Delivery Margin Assessment
In five weeks you’ll see margin, rates and utilization across your whole agency, by role, team and client, with the biggest leaks ranked in dollars and a plan for the first fix.
Run by Gary Magnone. 15+ years agency-side, every seat from delivery to MD.
Services got added when a client asked for them and priced off what you charged last time. Nobody can say what a deliverable costs to make, so nobody can say what it earns. When AI speeds up the work, the savings go to the client by default. And because so much of the work still runs through you, a buyer sees thin margins and an owner the agency can’t do without.
Buyers look at a handful of things before they make an offer. Two of them live inside delivery, and they take time to fix, so the work starts years before the sale.
If you plan to sell in the next three to five years, or grow past $5M first, the assessment shows where you stand on both.
Revenue that climbs year over year.
Retainers a buyer doesn’t have to resell every year.
Advisors put the limit for one client anywhere from 10% to 25% of revenue.
A delivery team that does the work without the owner in every decision.
Gross margin of 50% or better, with every service line pulling its weight.
Margin is won or lost inside the work: who does it, how long it takes, and what the client pays for it. The assessment shows where, across your whole agency.
Your books
The assessment
Margin
One number for the whole agency
A number for every role, team and client
Hours
Logged, then never looked at
Turned into rates, utilization and margin
The fix
Raise prices or cut people
The steps to change, ranked by dollars
These are the six we see most often, and most agencies have two or three of them at once.
Your most expensive people spend hours on work a junior could do, and nobody prices it that way.
Work goes out past the scope, and it never shows up on an invoice.
Revisions and QA loops that nobody counts, on work that should have been right the first time.
Copying, formatting and pulling data by hand, the kind of work AI or a template could take.
A service still priced off what you charged last year, not what it costs to make now.
Paid hours that go to internal meetings, admin and waiting on work instead of client work.
Delivery margin, billable and effective rates, and utilization by role, team, client and service line.
The biggest problems ranked by points of margin and dollars a year, with what’s causing each one.
The first service line to fix, the top three changes and what each one is worth. We go through it together in a 90-minute working session.
You keep the report and the numbers sheet.
Delivery Margin Assessment · Example
Where your delivery is losing margin
The short version
Your agency runs at 47.1% delivery margin, 2.9 points under the 50% a healthy agency runs at. Closing that gap is worth $101,733 a year. Most of it sits in SEO and content, at 34.1%: blog packages are still priced at last year’s rate, one client runs 40% over scope, and a senior strategist carries work a junior could do. Fixing those three is worth $110,076 a year and takes the agency to 50.2%.
47.1%
Delivery margin today
$101,733
A year to reach 50%
50.2%
After the top 3 fixes
Margin by service line
Dashed line: the 50% a healthy agency runs at.
$3.51M
Revenue, annualized
75.9%
Utilization
$185 an hour
Effective rate
The top 3 leaks
| Where | Leak | Dollars a year | Points of margin | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SEO and content, blog packages | Old prices | $46,800 | +1.3 |
| 2 | Client A, SEO and content | Over-servicing | $43,005 | +1.2 |
| 3 | SEO and content, research and briefs | Senior people doing junior work | $20,271 | +0.6 |
| Together | $110,076 | +3.1 |
Say your SEO and content line brings in $1,000,000 a year. Five points of margin on that line is $50,000 a year, every year. The assessment pays for itself if it finds one point.
Timeglass runs on your delivery team for a month, so the numbers cover a full cycle of your work, including the monthly reports and reviews. Everything else comes from what you already have: your P&L, revenue by client, your team’s cost and your project management system.
A 30-minute kickoff, Timeglass on your delivery team, and your P&L, revenue by client and service, team cost and project management access.
Delivery margin, billable and effective rates, and utilization by role, team, client and service line, filling in as the month goes.
Two or three short conversations with your delivery lead, an account lead and someone who makes the work, so every number has a reason behind it.
Every leak gets points of margin, dollars a year and the effort to fix it.
A 90-minute working session with you and your delivery lead, where we pick the first service line to fix.
Already have detailed time data you trust? We can skip Timeglass and use yours, and it takes three weeks.
The assessment is behavior-first. Before we change a process or a price, we want to see how the work gets done. Most timesheets get filled in from memory, one line per task. Timeglass runs on your delivery team for a month and records what people work on as they work.
Which client, which task and which tool, so rework, manual steps and work past the scope are easy to spot.
It records every minute as it happens, in the background. Nobody rebuilds their week from memory.
The same data, captured the same way, before and after a fix.
Timeglass is SOC 2 Type II certified.
Your whole agency: every role, team, client and service line. We pick the first line to fix at the end, once the numbers show where the money is.
If your time data is detailed and your team logs it as they go, we can skip Timeglass, use your last three months, and finish in three weeks. Most timesheets get filled in from memory, one line per task, which is why Timeglass is the default.
You do, directly to Timeglass, for the month it runs on your delivery team. We set it up with you at kickoff. If you already have time data you trust, you can skip it.
Your P&L, revenue by client and service, your team’s cost, access to your project management system and the scopes for your biggest clients. Then two or three short interviews with your team, and 90 minutes with you and your delivery lead at the end.
A few minutes for each person to set up Timeglass, then under an hour each for the two or three people Gary talks to.
You keep the report, the numbers and the plan, and your team can run it from there. If you want help, there are two ways to keep going, shown under the price.
$4,500
Your whole agency, five weeks.
Timeglass bills you directly for the month it runs on your team, and we set it up with you at kickoff.
Or start with the 5-minute quiz and see what 1% more margin is worth to your agency.
The assessment ends with a plan your team can run on its own. If you want help, there are two ways to keep going. Both start by mapping the first line step by step, and the $4,500 comes off if you start within 30 days of your results.
$5,000 a month for 3 months
Your delivery lead makes the changes. We work with them every week, review the work and build the AI tools. It needs a delivery lead with about 4 hours a week.
$10,000 a month for 3 months
We redesign the workflow, build the AI tools into it, set the price off the new cost and train your team, measured before and after.
What you’ve built, what’s working, and what keeps landing back on your plate.
Or start with the 5-minute quiz and see what 1% more margin is worth to your agency.
Gary Magnone
15+ years in agencies and somehow still likes them.
