See Nocrai in Action — Contribution Margin Demo

The business enters its numbers

Revenue and direct costs — takes about 90 seconds

GSaR Ltd — monthly figures

Monthly revenue £22,400

Direct staff costs £8,600

Software and tools £340

Subcontractors £2,800

Other direct costs £480

Total direct costs £12,220

What you enter

Just revenue and the costs that move when you deliver work — staff, materials, subcontractors, tools.

Not overheads. Rent, insurance, your salary — those come later. Contribution margin is about the economics of delivery first.

💡 GSaR is billing £22,400 and spending £12,220 to deliver it. The question is whether what's left is healthy.

The tool calculates and grades the result

Instant — with a plain-English interpretation, not just a number

Your Result

45.4%

Good

GSaR Ltd is keeping 45.4p of every pound of revenue after direct delivery costs — that's £10,180 per month. This is a healthy margin for a professional services business, but there's a clear path to Excellent with one targeted adjustment.

What this means

The grade tells you where you stand — not just the number. Good means the business is viable but leaving something on the table.

The interpretation is written in plain English so any business owner understands it without a financial background.

💡 45.4% is just below the Excellent threshold of 50%. The platform shows you exactly what to move to get there.

The breakdown — where every pound goes

Four stats that tell the full story of the margin

Why four numbers?

Revenue alone tells you nothing. The four-stat breakdown shows what's driving the margin — and what's eroding it.

GSaR's staff cost ratio is healthy. The subcontractor spend is the variable that moves — and the lever section below shows exactly what happens when it does.

💡 Subcontractors are 22.9% of revenue — that's the number to watch.

Revenue

£22,400

Monthly

Contribution

£10,180

After direct costs

Direct Costs

£12,220

To deliver the work

Cost Ratio

54.6%

Costs as % of revenue

Context — how does this compare?

Benchmarks calibrated to professional services businesses

Contribution margin benchmarks — professional services

Margin	Grade	What it means
50% or above	Excellent	Strong pricing power and lean delivery. Room to invest in growth.
40–49%	Good ← GSaR	Healthy but some delivery costs can be tightened or priced through.
30–39%	At Risk	Margin is thin. Overhead cover is tight. One bad month hits hard.
Below 30%	Critical	Delivery is consuming the business. Pricing or cost structure must change.

Why benchmarks matter

A number without context is meaningless. 45.4% sounds fine — but is it?

The benchmark table tells you immediately. GSaR is Good — not Critical, not Excellent. That precision changes what you do next.

💡 GSaR is 4.6 percentage points from Excellent. The levers section shows the path.

The levers — what would actually change this?

Model the impact of a real business decision before you make it

This is the most powerful part

Most tools stop at the diagnosis. Nocrai shows you the levers that move the number — and lets you model them.

GSaR can ask: what if we reduced subcontractor spend by £1,000? What if we raised our day rate by 8%? The tool answers both in real time.

💡 Reducing subcontractors by £1,000/month takes GSaR from 45.4% to 49.9% — one decision from Excellent.

What would change your margin?

Adjust any lever to model a scenario.

Reduce subcontractor spend

Review project scope — can any subcontracted work be brought in-house, or renegotiated?

Reduce by: £1,000/month

Increase average project value

A rate review or scope redefinition — how much more could GSaR charge for the same delivery?

Increase by: £0

Reduce other direct costs

Software, tools, expenses that relate directly to delivery — any quick wins here?

Reduce by: £0

The scenario — what the decision actually means

The result updates instantly when the lever moves

Scenario Result −£1,000 subcontractors

49.9%

Good → Almost Excellent

+4.5pp vs Base

If GSaR reduces subcontractor spend by £1,000 per month, the contribution margin improves from 45.4% to 49.9% — a 4.5 percentage point gain. That's one renegotiated contract from crossing into Excellent.

The "so what"

This is the moment most tools miss. The scenario result doesn't just show a new number — it frames the decision in plain English.

GSaR now knows: one subcontractor renegotiation is worth 4.5 percentage points of margin. That's a business decision, not a spreadsheet exercise.

💡 The platform runs this calculation for every lever, across every tool, every time the user enters a number.

The recommendations — what to do next

Calibrated to the user's grade — not generic advice

Grade-aware recommendations

The recommendations change based on the result. A Critical business gets different guidance than a Good one. Generic advice is useless — Nocrai's recommendations are specific to where the business actually sits.

💡 GSaR gets a "Good" recommendation set — with a specific warning about the subcontractor exposure.

Your Nocrai Journey

Starter ✓

You know your contribution margin and can see what's driving it

Complete

Operator

Build weekly control and act on what you find

Priority: Tighten delivery costs and protect margin before scaling

→ Pricing Calculator
→ Break-Even Analysis

⚠ At 45.4%, your subcontractor spend is the biggest variable in your margin. One project overrun could push you into At Risk territory — model it before it happens.

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