Last year’s benchmarking headline was simple. High-profit shops out-earned the industry average by a wide margin, and the interesting question was what they did differently. That relationship held in 2026. What changed is the ground both groups are standing on.
The multiple held. The floor dropped.
In the 2025 US report, the average shop posted 9.88% EBITDA and the top quartile posted 24.10%. In 2026, those numbers are 7.47% and 17.83%. Divide either pair and you get roughly 2.4x both years, so the ratio survived intact.
The absolute gap did not. It narrowed from 14.2 points to 10.4, because the top quartile fell almost three times as far as the middle did. Average shops gave up 2.4 points of margin. High-profit shops gave up 6.3.
The cutoff moved with it. Qualifying for the top quartile in the US took 14.47% EBITDA in 2025 and 11.53% in 2026. Worth remembering that the IIBT force ranks the top 25% every year, so high profit is a rank rather than a fixed standard. A shop that held margin flat may have moved up a quartile without changing a thing.
The best shops now win more of what they bid
Last year the data supported an appealing idea, that the healthiest shops bid selectively and won less of what they chased. US high-profit firms converted 34% of bid value against 37% for all firms.
In 2026 that flips hard. High-profit firms convert 46%, all firms convert 35%. Whatever the top quartile is doing on the estimating side, they are winning noticeably more of what they put out, not less.
Software satisfaction and AI interest both jumped
Engineering software satisfaction in the US moved from 50% to 64% of firms reporting satisfied or very satisfied, the largest single-metric jump anywhere in the report.
AI automation as a stated 12-month priority went from 30% to 42%. Still last on the list of seven improvement areas, and still nowhere near profitability at 97%, but a twelve point move in one year says the conversation has shifted from novelty to something shops are budgeting attention for.
The bottom line
The rankings held their shape while the whole field slid down. That makes 2026 a year where your quartile position is a weaker signal than the margin behind it, and where clearing the high-profit bar says less than it did twelve months ago. If you want one number to work on before the next survey, make it contribution margin, where the 2026 US spread still sits at 38.00% for all firms against 41.59% for the top quartile. These metrics only scratch the surface of the data covered in the IIBT, if you want to have the full report sent to you next year, please make sure you participate!
See the 2025 vs 2026 comparison in one graphic, with every movement above, US and Canada side by side, on a single page.
How do we make money? Are we doing better than last year? And what should we be measuring against to know the business is actually healthy? Every shop owner runs on some version of those three questions, and none of them can be answered in isolation. A score only means something when there’s another score next to it.
That’s the whole point of the IIBT (INNERGY Industry Benchmarking Tool). It’s free, it’s anonymous, and it’s built specifically for millwork and custom woodworking businesses. This year set a record: 148 shops across the U.S., Canada, and Australia/New Zealand submitted their 2025 numbers. In the U.S., median revenue came in at $6.5 million, down slightly from last year, with a median of 31 years in business. Here’s what stood out.
Trend 1: High-profit shops earn almost 2.5x the margin, and it has nothing to do with wages
The median U.S. shop keeps $7.50 of every $100 in operating EBITDA. The top 25% keep $17.80.
The easy explanation would be that high-profit firms pay their people less, but the data says no. Across every role surveyed, pay between average and upper quartile firms lands within about 4% of each other, which is noise. The gap comes from productivity: how much work moves through the shop with the team they already have.
Trend 2: Most shops still lose money on installation. The best shops profit from it
For the median U.S. firm, installation brings in $12.70 of every $100 in revenue and costs about $13 to deliver. That’s a 3% loss on every install. Installation has historically run at break-even for this industry, so most shops aren’t even losing sleep over it.
Upper quartile firms are running install at nearly 23% margin. Not break-even. Profitable. The data doesn’t say the top firms found some install trick nobody else knows about, but it does prove install can carry margin instead of eating it. If install is still the part of the job nobody wants to look at, that’s exactly where to look.
Trend 3: Revenue per employee separates the shops that are keeping up from the ones falling behind
Here’s a 30-second self-check. Multiply your headcount by $226,000 and compare it to your actual revenue. That’s the U.S. benchmark for a 40-person shop (the number climbs slightly as firms get larger), and upper quartile firms run about 13% above it per person.
One more thing the data killed: the idea that bigger shops are automatically more productive. Doubling in size only adds about 2.5% in revenue per person, so if the number above surprised you, the fix probably isn’t hiring.
