A margin-by-margin breakdown of 280 revenue-generating clients from Autotask PSA billing data. This report answers the question: "What is our profit margin per client over the last 12 months?" and shows where your best and worst margins really sit.
A margin-by-margin breakdown of 280 revenue-generating clients from Autotask PSA billing data. This report answers the question: "What is our profit margin per client over the last 12 months?" and shows where your best and worst margins really sit.
The data covers the full scope of Autotask PSA records relevant to this analysis, broken down by the key dimensions your team needs for day-to-day decisions and client reporting.
Who should use this: MSP owners, finance leads, and operations managers tracking profitability
How often: Monthly for financial reviews, quarterly for strategic planning, on-demand for pricing decisions
A margin-by-margin breakdown of 280 revenue-generating clients from Autotask PSA billing data. This report answers the question: "What is our profit margin per client over the last 12 months?" and shows where your best and worst margins really sit.
Key margin metrics across 280 revenue-generating clients from Autotask PSA billing data.
Top 10 clients by profit margin, filtered to those generating more than $50K in revenue.
| Company ID | Revenue | Cost | Margin % | Charges |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 302 | $1,070,944 | $288,539 | 73.1% | 1696 |
| 178 | $727,158 | $205,825 | 71.7% | 554 |
| 614 | $658,462 | $327,180 | 50.3% | 62 |
| 394 | $411,102 | $101,112 | 75.4% | 200 |
| 263 | $203,196 | $31,954 | 84.3% | 95 |
Client D generates the most revenue in this group at $256K, and still holds an 81.7% margin. That combination of volume and margin is the gold standard for your client base.
EVALUATE TOPN(15, SUMMARIZECOLUMNS('BI_Autotask_Charges'[company_id], "TotalRevenue", SUM('BI_Autotask_Charges'[billable_amount]), "TotalCost", SUM('BI_Autotask_Charges'[extended_cost]), "ChargeCount", COUNTROWS('BI_Autotask_Charges')), [TotalRevenue], DESC)The 10 clients with the worst profit margins, filtered to those with at least $10K in revenue to exclude micro-accounts.
Client K runs at -288% margin on $23K revenue. Costs are nearly 4x what this client pays. Client N is the most dangerous by dollar impact: at $590K revenue with a -9.5% margin, the absolute loss is far larger than Client K's. Six of the bottom 10 still generate positive margins but sit well below the 53% portfolio average.
EVALUATE
TOPN(
15,
FILTER(
ADDCOLUMNS(
SUMMARIZE('BI_Autotask_Billing_Items', 'BI_Autotask_Companies'[company_name]),
"Revenue", [Revenue - Total],
"Margin", [Profit - total - percentage]
),
[Revenue] > 10000
),
[Margin], ASC
)
ORDER BY [Margin] ASCHow 280 revenue-generating clients are distributed across five margin bands.
52% of clients sit above the 50% margin line. That is a healthy base. But 90 clients (32%) fall in the 20-50% range, and another 44 clients (16%) are at thin or negative margins. The 15 clients with negative margins represent a combined loss that pulls the unweighted average down to 33.5%, despite the weighted figure sitting at 53%.
How overall profit margin has moved quarter by quarter since Q3 2024.
Q2 2025 was the low point at 44.4%. That quarter had the highest cost-to-revenue ratio in the dataset. Q1 2026 shows a strong recovery to 68.2%, though this is a partial quarter with lower volume. The overall trajectory is stable around 52-56% with one notable dip that warrants investigation into what changed in Q2 2025.
EVALUATE ROW("TotalCharges", COUNTROWS('BI_Autotask_Charges'), "TotalRevenue", SUM('BI_Autotask_Charges'[billable_amount]), "TotalCost", SUM('BI_Autotask_Charges'[extended_cost]), "DistinctCompanies", DISTINCTCOUNT('BI_Autotask_Charges'[company_id]))Why the overall margin looks healthy at 53% but the per-client average is only 33.5%.
The 19.5 percentage point gap between these two numbers tells an important story. When you weight by revenue, the big clients with strong margins dominate the calculation. Your top revenue clients tend to be well-priced and efficient to serve.
The unweighted average treats every client equally. Small clients with thin or negative margins drag this number down. A client generating $2K at -50% margin counts the same as a $500K client at 80% margin. That is why the unweighted figure sits at just 33.5%.
Both numbers matter. The weighted margin tells you how your business is performing overall. The unweighted average tells you how well your pricing works across the full client base. If you want to close this gap, focus on raising margins for the long tail of smaller clients.
Actionable insights from the margin data.
This is your 5th or 6th largest client by revenue, but it is losing money. At $590K in billing, even a small negative margin translates to a significant dollar loss. Contract pricing or scope is misaligned with actual delivery costs.
With $23K revenue and -288% margin, costs are roughly $89K against $23K in billings. This is likely a scoping issue where time entries far exceed contracted hours. Either renegotiate or assess whether this account is worth keeping at all.
All other quarters sit between 52-60%, but Q2 2025 dropped to 44.4%. This likely coincided with higher-than-normal costs or a large project with thin margins. Dig into that quarter's billing mix to prevent a repeat.
More than half of revenue-generating clients are in the healthy zone. 50 clients achieve margins above 70%, which is excellent. Study what makes them different: contract structure, service mix, or simply lower complexity. These are the accounts to protect and replicate.
Concrete steps to improve margin performance across the portfolio.
Pull detailed time entries and billing items for the 4 negative-margin clients: K, L, M, and N. Compare contracted hours vs actual hours. Look for scope creep, unbilled project work, or rate mismatches. Client N should be first given its revenue size.
Clients with 0-20% margins are one bad month away from going negative. Build a Power BI alert that flags any client dropping below 15% margin on a rolling 3-month basis. Catch problems before they turn into losses.
The 50 clients above 70% margin show what good looks like. Compare their contract structures, rate cards, and service packages with the bottom quartile. Apply those pricing patterns to renewals and new deals.
Weighted margin calculates total profit divided by total revenue across all clients, so large clients influence the number more. Unweighted margin averages each client's individual margin percentage equally, regardless of their revenue size. The weighted figure (53%) tells you about overall business health; the unweighted figure (33.5%) tells you about pricing consistency.
Negative margins mean costs exceed revenue. This usually happens when actual time spent on a client significantly exceeds what the contract covers. Common causes: scope creep, underpriced fixed-fee agreements, or high volumes of reactive support that were not factored into the rate.
Margin = (Revenue - Cost) / Revenue, expressed as a percentage. Revenue comes from the total_amount field and Cost from the our_cost field in Autotask billing items. The calculation uses the [Profit - total - percentage] measure from the Proxuma data model.
Industry benchmarks vary, but most MSPs target 50%+ gross margin on managed services. Margins below 30% are typically considered too thin to sustain after overhead. The 70%+ bracket in this report represents best-in-class pricing and delivery efficiency.
Without a revenue filter, the lists would be dominated by micro-accounts. A client with $200 in revenue and 95% margin is not meaningfully "high margin" in business terms. The $50K and $10K thresholds ensure results represent clients with real financial impact.
Yes. Copy any query from the toggles above and paste it into DAX Studio or the Power BI Desktop performance analyzer. The queries reference standard Proxuma data model tables and measures that exist in every Proxuma Power BI deployment.
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