Review: Second Floor

Second Floor is een creatief bureau met thuisbasis in Elsene. Met ongeveer 10 VTE is dit een middelgroot bureau. Het bureau is toegespitst op creatie & reclame en content & copy. Het zwaartepunt ligt bij opdrachtgevers uit breed/algemeen (b2c en b2b).

ContinuityWatch7,1 months of wages without income · median 3,0

littlea lot

Team stabilityMore churn41,2% a year, roughly 1 in 2 · median 33,7%

stablea lot

SeniorityMixed profile€ 71.763 per FTE, € 5.980 a month · median € 61.872

juniorsenior

Price levelMarket rate€ 57 per hour worked · median € 45

keentop

Awards

1× BEA Awards

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

2021202220232024

Latest year: € 827.043 gross margin, growth -1,5% against a sector median of -0,2%.

Growing slower than the sector

MarginEBITDA / gross margin · value-added coverage

2021202220232024

Second FloorSector median

EBITDA margin 11,2%, sector median 17,9%. Value-added coverage 1,13 (median 1,17). Value-added coverage sits in the sector-wide grey zone (0.95-1.15): context, not an alarm.

Healthy margin

Revenue per headGross margin per FTE, against payroll cost

€ 84.392

Median (2024) € 72.673

Against a payroll cost of € 71.763 per FTE. The ratio between the two is the coverage rate above.

Above the median

Yield levelYield per hour worked, against payroll cost

€ 57

Median (2024) € 45

14.623 hours worked, 1.492 per FTE. Against that sits € 48 of payroll cost per hour worked, leaving € 8 for premises, equipment, depreciation and profit.

Above 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: 1,9 months (median 6,7 mo). Equity in the latest year: € 112.521.

Thin buffer

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

Cash € 415.510. Liquidity ratio 1,09: current assets cover short-term debt in full. Solvency 7,3%.

Tightly covered

Payment behaviourTowards suppliers and towards the NBB

Trade payables correspond to 525 days of supplier credit, sector median 73. The accounts were filed 211 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

Thin buffer · 31 Dec 2024 · NBB
Equity covers less than three months of payroll. Not an alarm, but a limited reserve.
Late filing · 23 Sep 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

Margin per hour worked rose 2 years in a row
Comfortable cash position: 216 days of payroll

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 2024Result, staff and balance sheet

	2021	2022	2023	2024
Result
Gross margin	€ 465.000	€ 512.589+10,2%	€ 840.017+63,9%	€ 827.043-1,5%
EBITDA	€ -25.000	€ 37.981	€ 67.247	€ 92.773
EBITDA margin	-5,4%	7,4%	8%	11,2%
Staff
FTE	7,6	9,0+18,4%	10,3+14,4%	9,8-4,9%
Gross margin per FTE	€ 61.184	€ 56.954	€ 81.555	€ 84.392
Payroll cost per FTE	€ 63.158	€ 55.602	€ 68.809	€ 71.763
Balance sheet
Equity	€ 9.000	€ 19.043	€ 50.154	€ 112.521
Cash	-	€ 146.779	€ 151.064	€ 415.510
Liquidity ratio	-	1,33	1,21	1,09

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 30/07/2025. 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 23 services

Strategy & Insights

Brand strategy & positioning Customer & audience strategy

Branding & Design

Brand identity & design

Advertising & Campaigns

Campaign concepts & big ideas Campaign execution

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

SEO & GEO Website development Website strategy & UX

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

breed/algemeen (B2C en B2B)

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

€ 71.763

+16% versus the median

Team composition

9,8 VTE

69% women
31% men

€ 71.763

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

74,5%

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

Inflow 2024

73,5%

7,2 FTE in, 7,3 FTE out

Net team change

-0,1 VTE

2021202220232024

Exits are clearly above what is usual for this type of agency. That may reflect project-based staffing, but it is a reason to ask in the pitch how much of the proposed team was already here two years ago, and to contractually fix your permanent contacts.

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 1 award(s)

2017

BEA Awards BronzeB2C Events · “IKEA Gast” · source ↗

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