Want to see where your shop stands?
The 2026 IIBT goes deeper than three trends: income statements by shop type, performance by revenue quartile, and where profit is actually made across plant-processed work, buyout, and install. The shops in this data get to answer those three questions at the top with real numbers instead of gut feel. When the next IIBT opens, participate. Less than an hour of your time buys you a benchmark you can’t get anywhere else.
Your 2026 IIBT Prep Checklist
The 2026 INNERGY Industry Benchmarking Tool is open, and the payoff is real: you’ll see exactly how your profit margins, labor costs, and business outlook compare to other shops across the industry.
The whole survey takes most people about 45 minutes, but only if you’ve got the right numbers in front of you before you start. Pull these together first and you’ll cruise right through it.
Section 1 — Your Company
The basics. Should take about two minutes.
✅ Company name, address, and contact info
✅ Your role
✅ Number of full-time employees (FTEs)
✅ Years in business
✅ Primary source of revenue
✅ Whether you’re an INNERGY ERP or Microvellum customer
Section 2 — Business Sentiment
No numbers here, just your honest read on the business. The CEO or owner answers a few dropdown questions about the past six months and the next six.
✅ Economic conditions
✅ Sales pipeline
✅ Cash flow
✅ Labor availability
Section 3 — Operations
A mix of numbers and quick selections. Pull these from your accounting system and estimating software:
✅ Bid win rate (by dollar value, past 12 months)
✅ Current backlog (contracted work not yet invoiced)
✅ Current AR and AP balances
✅ Total assets as of 12/31/25
✅ Total long-term debt
You’ll also answer a few quick questions about your software, what equipment you’re planning to buy, and where you want to improve in the next year. Dropdowns and checkboxes throughout.
Section 4 — Income Statement
This is the meatiest section. You need a full-year P&L from your accounting system. Here’s what to pull:
Revenue
✅ Plant-processed sales (casework, millwork, stairs, doors, panels, countertops)
✅ Non-plant sales (products you resell without touching on the floor)
✅ Installation sales
Direct Material
✅ Plant material cost
✅ Non-plant material cost
Labor — fully loaded (base pay + payroll taxes + benefits)
✅ Direct factory staff
✅ Installation wages (in-house and outsourced)
✅ Indirect factory staff (plant manager, purchasing, quality, maintenance)
✅ SG&A staff (CEO, estimators, sales, accounting, HR, admin, PMs, engineers)
Fixed Costs
✅ Other direct costs (bonding, insurance, sales tax, project general conditions)
✅ Overhead (rent, utilities, equipment leases, software, accounting fees, repairs)
Tip: The survey includes a position chart to help you sort each employee into the right bucket. If you don’t track benefits by department, just prorate your total benefits cost across the labor lines.
Section 5 — Workforce
Pull from payroll. For each role, you need headcount and average hourly rate:
✅ Estimator
✅ Engineer / Drafter
✅ Project Manager
✅ Machine Operator
✅ Journeyman / Custom Assembler
✅ Casegood Assembler / Production Worker
✅ Material Handler
✅ Finisher
✅ Installer
✅ Plant Manager / Foreman
You’ll also answer a few quick questions about turnover, what’s hardest to hire for, and what your team values most.
Tip: If payroll is outsourced, ask your provider for a headcount and average hourly wage report by role. If someone is salaried, divide their annual salary by 2,080 to get an hourly equivalent.
A few things worth knowing
This survey is administered by Inverra, an independent third party. INNERGY does not see your individual responses, only aggregated benchmark data. And everyone who completes the survey receives a $50 gift card from Inverra as a thank-you.
That’s the whole list. Once you’ve got these numbers gathered, the survey itself moves fast. And when results are published, you’ll have something most shop owners never get: a real, apples-to-apples look at how your business compares to the industry.
What if you could tell, with real numbers, whether your shop is gaining ground or slowly falling behind before the market shifts? You can with the IIBT!
The IIBT (INNERGY Industry Benchmarking Tool) is free, anonymous, and built specifically for millwork and woodworking businesses. Last year, 132 firms across the U.S. and Canada submitted their data in 2025. Here is what stood out.
Trend 1: Installation is improving, and high-profit shops are proving it can be a margin builder
For years, installation margins hovered near zero. Plenty of shops ran it at a loss just to close the job, accepted that as the cost of doing business, and moved on.
