Business Data & Benchmarks · United States

Systems Design Firm Revenue Benchmark

Computer systems design, integration and network services.

NAICS 541512, 2022 editionUnited States data by defaultSources and dates shown

Average Systems Design Firm Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

Total receipts of computer systems design businesses with paid employees, divided by the count of those establishments, both published in the 2022 Economic Census.

≈$4,520,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

53,805

Employer establishments in the United States, 2022

as published $243.3 billion

Combined annual gross revenue of employer establishments, 2022

How this is calculated: about $243.3 billion in combined annual revenue divided by 53,805 employer establishments works out to $4,520,000. This is an average per establishment, and averages get pulled up by large, busy operations, so a typical business may sit below it.

Scope: Computer Systems Design Services (NAICS 541512). Covers computer systems design services, including integration and network design. Employer establishments only: owner-operated businesses with no paid employees are not in these figures.

Integration work often carries hardware and licenses through the invoice alongside the design itself, which lifts receipts relative to a pure programming shop while lowering the share that reaches payroll. Both sit in the same four-digit group and the difference between them shows in these two numbers.

Design, integration and managed services are counted together, and the census data do not separate resold hardware from professional fees.

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
Establishment counts and combined receipts are published figures from the official source named in each figure's source line. BusinessNES divides one by the other and rounds to the nearest $10,000; no other adjustment is made. The full chain from published figure to this page is described on the methodology page.

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

Computer Systems Design and Related Services, NAICS 5415, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

46.8%the year-five count as a share of the starting count

Five-year establishment continuation benchmarkLine chart of industry continuation: 73.8 percent at 1 year, 62.6 percent at 2 years, 57.1 percent at 3 years, 51.1 percent at 4 years, 46.8 percent at 5 years. 11,570 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.100%75%50%25%0%2014-2018 cohort range: 43.3 to 49.7 percentStart: 100 percent, the starting count1 year: 73.8 percent of the starting count2 years: 62.6 percent of the starting count3 years: 57.1 percent of the starting count4 years: 51.1 percent of the starting count5 years: 46.8 percent of the starting count73.862.657.151.146.8Start1 year2 years3 years4 years5 years11,570 establishments first reported paid employment in 2018; BusinessNES calculation from Census BDS.
Five years on, this industry group counted about 47 establishments aged five for every 100 that first reported paid employment in 2018. Census compares counts by age rather than following the same businesses, so read it as a broad continuation indicator for the industry group, not as a tracked survival rate.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 43.3 to 49.7 percent. This benchmark covers Computer Systems Design and Related Services, NAICS 5415, as a whole. It is not a survival rate for computer systems design businesses on their own: they are 53,805 of the 141,843 employer establishments in that group, about 38 percent of it. How this is measured

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll covers architects, engineers and technicians, not the hardware and licenses passed through a project.

Cost lineShare of receipts
Annual payroll share of receipts, United States≈35%

Payroll share of receipts, Computer Systems Design Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 35.0 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 takes a smaller share here than in custom programming, consistent with pass-through hardware in the receipts.

This is not total labor cost or profit margin.

How to read this number
Payroll here is the census annual payroll figure, PAYANN: it includes wages, salaries, reported tips, commissions and bonuses paid to employees, and it excludes employer-paid benefits, employer payroll taxes, contractor payments and proprietor compensation. BusinessNES divides it by the same category total receipts, RCPTOT, and rounds to a whole percent.

Position Within Its Comparison Group Computed from official data

Where this category sits among 4 computer systems services in the same 2022 Economic Census release. Ranks and the group median are computed on exact values, before the rounding used above.

MeasureThis categoryGroup medianRank
Revenue per employer establishment$4,522,184$4,103,8671 of 4
Payroll share of receipts35.12%41.84%4 of 4
Employer establishments53,80533,548.52 of 4

Position among 4 computer systems services, 2022 Economic Census, employer establishments only.

This category ranks 1st of 4 by average annual revenue per employer establishment. It ranks 2nd of 4 by employer establishment count and 4th of 4 by payroll share. Payroll equals 35.12 percent of receipts here, 6.73 percentage points below the group median of 41.84 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 3 categories closest to this one by average revenue inside the same comparison group.

Census categoryRevenue per establishmentPayroll shareEstablishments
Computer Systems Design Services (this page)$4,522,18435.12%53,805
Other Computer Related Services$4,135,78741.39%13,292
Custom Computer Programming Services$4,071,94842.71%68,397
Computer Facilities Management Services$3,747,49042.30%6,349

Nearest categories by average revenue, 2022 Economic Census, employer establishments only.

This category reports higher revenue per employer establishment than every category shown here: Other Computer Related Services, Custom Computer Programming Services and Computer Facilities Management Services. It contains more employer establishments than two of the three 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.

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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 Computer Systems Design Services (NAICS 541512), employer establishments only. The scope note near the top of the page explains what that includes and excludes for this business type. Custom programming and computer facilities management are separate Census categories.

Full method, sources and limits
The methodology page describes the full chain for every figure on this site: the published source, the sealed snapshot it was read from, the exact calculation if BusinessNES performed one, and the honest limits of scope and vintage. Read the methodology.

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