Margin per client

The P&L tells you if the agency makes money. The per-client view tells you WHERE, and it is regularly surprising: the flagship client with the big retainer and the endless demands is sometimes your worst margin, and the quiet care-plan client you never think about is sometimes your best. You cannot run pricing, routing, or renewals well without this view.

The simple math, per client, per month

• Revenue: their plan plus retainers, plus any project fee spread across the months it covered.
• Direct costs: wholesale fees for their routed work, contractor time on their account, their hosting.
• Attention cost: your honest hours on them this month (requests reviewed, calls, the report), priced at what your time must be worth. Estimate it; do not skip it. Attention is the scarce input in this whole model (Module 11).
• Margin: revenue minus both. Rank the client list by it quarterly.

What drags margin, and the fix for each

• Scope leak: unbilled "quick favors" outside the plan. Fix: Module 3's change-order sentences, kindly and consistently.
• Attention hogs: clients whose communication style costs triple the average. Fix: tighter cadence, more portal, fewer calls; or a price that honors the reality.
• Underpriced legacy plans: early clients on year-old rates. Fix: Module 11's grandfathered raise, on schedule.
• Wrong routing: high-wholesale work you could now self-fulfill confidently, or self-fulfilled complexity that eats review hours AL would absorb. Fix: revisit Module 7's decision rule per client, yearly.

Firing a client, kindly

Sometimes the honest fix is the exit: persistent bottom-of-list margin plus persistent friction. Do it cleanly: finish the commitments, give real notice, recommend an alternative, hand over everything that is theirs. One calm paragraph, no litigation of history. The capacity you free almost always refills at better margin within a quarter, and your future self inherits a client list that is entirely clients you chose.