The 2025 IIBT says something different is happening.
Installation margins improved year over year in both the U.S. and Canada. High-profit firms show strong installation performance.
They treat installation like any other department, with defined scope, cost tracking, and someone accountable for the outcome. If install still feels like chaos at the end of every job, that is worth examining.
Trend 2: Median headcount is down
More smaller shops participated last year, which pulled median firm size down and made the data more representative of what most shops actually look like day to day. U.S. median headcount came in at 32 employees, Canada came in at 29.
At this scale, the owner knows everyone by name. The same people wear multiple hats, margin for error is thin, and one bad hire or one slow quarter hits harder than it would at a larger operation. Headcount is one of the most direct levers on profitability which leads into our next and final trend.
Trend 3: Revenue per employee is one of the clearest signals of whether your operation is keeping up
This one only takes 30 seconds. Take your total headcount, multiply by $210,000, and compare that number to your actual revenue.
U.S. revenue per employee benchmark: $210,000
Below that figure usually means something is working against you. Above it means your pricing, your workflow, or both are in reasonable shape. Either way, the gap is worth understanding.
Want to gain insights like these for 2026? Participate in the 2026 IIBT report!
The survey is completely anonymous, conducted and analyzed by third-party firm Inverra, and only participants receive the full report. It takes about 45 minutes. What you get back is real data from shops your size, doing the same kind of work you do, with enough detail to know where you stand and where to focus. Click here to take the survey today.
What is the IIBT (INNERGY Industry Benchmark Tool) and Why You Should Participate
At INNERGY, we believe that numbers tell a story —but only when you know what to compare them to. In today’s competitive landscape, running a woodworking business without good data is like driving blindfolded. You might get somewhere-but chances are, you won’t like where you end up.
For years, I’ve relied on benchmarking data to help guide business decisions—whether it was to measure productivity, evaluate our margins, or understand if we were investing in the right areas. With data, you have a roadmap.
That’s why we created the INNERGY Industry Benchmark Tool (IIBT)—a free, anonymous benchmarking survey built for woodworking businesses in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
If you’re wondering whether it’s worth your time, let me be clear: this is one of the most valuable tools you’ll use all year.
Why Benchmarking Matters
When you look at your backlog, your labor costs, your revenue per employee—what are you comparing them to? Most companies guess. The IIBT removes the guesswork.
The IIBT is INNERGY’s benchmarking tool capturing essential business performance metrics across operations, financials, workforce and sentiment and giving you something every leader needs: perspective. In short: it gives you context. And once you have that, you can start driving meaningful, focused improvement.
We’re offering a snapshot of the industry that breaks down key performance data across geographies, company sizes, and business types—so you can finally answer questions like:
- Is our profitability above or below average?
- Are we paying our team competitively?
- How do our operations stack up against peers in our region?
- What’s the average backlog or AR across the industry?
What’s In It for You
You won’t get fluff or generic “industry insights.” The IIBT is focused on real, actionable data, including:
- Wage and compensation benchmarks
- Bid success rates and backlog analytics
- Income statement breakdowns (including margin and EBITDA)
- Turnover trends and staffing ratios
- Sentiment around cash flow, labor, and sales pipeline
- Peer comparisons by region, company size, and market (e.g. commercial vs. residential)
I’ve used this kind of data for 20+ years to drive continuous improvement—and we want to make it accessible to every shop in our industry.
Fast, Free, and Anonymous
Here’s what you need to know:
- It’s completely free.
- It’s 100% anonymous. INNERGY never sees your individual submission.
- It takes less than 45 minutes. If it takes longer, you’re doing the wrong survey.
- You do NOT have to be an INNERGY customer to participate!
We partnered with Inverra, the same trusted firm behind the AWI’s benchmarking study, to make this fast and frictionless.
How to Participate
- Download the Excel survey at https://offer.innergy.com/2026iibt
- Submit your completed survey to iibt@inverra.com
- Deadline: May 1, 2026
Note: You’ll need a Windows machine this year. We kept it simple and spreadsheet-based for speed—but we’ll be going online in the future.
Final Thought
If you’re serious about improving your business, you need to know how you stack up. The IIBT is your chance to get honest, regional, and relevant benchmarks—so you can make sharper decisions with confidence.
As always, thank you for being part of this community. I hope you’ll join us in shaping the future of this industry—together.
Marc Sanderson
CEO, INNERGY