Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services ·NAICS 541830

NAICS 541830 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP

Media Buying Agencies - Industry Benchmarks

$110,836/yr average annual pay, with 21 SBA loans on record for NAICS 541830.

14.0%
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector margin
21K
Workers employed
$110,836/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$10M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated July 2026

The verdict · NAICS 541830

New York leads Media Buying 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)
21K
Workers employed (Census CBP)
$110,836/yr
Avg payroll / employee
$10M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Benchmarking Insights for Media Buying Agencies

Media Buying Agencies sits inside Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, a sector that runs a 14.0% net margin overall.

767 establishments employ 20,819 workers (27.1/location) at $110,836/yr average annual pay. New York leads employment, followed by California and Florida.

Employment

20,819

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

$110,836/yr

Annual compensation

Establishments

767

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

Employment increased by 104; establishment count decreased by 42. 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)
$2.3B
Avg Employees per Establishment
27.1

Top States by Employment

State Employment
New York 9,507
California 4,058
Florida 571
Texas 530
Connecticut 280
Georgia 266
Minnesota 236
Arizona 131
Maryland 118
Ohio 60

Showing top 10 of 36 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

21

Total Loan Volume

$10M

Avg Loan Size

$477K

Jobs Supported

439

Program Breakdown

7(a) 20 (95%)
504 1 (5%)

Top SBA Lender

UniBank for Savings

2 loans in this industry

New Business Share

14.3% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)

2020
1
2021
1
2022
1
2023
3
2024
8
2025
6
2026
1

Frequently Asked Questions

How profitable is Media Buying Agencies?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 541830 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 Media Buying Agencies?
767 business establishments. Together they employ 20,819 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Media Buying Agencies?
$110,836/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 27.1 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Media Buying Agencies employment?
New York leads with 9,507 workers. California (4,058) and Florida (571) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Media Buying Agencies receive?
Media Buying Agencies businesses received 21 SBA loans totaling $10 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $477K. These loans supported 439 jobs at origination. Most lending (95%) 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 31% of that same 801-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.

Benchmarking Media Buying Agencies

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 541830 · 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.

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.