Data
Benchmark Methodology
Benchmarks are context, not advice; figures are point-in-time snapshots.
How benchmarks work here
Some calculators show a small “vs median” chip next to a result. That chip compares the number you computed against a curated public dataset, snapshotted into the site and refreshed by hand — never fetched live, never estimated. Every chip names its source and vintage inline; if a figure cannot be traced to a source, it is not shown.
Damodaran margins by sector (NYU Stern)
Aggregated gross and net profit margins as a percent of aggregated revenues, per US industry grouping (~95 sectors plus a Total Market row), from trailing-twelve-month accounting figures.
- Population: US public companies
- Current vintage: Jan 2026 (retrieved 2026-07-06)
- Metrics used: gross margin, net margin
- Refresh cadence: Updated by the source each January; we re-run our ingestion script by hand once a year and commit the snapshot.
- Source: Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern
BLS median weekly earnings (Current Population Survey)
Median usual weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers, US, gross (pre-tax), not seasonally adjusted — series LEU0252881500.
- Population: US full-time wage and salary workers
- Current vintage: 2026 Q1 (retrieved 2026-07-06)
- Metrics used: weekly earnings
- Refresh cadence: Published quarterly by BLS; we snapshot the latest quarter roughly once a year, so the figure can lag the newest release.
- Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Current Population Survey, series LEU0252881500
Known biases and limitations
- Damodaran's figures are aggregates of US public companies — your small business may differ materially from a public-company median.
- All datasets are US-only; other markets differ.
- Margin figures are trailing-twelve-month accounting aggregates, not medians of individual firms.
- The break-even calculator compares your contribution margin against industry gross margins — a declared approximation: the two are related but not identical measures.
- BLS weekly earnings are gross (pre-tax) medians for full-time workers; your pay sits in a distribution, and being above or below the median is context, not a judgment.
Not advice
Benchmarks add context to a calculation; they do not replace the disclaimers on each tool, and nothing here is financial, tax, or career advice. For how we handle data generally, see the privacy policy.