Employment
200,465
Total employees (Census CBP)
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services ·NAICS 54181
NAICS 54181 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Advertising Agencies - Industry Benchmarks
$106,841/yr average annual pay, with 1,171 SBA loans on record for NAICS 54181.
- 14.0%
- Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector margin
- 200K
- Workers employed
- $106,841/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $606M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 54181
New York leads Advertising Agencies activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector runs a 14.0% net margin.
- 14.0%
- Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 200K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $106,841/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $606M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Advertising Agencies
Advertising Agencies sits inside Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, a sector that runs a 14.0% net margin overall.
15,512 establishments employ 200,465 workers (12.9/location) at $106,841/yr average annual pay. New York leads employment, followed by California and Illinois.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$106,841/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
15,512
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 5,183; establishment count increased by 550. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Workforce scale
Financial Detail
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $21.4B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 12.9
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Advertising Agencies NAICS 541810 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| New York | 45,266 |
| California | 32,122 |
| Illinois | 15,453 |
| Texas | 11,788 |
| Florida | 7,666 |
| Pennsylvania | 6,480 |
| New Jersey | 6,133 |
| Massachusetts | 5,754 |
| Michigan | 5,721 |
| Ohio | 4,354 |
Showing top 10 of 51 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
1,171
Total Loan Volume
$606M
Avg Loan Size
$517K
Jobs Supported
11,611
Program Breakdown
7(a) 1,037 (89%)
504 134 (11%)
Top SBA Lender
Newtek Bank, National Association
97 loans in this industry
New Business Share
13.7% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 108
2021 143
2022 142
2023 159
2024 279
2025 290
2026 50
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Advertising Agencies?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 54181 level. New York leads this industry nationally. The broader Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector runs a 14.0% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Advertising Agencies?
15,512 business establishments. Together they employ 200,465 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Advertising Agencies?
$106,841/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 12.9 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Advertising Agencies employment?
New York leads with 45,266 workers. California (32,122) and Illinois (15,453) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Advertising Agencies receive?
Advertising Agencies businesses received 1,171 SBA loans totaling $606 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $517K. These loans supported 11,611 jobs at origination. Most lending (89%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Comparable industry benchmarks
These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.
How this ranks: Its Census employment total exceeds 78% of that same 551-industry cohort. Calculated by ranking this industry's reported value against every other industry at the same NAICS digit-level, not the whole dataset: comparing a 6-digit detail industry to a 2-digit sector would mix incompatible scales.
Closest workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
- Civic and Social Organizations 201,423
- Shoe Stores 202,988
- Other Personal Care Services 196,500
Benchmarking Advertising Agencies
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- 15,512 establishments, 200,465 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 1,171 SBA loans on record. SBA lending rankings
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023
NAICS 54181 · Data year: 2023
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023
Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.