Business Data & Benchmarks · United States
Musical Instrument Store Revenue Benchmark
A musical instrument store sells new instruments, sheet music, strings, reeds and accessories, and commonly earns from lessons, rentals for school band programs and repairs alongside sales. Brand access, school relationships and the rental fleet shape a trade where the instruments are expensive and the accessories keep the door swinging.
Average Musical Instrument Store Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census
The 2022 Economic Census counts every retailer of musical instruments and supplies with paid employees and publishes their combined annual receipts, including lesson and repair income earned by the same store. Dividing that total by the number of stores gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.
≈$1,937,000 /year
Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment
3,656
Employer establishments in the United States, 2022
as published $7.1 billion
Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022
How this is calculated: about $7.1 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 3,656 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $1,937,000 per employer establishment.
Scope: Musical Instrument and Supplies Retailers, NAICS 459140. The category covers retailers of new musical instruments, sheet music and related supplies, including stores that also offer lessons and repairs. Record stores, electronics retailers and music schools are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 4591: 459110 Sporting Goods Retailers; 459120 Hobby, Toy, and Game Retailers; 459130 Sewing, Needlework, and Piece Goods Retailers. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.
Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026
Five-Year Survival in the Retail Sector Sector-level
Federal data does not track survival for musical instrument stores specifically. The honest closest measure is the sector that contains them: Retail Trade (NAICS 44-45). Here is the most recent fully observed five-year cohort.
59.8 percent of Retail Trade establishments opened in the year ended March 2020 were still operating five years later. Five-year survival was similar across these two consecutive cohorts: 60.7 percent and 59.8 percent.
Read this as sector base rates, not as a promise for this specific trade. This continuation curve is a broader Retail Trade benchmark, not a survival series specific to musical instrument stores. The sector contains many business types with different economics, and survival for any one of them can sit above or below the curve. Instrument retail depends on school music programs and on brand dealer agreements, and a store's position can change with a single district decision or a supplier's move to sell direct.
Source US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7 · Scope Retail Trade sector, national · Observed through March 2025
Source and definition
Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data
Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual payroll share of receipts, United States | ≈13% |
Payroll share of receipts, Musical Instrument and Supplies Retailers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
Approximately 13.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a small share in a trade where instruments carry high ticket prices through receipts and where lesson teachers are often paid per lesson rather than as staff.
Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and the census does not publish cost of goods or the depreciation of a rental fleet, so nothing on this page shows what a store keeps.
Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data
How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid employees per employer establishment | 8.7 |
| Employer establishments per firm | 1.35 |
Scale and ownership, Musical Instrument and Supplies Retailers, United States, 2022 Economic Census.
The average establishment employed about 8.7 people, and the industry averaged 1.4 employer establishments per firm, which confirms that multi-establishment ownership exists in the published population without showing how establishments are distributed across firms. As an illustration, that headcount could cover a sales floor, a repair bench and lesson rooms with part-time teachers.
These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.
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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.
Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis
Musical Instrument Store: what rentals, lessons and school programs do to a store's revenue.
Before you rely on this benchmark
- How large is the school rental program? Renting band and orchestra instruments to students brings recurring revenue and a stream of future buyers, but it ties up capital in a fleet that needs maintenance and eventual sale. The rental share behind a store's figure varies enormously.
- Are lessons part of the model? Lesson rooms fill quiet hours and bring families through the door every week, but teachers, scheduling and space have their own economics. A store with a busy lesson studio behaves differently from a pure sales floor reporting similar receipts.
- Which brands will the store carry? Dealer agreements with major instrument makers set stocking and pricing terms and can be withdrawn, and some brands sell directly online. Brand access is a business asset that decides what a store can offer, and it is invisible in the average.
- How exposed is the store to online sellers? Guitars, keyboards and accessories sell online at thin margins, while fitting a student to an instrument, repairs and trade-ins keep customers local. A store's mix of commodity and service sales decides how it competes.
- What does the inventory cost? Pianos, brass and professional guitars are expensive to stock and slow to turn, so floor plan financing and inventory discipline matter. Capital tied up on the floor is a central number no receipts table shows.
- Does the repair bench pay? Repairs and setups bring steady income and loyalty from musicians and schools, but skilled technicians are scarce and the work is time-intensive. Whether a store runs its own bench or sends work out changes its payroll and its reputation.
Sources and Methodology
Revenue, establishment counts, payroll, employment and firm counts on this page come from the 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics, published by the US Census Bureau. Averages and shares are BusinessNES calculations from those published totals, and each one names the two figures it divides.
The Census counts employer establishments, meaning each store with paid staff. Music schools are counted with fine arts schools, and a teacher or repair technician working alone is not counted.
The survival curve is a sector-level series from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and describes the whole Retail Trade sector, not this business type on its own.