Marine Contractor Gross Margin
Healthy gross margin for a marine contractor doing $3M–$10M is 22–32% on commercial port and waterway work. Most operators run 12–18% — sometimes lower. The gap is almost always a cost classification problem: barge idle time, crane standby, and dive team mobilization costs that are miscategorized between project direct costs and overhead, compressing apparent gross margin on every job.
Gross margin is what is left after all direct project costs — labor, equipment, materials, subcontractors, diving operations — before overhead hits. For marine contractors, getting this number right is harder than most trades because equipment deployment costs, tidal window delays, and international subcontractor payments create cost structures that generic accounting systems misallocate. Most marine operators are running with a blended gross margin that masks significant per-project variation. The profitable jobs hide the losers until closeout.
What the Numbers Should Look Like
The proof: A $13.5M marine GC with four accounting staff and no job costing had gross margin and net margin that were completely opaque. After installing per-project job costing and correctly classifying equipment and vessel costs, net profit went from 7% to 14% — recovering $917K per year that was already inside the business. Valuation went from $2.3M to $5.5M in 9 months. See the case study →
What Drives Marine Gross Margin Below Benchmark
Equipment and vessel idle costs misclassified as overhead. When barge standby, crane idle time, and dive team mobilization costs hit overhead instead of project direct costs, gross margin looks artificially high on paper — but the overhead rate is unsustainably inflated. Fix the classification and gross margin drops to its real number, but the overhead rate normalizes and net profit stabilizes.
Government pay cycle float not priced in. When port authority or Army Corps projects pay net 60–90, the carrying cost of that receivable pipeline is a real cost. Most marine contractors don't price it in. On a $5M project with 75-day pay cycles, that is $30K–$50K of annual financing cost that comes directly out of gross margin.
No per-project visibility until closeout. When you are running three simultaneous marine projects with blended reporting, the profitable ones mask the losers. You don't know which projects are underperforming until they close. By then the crew is on the next job. The loss is absorbed. This repeats.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Two tiers based on trailing 12-month revenue. No hourly billing. No payroll. No add-ons.
- ControlQore setup and job costing structure
- Books migrated to start of last taxable year
- Full-service bookkeeping and bank reconciliations
- Monthly job cost reports
- Everything in Core Financial
- Monthly CFO advisory meeting
- Controllership and WIP reporting
- Cash forecasting and AR follow-up rhythm
- Strategic accountability
Onboarding: 60 days. Full pricing by revenue band →
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