Business Data & Benchmarks · United States
Glass and Glazing Contractor Revenue Benchmark
Architectural glass and glazing installation on buildings, carried out under contract.
Average Glass and Glazing Contractor Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census
The average below divides the combined 2022 receipts of glass and glazing contractors with paid employees by the number of establishments that reported them.
≈$2,770,000 /year
Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment
6,825
Employer establishments in the United States, 2022
as published $18.9 billion
Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022
How this is calculated: about $18.9 billion in combined annual revenue divided by 6,825 employer establishments works out to $2,770,000. This is an average per establishment, and averages get pulled up by large, busy operations, so a typical business may sit below it.
Scope: Glass and Glazing Contractors (NAICS 238150). Covers architectural glass and glazing on buildings, not automotive glass replacement. Employer establishments only: owner-operated businesses with no paid employees are not in these figures.
Building codes decide what may be installed here: tempered or laminated glass is mandatory in specific locations, and an inspector can reject a unit that looks identical to an acceptable one. Curtain wall and storefront work is engineered before it is installed, which puts this trade closer to a fabrication business than to a site trade. Units are made to measure, delivered on a schedule and cannot be cut to fit on arrival, so a single mistake in measurement is expensive in a way most trades never face.
This is architectural glass on buildings. Automotive glass replacement is a separate Census category and is not included.
Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed July 2026
Where these figures come from
Data Source Notice
This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.
Employer Establishments at Year Five Industry group
Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors, NAICS 2381, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.
58.4%the year-five count as a share of the starting count
Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 55.5 to 59.3 percent. This benchmark covers Foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors, NAICS 2381, as a whole. It is not a survival rate for glass and glazing contractors on their own: they are 6,825 of the 104,198 employer establishments in that group, about 7 percent of it. How this is measured
Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data
Payroll covers glaziers and shop staff, not the fabricated units installed on the building.
| Cost line | Share of receipts |
|---|---|
| Annual payroll share of receipts, United States | ≈24% |
Payroll share of receipts, Glass and Glazing Contractors, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
Approximately 24.0 percent of every revenue dollar in this category goes to annual payroll. As the census defines it, payroll includes wages, salaries, reported tips, commissions and bonuses; it excludes employer-paid benefits, employer payroll taxes, contractor payments and owner compensation. Treat it as one verified anchor, not a full labor cost breakdown. Payroll sits in the middle of the trades here, with fabricated units carrying much of each invoice. Shop fabrication hours are billed alongside site installation hours, so the payroll line covers two very different working environments.
This is not total labor cost or profit margin.
How to read this number
Position Within Its Comparison Group Computed from official data
Where this category sits among 8 foundation and exterior trades in the same 2022 Economic Census release. Ranks and the group median are computed on exact values, before the rounding used above.
| Measure | This category | Group median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue per employer establishment | $2,766,442 | $2,492,816 | 4 of 8 |
| Payroll share of receipts | 23.97% | 23.39% | 4 of 8 |
| Employer establishments | 6,825 | 10,956 | 6 of 8 |
Position among 8 foundation and exterior trades, 2022 Economic Census, employer establishments only.
This category ranks 4th of 8 by average annual revenue per employer establishment. It ranks 6th of 8 by employer establishment count and 4th of 8 by payroll share. Payroll equals 23.97 percent of receipts here, 0.57 percentage points above the group median of 23.39 percent. A higher or lower position is not a measure of profit or of business quality: the census reports receipts and payroll only.
Compared With Similar Business Types Computed from official data
The 4 categories closest to this one by average revenue inside the same comparison group.
| Census category | Revenue per establishment | Payroll share | Establishments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glass and Glazing Contractors (this page) | $2,766,442 | 23.97% | 6,825 |
| Roofing Contractors | $2,847,271 | 19.25% | 24,552 |
| Framing Contractors | $2,219,190 | 18.85% | 13,125 |
| Poured Concrete Foundation and Structure Contractors | $3,407,351 | 22.82% | 23,110 |
| Other Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors | $1,848,432 | 26.53% | 5,740 |
Nearest categories by average revenue, 2022 Economic Census, employer establishments only.
This category reports lower revenue per employer establishment than Roofing Contractors and Poured Concrete Foundation and Structure Contractors, and higher revenue than Framing Contractors and Other Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors. It contains more employer establishments than one of the four categories shown. Every figure in this table comes from the same 2022 Economic Census release and the same employer establishment population, so the columns are directly comparable.
Beyond the Benchmark BusinessNES analysis
What the census figures leave out about glass and glazing contractors, and what to look at instead.
What the numbers do not show
Fabrication and installation sit in the same figure. A contractor with its own shop cutting and glazing units reports receipts that include manufacturing work, while one that buys finished units and installs them does not.
Project mix, storefront versus residential versus curtain wall, is blended in the average. Commercial curtain wall arrives as a small number of large contracts with long lead times, while storefront and repair work arrives continuously in small tickets.
Operator lens
- A mismeasured unit means scrap plus a delay. Tempered and insulated units cannot be cut after fabrication, so a unit ordered wrong is scrap plus a delay, which is why survey discipline matters more than installation speed.
- Lead times set the working capital. Fabricated units are ordered and paid for well before they are installed and invoiced, which is why growth in this trade consumes cash.
Questions to ask before starting or buying
- Does the business fabricate or only install? The answer determines the equipment, the premises, the insurance and a large part of what the receipts represent.
- What does the project backlog contain? Ask for contracted work with delivery dates, and check how much of it depends on one general contractor.
- How is glass ordered and stored? Racking, handling equipment and breakage rates are the operational details that decide whether margin survives to the invoice.
- What certifications does the work require? Safety glazing, fire-rated assemblies and impact zones carry code obligations that vary by state and by building type.
- Who carries the warranty on sealed units? Failed seals appear years later, and responsibility is often split between the manufacturer and the installer.
Explore More on BusinessNES
More BusinessNES guides and rankings, plus neighboring benchmark pages built from the same verified data.
Sources and Methodology
Every figure on this page is bound to a published source, and each figure's own source line names that source precisely: the 2022 Economic Census for counts, receipts and payroll, and the Census Bureau's Business Dynamics Statistics for the industry continuation benchmark. Where a page shows a sector survival curve instead, that series comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
BusinessNES performs the arithmetic on those published figures and nothing else. Receipts are divided by establishments, and payroll by receipts. The age-five establishment count is divided by the age-zero establishment count for the same four-digit industry group, then repeated across five age-zero cohorts to give a reference and a range. This category's share of its industry group, along with the ranks, medians and nearest peers in the comparison sections, comes from the same published tables. Every one of them is recomputed from the sealed source files at each release and blocks publication if it does not match. Results are rounded and marked approximate. The reference year is 2022 for revenue and payroll; treat every figure as a baseline, not today's market.
Category scope matters: these figures cover Glass and Glazing Contractors (NAICS 238150), employer establishments only. The scope note near the top of the page explains what that includes and excludes for this business type. Flat glass manufacturing is a separate Census category from glazing contracting.
Full method, sources and limits
Spotted an error? Corrections are logged and published. Business data and benchmarks by BusinessNES.