About PlainBizBench, Free Industry Financial Benchmarks

PlainBizBench is a free industry financial benchmarking tool that provides profit margins, payroll benchmarks, revenue data, and employment figures for 1,000+ US industries, straight from official government sources at no cost.

Our Mission

We believe every business owner, entrepreneur, and analyst deserves free access to industry-level financial benchmarks. Small business owners making critical decisions about pricing, compensation, and growth should not have to pay hundreds of dollars for industry data that comes from public government sources. Financial advisors, lenders, and investors evaluating business performance need reliable benchmarks, not guesswork.

PlainBizBench exists to democratize access to the same IRS and Census data that large consulting firms and market research companies charge premium fees to repackage. We present the government's own numbers directly, no markup, no paywall, no account required.

Our Data

All data comes directly from two U.S. federal agencies:

IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics - Aggregated financial data from all US business tax returns, organized by NAICS industry code. Includes total receipts, net income, deductions, and entity type breakdowns (C Corp, S Corp, Partnership, Sole Proprietorship).
Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 - Employment counts, establishment counts, and annual payroll for private-sector businesses by NAICS code at the national, state, and county level.

Important Disclaimer

PlainBizBench provides publicly available IRS and Census data for informational purposes only. This is not financial, tax, or business advice. Consult a qualified accountant or financial advisor for business-specific guidance. Industry averages are based on aggregated data from all businesses in each NAICS category, individual results vary significantly based on business size, geography, management, and market conditions.

Methodology

We download raw datasets from the IRS SOI program and Census Bureau, process them through an ETL pipeline, and organize them into searchable industry profiles. Profit margins are calculated as net income ÷ total receipts for each NAICS code. Payroll per employee is calculated as annual payroll ÷ employment from Census CBP data. No data is modified, interpolated, or editorialized, we present the government's numbers directly.

Data Currency

PlainBizBench currently displays data from IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) 2021 tax year data and Census Bureau County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 release. The Census Bureau releases CBP data annually, typically 12–18 months after the reference year. The IRS SOI data lags 2–3 years due to the time required to process and aggregate tax returns.

We update PlainBizBench within 30 days of each new release from either source. Like all federal statistical programs, there is an inherent lag between the reference period and data availability. Current benchmarks reflect the most recent publicly available government data, which may not capture very recent economic shifts.

Not Affiliated

PlainBizBench is not affiliated with the IRS, Census Bureau, or any government agency. We are an independent data portal providing public information in a more accessible format.

All data on PlainBizBench is sourced exclusively from public government datasets. We do not collect user data, accept sponsored industry listings, or modify benchmark figures for any reason. The numbers you see are the government's own figures, organized for easy comparison.

How We Build Industry Benchmarks

PlainBizBench pulls from two distinct government datasets. From the IRS Statistics of Income program, we get aggregate financial data from every U.S. business tax return filed in a given year, receipts, net income, deductions, broken down by NAICS industry code. From the Census Bureau County Business Patterns release, we get employee counts, establishment counts, and payroll figures at the national, state, and county level.

Profit margins are calculated as net income divided by total receipts for each NAICS code. Payroll-per-employee ratios use Census payroll and employment figures. We do not blend the two sources or estimate values where data is missing, each metric traces back to a single, verifiable government dataset.

Editorial Independence

PlainBizBench's industry pages are generated by a documented pipeline: raw data from the IRS Statistics of Income program, the Census Bureau County Business Patterns release, and SBA public loan records is transformed into readable industry profiles and validated against its source before publication. The plain-language guides and methodology are written by our editorial team, which is responsible for editorial standards, the methodology, and corrections, not for hand-checking every one of the millions of underlying figures. How we handle errors is described in our editorial & corrections policy.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from any business or industry we cover. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense - advertisers do not influence which industries we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Contact

For questions or feedback, email hello@plainbizbench.com.