team grew (+36,9% FTE in the latest year)
Healthy working capital (current ratio 2,04)
Equity was earned, not injected (reserves 18,2× the capital contributed)
Comfortable cash position: 108 days of payroll
Turnover below the median (22,5%)

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.

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

	2021	2023	2024	2025
Result
Gross margin	€ 274.000	€ 570.890+108,4%	€ 308.249-46%	€ 526.617+70,8%
EBITDA	€ 130.000	€ 314.512	€ -25.478	€ 24.503
EBITDA margin	47,4%	55,1%	-8,3%	4,7%
Staff
FTE	4,0	5,3+32,5%	6,5+22,6%	8,9+36,9%
Gross margin per FTE	€ 68.500	€ 107.715	€ 47.423	€ 59.170
Payroll cost per FTE	€ 35.500	€ 46.271	€ 50.471	€ 55.799
Balance sheet
Equity	€ 155.000	€ 385.808	€ 355.720	€ 358.022
Cash	-	€ 251.649	€ 164.781	€ 147.260
Liquidity ratio	-	4,22	2,97	2,04

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 30/09/2025. 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 3 services

Media

Search advertising (SEA)

Digital Experience & Tech

SEO & GEO Website development

Sector focus

KMO's / start- & scale-ups; challenger brands

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

€ 55.799

-3% versus the median

Team composition

8,9 VTE

57% women
43% men

€ 55.799

Median Full-service bureau (2024) € 57.493All 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 2025

22,5%

Median for this type of agency (2024): 33,9%

Inflow 2025

33,7%

3,0 FTE in, 2,0 FTE out

Net team change

+1,0 VTE

2021202320242025

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.

Official partnerships 1 badge(s)

Google Ads: Partner1 of 68 Belgian partners in the IKAg database.

As published in the platforms' official partner directories, collected by IKAg.