---
title: "What actually decides whether a WordPress agency makes money? We looked at the data"
date: 2026-09-16
author: "Casey Burridge"
link: "https://www.gravitykit.com/what-actually-decides-whether-a-wordpress-agency-makes-money/"
---

You had a solid year. The work came in, the projects shipped, the invoices got paid. You also absorbed a run of "can you just" requests and scope that never made it onto an invoice. And the number at the bottom still does not match the effort at the top.

That is close to the median experience of running a [WordPress agency](/for/web-agencies/). Just under half of agencies grew last year, four in ten describe themselves as consistently profitable, and a third are running on thin margins.

Two landmark WordPress agency surveys landed in 2026: [The Admin Bar](https://theadminbar.com/2026-survey/) polled 622 agency owners and freelancers in February and March, and [CloudLinux and WebPros](https://www.webpros.com/wordpress-agencies-report-2026) polled 210 agencies and freelance developers in April and May. The data was too good to ignore, so naturally, we dug in!

Here's what we found.

## The median respondent has been in business 11 years and works alone

The Admin Bar's 622 respondents come from [its own community of roughly 12,000 WordPress professionals](https://theadminbar.com/group), spread across 51 countries. They average 12.8 years in business. The median team size is one person, and eight in ten do this full time.

CloudLinux and WebPros recruited 210 respondents through their own online forms. Where the two surveys overlap, the shape is similar: 43% are solo operators and another 35% run teams of two to ten.

## 57% of agencies charging $5,000 or more are consistently profitable. Below that, only 33%.

The Admin Bar asked agencies for their average website project price, and separately whether the business generates profit after expenses and a fair owner salary.

| Average project price | Consistently profitable | Rarely profitable | Respondents |

|---|---|---|---|
| $100 to $999 | 25.0% | 37.5% | 48 |
| $1,000 to $2,499 | 30.0% | 13.6% | 140 |
| $2,500 to $4,999 | 36.8% | 11.8% | 228 |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 56.8% | 2.7% | 148 |
| $10,000 to $19,999 | 50.0% | 3.1% | 32 |

Average project price against profitability*Source: The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026. Respondent counts are the number of agencies in each band who answered the profitability question, so they are the denominators behind the percentages beside them.*

The data shows that 57.0% of WordPress agencies charging $5,000 or more per project are consistently profitable, versus just 33.2% of those charging less.

Agencies that are rarely or never profitable run between 11.8% and 37.5% in the three price bands below $5,000, then drop to under 4% in both bands above it. Above $20,000 there are only thirteen respondents in total, too few to read.

The most common price band is $2,500 to $4,999, and 31.7% of respondents charge $5,000 or more.

## 47% of agencies with a quarter of revenue on retainer are profitable. Below that, only 30%.

The second question is what share of revenue comes from care plans, retainers, hosting and other recurring sources. There's a clear jump in consistent profitability at 25%.

| Share of revenue that recurs | Consistently profitable | Rarely or never | Respondents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 24% | 29.7% | 16.7% | 209 |
| 25 to 49% | 47.4% | 9.7% | 175 |
| 50 to 74% | 47.8% | 4.5% | 134 |
| 75% or more | 46.9% | 6.2% | 81 |

Recurring revenue share against profitability*Source: The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026. The survey also reports a 0% band, left out here: it holds twelve respondents.*

What happens above 25% is the interesting part: nothing much. The 50 to 74% band and the 75%-plus band land in the same place as the 25 to 49% band. This is a threshold, not a slope. Getting a quarter of revenue onto a recurring footing provides most of the benefit.

The two surveys disagree sharply on how common that is. In The Admin Bar's sample, 36.1% of agencies have under a quarter of revenue recurring. In the CloudLinux sample, 46% do, and 22% report no recurring revenue at all against 1.9% in The Admin Bar data.

## Agencies that charge $5,000 and hold a quarter of revenue on retainer are profitable 60.3% of the time. With neither, only 22.6%.

Agencies charging $5,000 for average project and agencies with healthy recurring revenue might be the same successful businesses counted twice. If so, there is one finding here wearing two hats.

The published charts cannot settle that, because each cross-tab is shown on its own. **But the raw data can, so we checked it**. The two groups overlap: 70.8% of agencies charging $5,000 or more have at least a quarter of revenue recurring, against 60.5% of those charging less.

|  | Under 25% recurring | 25% or more recurring |
|---|---|---|
| Charging under $5,000 | 22.6% (n=164) | 39.8% (n=251) |
| Charging $5,000 or more | 50.0% (n=56) | **60.3%** (n=136) |

Our analysis. Consistently profitable, by price and recurring revenue together***Data:** The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026 (n=607). **Analysis:** GravityKit. This table is not in the published report.*

![](https://www.gravitykit.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/pro-tip.svg)**22.6% → 60.3%**

Agencies charging $5,000 or more with a quarter of revenue on retainer, against agencies with neither. Close to a threefold difference in the share that are consistently profitable.

