IndustriesConsulting
A consulting business plan that is not just a rate card
Consulting has almost no capital requirement and almost no defensibility, which flips what a plan has to prove. The questions are utilisation, pipeline and what happens when the founder is the product.
Written for internal planning, which is where most plans in this sector goNAICS 541611
Where the money goes
Typical shares of revenue in this sector. Shown as a starting point to argue with, never as a target to hit — your own figures replace all of these at intake.
- Delivery payroll
- 45%
- Consultants on salary. Utilisation, not headcount, decides whether it works.
- Business development
- 10%
- Unbillable time spent winning work. Most plans forget to cost it.
- Software and tooling
- 4%
- Low, and genuinely fixed.
- Office and travel
- 5%
- Client-site work carries travel that is not always recoverable.
A worked model
One plausible consulting, built out in full.
Not an illustration. These assumptions were run through the same engine the product uses, and the plan review was run over the result. It is here so you can see the shape of the answer before you start.
- Year 1 revenue
- $820.3K
- Year 3 revenue
- $1.2M
- Operating profit from
- Month 1
- Year 3 net margin
- 9.5%
- Debt
- None modelledFunded from owner capital
Balance sheet ties in all 60 periodsNo blocking findings — this model would exportLowest cash $12.7K in month 1
The revenue build
Not a growth rate. These are the drivers a reader can argue with, which is the only kind worth putting in a plan.
Billable engagements
Billable hours × rate
- Billable heads
- 3.0
- Hours per head per month
- 160
- UtilisationShare of hours actually billed
- 68%
- Hourly rate
- $185
- Heads added per month
- 0.000
Sixty months of it
Monthly revenue against monthly EBITDA. Both are flows, so they share an axis honestly — plotting a cumulative cash balance beside a monthly figure would flatten the one that matters. The cash trough is in the strip above.
- Monthly revenue
- Monthly EBITDA
Year by year
| Year | Revenue | EBITDA | Net income | Closing cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $820.3K | $85.7K | $67.7K | $60K |
| Year 2 | $1M | $98.8K | $78.1K | $121.5K |
| Year 3 | $1.2M | $149K | $117.7K | $222.6K |
| Year 4 | $1.4M | $199.1K | $157.3K | $363.3K |
| Year 5 | $1.7M | $249.1K | $196.8K | $543.5K |
Sources and uses: $0 debt, $60K owner capital, $0 of fit-out and equipment. 7 people on the payroll by month 36.
Against the professional services band
Benchmarks warn; they never overwrite. An assumption outside the band is flagged with its source so you can justify it — substituting an industry median would destroy the specificity that makes a plan credible.
- Gross margin
- 49.2%in band
- 40.0%median 52.0%65.0%
- Net margin
- 9.5%in band
- 5.0%median 14.0%25.0%
Source: Consulting and agency operating surveys, 2026 · NAICS 541600 · secondary tier. Secondary-tier bands are usable as ranges, not as something a lender will read; where a figure has to survive scrutiny we substitute RMA Annual Statement Studies or IRS SOI data. Utilisation below ~60% rarely supports the modelled margin.
What they will ask first
A plan that answers these before they are asked reads as competent. One that does not gets sent back with them attached.
- What is target utilisation, and what is it actually?
- Seventy per cent billable is a realistic steady state for a delivery consultant. Ninety is a plan written by someone who has not done it.
- What happens when the founder stops selling?
- Founder-led sales with founder-led delivery is a business with a hard ceiling. A reader wants to know which one gets handed over first.
Where these plans get sent back
Client concentration
Two clients at sixty per cent of revenue is the normal state of a young consultancy and the normal reason one fails.
Utilisation and pipeline out of phase
Fully utilised consultants are not selling, so the pipeline empties three months before the revenue does.
Licences and filings to budget for
These belong in the use of funds, not in a footnote. A missing permit line is the cheapest possible reason to be sent back.
- Professional liability insurance, frequently a contractual requirement
- Contractor classification rules where associates are used rather than employees
- Data processing terms where client data is handled
Requirements vary by state, county and city, and they change. Treat this as the list to go and verify locally rather than as legal advice — the product tracks the dated ones as configuration with a source and an effective date, and prints which version it assumed.
Start from these defaults, then make them yours.
The intake pre-fills this sector’s drivers and tags each one as your figure or an industry default — and says which in the finished plan.