What a Finance Function Costs: Benchmark Statistics

Last updated: July 2026

The benchmarks that answer "what should our finance function cost" exist, but they are scattered across paywalled programmes and a handful of signed articles published years apart. This page collects the figures that are publicly traceable, with the source, the year, and the sample size for each. Where a sample size was not published, it says so.

Finance cost as a share of revenue

1.0% of revenue is the median total cost of the finance function. Top performers run at 0.66% of revenue and bottom performers at 1.5%. From APQC cross-industry benchmarking, reported January 2025. The article does not state the sample size for this edition, which places it below the other APQC figures on this page in evidential weight. (APQC, via Perry D. Wiggins, CFO.com, January 2025)

1.2% median, 0.7% top quartile, 1.8% bottom quartile. An earlier and better-documented cut of the same APQC programme, based on 1,515 organizations, published January 2018. (APQC Open Standards Benchmarking, via Marisa Brown, CFO.com, January 2018)

0.4% vs 0.9%: scale changes what "good" means. Among top performers, organizations above USD 1bn in revenue ran finance at 0.4% of revenue, against 0.9% for those below USD 1bn. Comparing a small company against an unsegmented benchmark will therefore understate its performance. Same APQC cut, n = 1,515, January 2018. (APQC, via Marisa Brown, CFO.com)

0.55% of revenue among top quartile organizations. PwC states in its Finance Effectiveness Benchmarking report that top quartile organizations have reduced the cost of finance to 0.55% of company revenue. Data collected December 2023, published June 2024. This figure is stated in the report text; other values in that report appear only in charts and are not reproduced here. (PwC, Finance Effectiveness Benchmarking, June 2024)

How the spread has moved

0.6% to 2.0%, then 0.66% to 1.5%: the gap has narrowed from both ends. APQC's January 2025 reporting notes that a decade earlier top performers sat at 0.6% and bottom performers at 2.0%. The top has drifted slightly upward while the bottom has improved markedly, compressing the range. Note that these are two separate cuts of a benchmarking programme rather than a tracked panel, so this is a shift in the population measured, not a trajectory followed by fixed companies. (APQC, via Perry D. Wiggins, CFO.com, January 2025)

How many people finance runs on

69.4 finance FTEs per USD 1bn of revenue is the median. The top quartile operates with 36 or fewer, the bottom quartile with at least 141.6, a spread of roughly four to one. APQC Finance Organization Open Standards Benchmarking, 1,784 entities, published January 2019. (APQC, via Perry D. Wiggins, CFO.com, January 2019)

Where the time goes

46% of FP&A time is spent on data collection and validation. The FP&A Trends Survey 2025 reports this as the highest figure in five years of the survey. n = 459 finance professionals worldwide (38% Europe, 38% North America, 8% Asia). See the source note below. (FP&A Trends Survey 2025)

35% of FP&A time goes to generating insight and driving action. Against 45% on data collection and validation, a distribution the 2024 edition describes as stable across the preceding four years. n = 383. (FP&A Trends Survey 2024)

9% of organizations run fully automated driver-based models. 54% use partially calculated models relying on manually chosen drivers. FP&A Trends Survey 2024, n = 383. (FP&A Trends Survey 2024)

30% have not upgraded their planning tools in five years or more. FP&A Trends Survey 2025, n = 459. (FP&A Trends Survey 2025)

A note on these sources

APQC runs the most widely referenced benchmarking programme for finance cost, but its own measure pages are not publicly accessible. The figures above come from signed, dated "Metric of the Month" articles in CFO.com that name APQC as the data source. Where APQC published a sample size, it is stated; where the article did not, that is flagged inline rather than omitted.

FP&A Trends is a self-selected panel recruited through a professional community and sponsored by a planning software vendor. It publishes its methodology and sample composition, which is why it is cited, but it is not a probability sample and likely over-represents organizations already investing in FP&A transformation. Read those figures as directional.

The APQC cost and FTE figures date from 2018, 2019 and 2025. Finance benchmarking moves slowly, but any figure here older than five years should be treated as an order of magnitude rather than a current reading.

Sources

APQC, cross-industry finance cost benchmarking (via Perry D. Wiggins, CFO.com, January 2025). Link
APQC Open Standards Benchmarking, finance function cost (via Marisa Brown, CFO.com, January 2018). Link
APQC Finance Organization Open Standards Benchmarking, FTEs per USD 1bn (via Perry D. Wiggins, CFO.com, January 2019). Link
PwC, Finance Effectiveness Benchmarking – Finance Transformation (December 2023 data, published June 2024). Link
FP&A Trends Survey 2025. Link
FP&A Trends Survey 2024. Link

Excluded figures

Hackett Group "Digital World Class" finance figures (45% lower cost, up to 42% fewer FTEs, 68% more time on forward-looking analysis, 99% of journal entries automated, June 2025; and the 2023 series on finance operations costs). No sample size or methodology published, and the values are relative gaps without absolute anchors. The underlying research is gated. Excluded on the context requirement, not on suspicion of inaccuracy.
Hackett "AI World Class" projections (order-to-cash costs down 52-59%, FTEs per USD 1bn down 56-64%, July 2026). These are modelled projections rather than observed benchmarks.
PwC chart-only values (FTEs per USD 1bn, share of FP&A time in analysis, automation rates). Present in the report as charts without labelled values; extracting them would risk misstating the series.
"Finance teams spend 30% (or 50%) of their time gathering data," attributed to PwC. Traced through a chain of blogs citing blogs. PwC measures a different construct, and the quoted figure is not verifiable in the report.
"26% of finance departments rely exclusively on spreadsheets." Circulates via software vendor blogs with no identifiable primary source.
Gartner figures on finance cost and Excel dependence, including "75% of mid-market finance teams run their primary planning models in Excel" and "by 2026 more than 70% of finance organizations will have abandoned spreadsheets as their primary planning tool." Neither is traceable to a Gartner publication, neither cites a report number, and the second is contradicted by measured survey data. Treated as unsubstantiated.

Changelog

2026-07: Initial version. Ten figures across finance cost as a share of revenue, cost spread over time, FTE benchmarks, and time allocation. Hackett Group figures reviewed and excluded for undisclosed methodology; two Gartner-attributed figures reviewed and found untraceable.

What a Finance Function Costs: Benchmark Statistics (2026)