![A two by two grid showing the share of WordPress agencies that are consistently profitable. Agencies charging under $5,000 with under 25% recurring revenue: 22.6%. Charging under $5,000 with 25% or more recurring: 39.8%. Charging $5,000 or more with under 25% recurring: 50.0%. Charging $5,000 or more with 25% or more recurring: 60.3%.](https://www.gravitykit.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/profitability-2x2-1-1024x683.png)
Data: The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026 (n=607). Analysis: GravityKit.

## A five-year-old agency charging $5,000 beats a sixteen-year veteran that does not
The Admin Bar reads its tenure data as experience bringing stability without guaranteeing momentum. Agencies over sixteen years old are the most consistently profitable group in the survey, while agencies under five posted the strongest growth. Split the same data by price and the picture sharpens.

| Years in business | Charging under $5,000 | Charging $5,000 or more |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | 25.5% (n=102) | 41.7% (n=24) |
| 6 to 10 | 35.0% (n=103) | 52.4% (n=63) |
| 11 to 15 | 33.8% (n=77) | 60.9% (n=46) |
| 16 and over | 37.1% (n=132) | 65.0% (n=60) |

Our analysis. Consistently profitable, by years in business and price***Data:** The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026. **Analysis:** GravityKit.*

Down the right-hand column, experience compounds: 41.7% to 65.0%. Down the left-hand column it barely moves: 25.5% to 37.1%, most of it arriving in the first ten years and then flattening.

An agency sixteen years or older charging under $5,000 is consistently profitable 37.1% of the time. An agency five years old or younger charging $5,000 or more manages 41.7%. At least eleven extra years of experience, and it does not close the gap that a pricing decision opens.

The share of agencies charging $5,000 or more also does not climb steadily with experience. It rises from 19.2% among the newest agencies to 38.1% at six to ten years, then falls to 31.1% among agencies of sixteen years and over. The most experienced agencies in this survey are less likely to charge $5,000 than agencies half their age.

The data does not say why. Long-tenured agencies may be carrying older clients on older rates, or serving local markets where prices have not moved. Some will have found a level they are content with, which is a legitimate way to run a business and not a problem to be fixed. What the data does say is that time in business is not doing the work people assume it does.

## Solo operators charging $5,000 or more are profitable 62.2% of the time. Below that, only 31.2%.

Thresholds like these can easily describe agencies with staff, a pipeline and the standing to turn down underpriced work, so we ran both again for solo operators only (369 of the 622 survey respondents work alone).

| Among agencies of one person | Consistently profitable | Respondents |
|---|---|---|
| Charging under $5,000 | 31.2% | 279 |
| Charging $5,000 or more | 62.2% | 82 |
| Under 25% recurring | 26.7% | 150 |
| 25% or more recurring | 46.4% | 211 |

Our analysis. Solo operators only***Data:** The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026 (n=369 solo respondents). **Analysis:** GravityKit.*

Both criteria hold, and both are stronger than in the full sample.

## A third of agencies plan to raise prices.

The CloudLinux survey never asks about profitability, but it does ask what agencies plan to do to grow revenue in the year ahead.

| Strategy | Share planning it |
|---|---|
| Improve efficiency through AI, automation and better tooling | 43% |
| Expand service offerings | 39% |
| Move more clients to recurring service plans | 34% |
| Raise prices on existing services | 33% |
| Specialize in higher-value niches or industries | 29% |
| Target larger clients or enterprise projects | 23% |

Growth strategies agencies plan to pursue, n=210*Source: CloudLinux and WebPros, State of WordPress Agencies 2026.*

34% plan to move clients onto recurring plans and 33% plan to raise prices. Those are exactly the two decisions that separate profitable agencies from unprofitable ones in The Admin Bar data, arrived at independently by a different population answering a different question.

They sit third and fourth. Ranked above them are efficiency through AI and tooling at 43%, and a wider service menu at 39%.

In The Admin Bar data, agencies offering four or more services are consistently profitable 41.6% of the time against 31.0% for those offering three or fewer, and agencies who say AI has helped their business run about 43% against 25.9% for those who say it has hurt.

What separates most cleanly, on the largest samples and in the same direction whether you look at solo operators or the whole survey, is what you charge and how much of it recurs. Those are the two ranked below.

## Is this data reliable?

This is all correlation, and correlation is not causation. Charging $5,000 may cause profitability, or the kind of agency that can command $5,000 may have been heading there anyway for reasons neither survey measured.

That said, the two surveys combined include data from 800+ agencies (a robust sample), and the patterns are strong enough to be worth your attention. We encourage you to take a look at the published results; you'll find links to both below.

## Sources

- **[The Admin Bar, State of the WordPress Agency 2026.](https://theadminbar.com/2026-survey/)** 622 respondents, fielded February to March 2026. Survey and raw data by Kyle Van Deusen and The Admin Bar. The cross-tabs marked "our analysis" were computed by us from that public data.

- **[CloudLinux and WebPros, State of WordPress Agencies 2026.](https://www.webpros.com/wordpress-agencies-report-2026)** 210 respondents, fielded April to May 2026. [Full report available without a form.](https://www.webpros.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/State-of-WordPress-Agencies-2026.pdf)