Security company
profit margin calculator
A security company’s gross margin per hour is the bill rate minus the officer’s pay and payroll burden; its net margin is what is left after overhead and software. This free calculator from CGuardPro takes the rate you already charge, your pay rate, burden, overhead percentage and software cost per officer, and returns gross and net margin per hour, as a percentage and per officer per month. To work out what you should charge instead, use the guard bill rate calculator, which runs the same arithmetic in reverse.
One post, one officer
What the client pays for one hour of coverage on the post.
Base hourly pay. If the post carries regular overtime or differentials, use the blended average hourly pay instead.
Employer payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, benefits and paid time off, as a percentage of wages. Your accountant or payroll provider has the real figure; it varies by state and class code.
Everything not tied to one post: supervisors, dispatch, vehicles, office, general liability insurance, accounting and sales, as a share of revenue. Last year’s overhead divided by last year’s revenue.
Prefilled with CGuardPro’s $5 per user per month. Supervisors, office staff and client logins are users too, so spread their seats over your officers if you want the exact figure.
A 40-hour week is 173.33 hours a month (40 × 52 ÷ 12). Use your real average if officers work more or fewer.
Enter at least the bill rate and the pay rate. Without JavaScript the widget will not run, but the formula and a worked example are below.
How do you calculate a guard company’s margin?
Start from one billed hour and take out each cost in turn. The officer comes first, loaded with payroll burden; what is left is gross margin. Overhead comes next, as a share of revenue because that is how most owners track it; then software, spread over the hours an officer works.
A worked example
The figures are invented so the arithmetic is visible; they are not a benchmark. Bill rate $28.00, pay rate $17.00, burden 25%, overhead 12% of revenue, software $5 per officer per month, 173.33 hours per officer per month.
| Line | Arithmetic | Per hour |
|---|---|---|
| Bill rate | — | 28.00 |
| − officer with burden | 17.00 × 1.25 | 21.25 |
| = gross margin | 6.75 / 28.00 = 24.1% | 6.75 |
| − overhead | 28.00 × 0.12 | 3.36 |
| − software | 5 / 173.33 | 0.03 |
| = net margin | 3.36 / 28.00 = 12.0% | 3.36 |
Per officer that is $4,853.24 of revenue a month, $1,169.98 of gross margin and about $582.59 of net margin. The break-even bill rate is (21.25 + 0.03) ÷ 0.88 = $24.18: below that, every hour on the post loses money once overhead is paid.
Which input moves the margin most?
Pay and burden, by far, because they are most of the bill rate. In the example a $1.00 raise costs $1.25 an hour with burden, which is more than a third of the net margin. Unplanned overtime works the same way: every hour paid at time and a half adds half the pay rate, plus burden, without changing the bill rate. Overhead is the second lever. Software at $5 per officer per month is about three cents an hour; it matters for what it lets you see, not for what it costs.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good profit margin for a security guard company?
There is no single number that holds across markets, contract types and states, and this page does not publish an industry average it cannot source. What the calculator shows is the arithmetic that decides it: on a $28 bill rate, a $17 officer with 25% burden leaves $6.75 an hour of gross margin (24.1%), and 12% overhead takes that to about 12% net. Run your own posts and compare them with each other.
What is the difference between gross margin and net margin here?
Gross margin is the bill rate minus the cost of the officer on the post: pay plus payroll burden. Net margin then subtracts overhead (as a share of revenue) and software. Gross margin tells you whether a post is priced right; net margin tells you whether the company makes money once the office, supervisors and insurance are paid.
How is this different from the bill rate calculator?
It runs the other way. The guard bill rate calculator builds the rate you should charge from your costs and a target margin. This one starts from the rate you already charge and shows the margin that is left, per hour and per officer per month. Use the bill rate calculator before you bid and this one on contracts you already hold.
How much does software add per hour?
Very little. CGuardPro is $5 per user per month, one plan with every feature, so an officer working 173.33 hours a month costs about $0.03 an hour. Even if you count a supervisor and a client login for every few officers, it stays a rounding error next to pay and burden. There is a one-time $299.99 implementation fee and a 7-day free trial.
Is anything I type stored or sent?
No. The calculator is a script on this page; nothing leaves your browser, and reloading clears the fields.
Margin is decided by the hours you record
In CGuardPro every shift, relief and clock event is recorded by post and by client, so the overtime that eats a margin is visible while the schedule is built, not after payroll. Approved hours go to Gusto or QuickBooks Online, or out as CSV, Excel or PDF. $5 per user per month, 7-day free trial.