Most agency owners assume bigger agencies should be more profitable, but the data says otherwise.

In this episode of Creative Outcomes, Ryan Watson breaks down insights from Upsourced’s annual Creative Agency Benchmarking Report, built from financial data across 80 agencies across the U.S.

The surprising takeaway?

As agencies grow past ~25 employees and into the $3M-$5M range, profitability often declines instead of improving.

Ryan explains:

- Why realized rates and project margins collapse as agencies scale

- The “grow mode inflection point” agencies hit around $3M–$5M

- Why larger teams create operational bottlenecks

- The leadership structure agencies actually need to scale

- When to introduce people managers, directors, and department leaders

- Why agencies overhire in G&A and un ...