Assertion Contradicted AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Courtemanche: Construction is a 2% to 3% gross margin business

Tooey Courtemanche · Going Long: How Procore’s Founder Tooey Courtemanche Built a Billon-Dollar SaaS Empire Over 23 Years · Feb 14, 2025 · at 36:09

Tooey Courtemanche, founder and CEO of Procore, explains why software and labor efficiency are critical for low-margin construction firms.

0:00 / 0:04exact quote · 4.4s

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“In the construction industry, it's a very low margin business, like two to three percent gross margin business.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

The construction industry operates on very low margins of approximately two to three percent gross margin.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Industry benchmark datasets consistently show that average gross margins in the construction sector range from roughly 12% to 26%, not 2% to 3%. Specifically, NYU Stern's Damodaran corporate finance benchmark measured average Engineering/Construction gross margins at 15.46% (as of January 2026), and the Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) Financial Benchmarker reports measured average gross profit margins of 14.8% for general contractors and 16.0% to 21.8% for specialty trade contractors. Figures in the 2% to 4% range represent net profit margins (bottom-line income) for low-margin commercial contractors rather than gross margins.

NYU Stern / Aswath Damodaran January 2026 dataset reported an average gross margin of 15.46% across 48 Engineering/Construction firms.
CFMA 2024 and 2025 Financial Benchmarker reports measured average gross profit margins of 14.8% for general contractors and an aggregate 21.8% across all respondent construction firms.
Financial benchmark analyses of commercial general contractors show average gross margins clustering between 12% and 16%, while net profit margins cluster around 2% to 6%.

Checked against

[1] nyu.edu [2] nyu.edu [3] nyu.edu [4] constructioncfo.net [5] relayfi.com [6] foundationsoft.com [7] jmco.com [8] levelcfo.com

CFMA Financial Benchmarker construction gross profit margin net profit margin NYU Stern Damodaran industry margins Engineering Construction gross margin NYU Stern margins by industry Engineering Construction 2024 2025

assessed as of 2026-09-03

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

construction industry

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Courtemanche: Construction is a 2% to 3% gross margin business

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