Digital Agency Industry Insights

TL;DR Our research sponsorship page is live! If you have any SaaS/PaaS friends who want to fund some fantastic agency research, I’d really appreciate it if you could share this with them. We launched a free Digital Agency Growth Diagnostic to help agency leaders…

TL;DR The “all-in on AI” wave in agencies is receding. Our Delphi pipeline surveys, conversations with SaaS/PaaS teams, and agency clients are all getting more critical of how AI is being used. AI’s “jagged frontier” never fully flattened. The valleys where AI fails…

TL;DR We launched a new Digital Agency Growth Guide​ The widening gap between thriving and struggling digital agencies traces back to a misunderstanding of revenue generation. A large portion of the industry borrowed SaaS and product go-to-market tactics that don’t…

Revgen at digital agencies is broken. We have been studying this space for over a decade now, and for most shops, revgen runs on a mix of strategy, luck, and personal heroics from leadership.  Over the years, we found that the agencies making the fastest, most…

TL;DR Welcome to the new-look newsletter! We’re launching a new Digital Agency Growth Guide. Delphi members will get it early. Join Delphi so you get the guide as soon as it drops. Value-Based Pricing was supposed to save us, but usage fell from 31% of agencies…

At most digital agencies, the org. chart is something that happened, not something that was decided. The founder runs everything until the team hits about ten people, then promotes the most senior contributor to manager. Around twenty-five FTEs, a director title…

TL;DR We tested 29 variables across eight years of our State of Digital Services data to find what consistently separates Fast-tier growers from the rest. Five factors provided durable positive impacts on agency growth. Bigger engagements — the most stable signal in…

An Ideal Referrer Profile (IRP) is the referral-side counterpart to the Ideal Customer Profile. The ICP defines who the agency wants to sell to. The IRP defines who can reliably introduce the agency to those buyers. A solid IRP captures five components: persona…

TL;DR ​The digital agency industry has been shifting away from sub-10 FTE shops toward mid-sized agencies since 2018. This is reshaping the talent environment. Bigger agencies require more management, increasing demand for experienced Director and VP talent across the…

Digital Agency Profitability Benchmarks How Profitable Are Digital Agencies? Digital agencies are profitable, but the average shop is not wildly profitable. In 2025, the average digital agency earned a 13% after-tax net margin. That is down slightly from 14% in 2024…

TL;DR ​Get your copy of our free industry primer!​ The agency industry is made up of a ton of small companies, which directly impacts your strategic options as a leader. ​This also impacts how SaaS and PaaS firms work with agencies. We help them too.​ Prospects have a…

TL;DR There isn’t a single best pricing model for digital agencies. The better question is which model fits the type of shop you actually run. Marketing agencies lean towards retainers, Design agencies lean towards project-based, Dev. agencies are split across…