Less than 1% of your invoices carry a third of your revenue
Across 2.5M+ contractor invoices worth $11.6B, the 0.7% over $100K carry 38% of all revenue. That changes how you should chase cash: age your AR by dollars, not invoice count, and escalate the big ones first.
Invoice size distribution
| Invoice size | Share of invoices | Share of revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Under $1K | 59% of invoices | 5% of revenue |
| $1K-$5K | 30% of invoices | 14% of revenue |
| $5K-$10K | 5% of invoices | 8% of revenue |
| $10K-$25K | 4% of invoices | 12% of revenue |
| $25K-$100K | 2.2% of invoices | 21% of revenue |
| $100K+ | 0.7% of invoices | 38% of revenue |
Source: The Level Index, 2.5M+ invoices totaling $11.6B. Aggregated and anonymized. Download the data (JSON), free to cite with attribution.
Invoice-level collection
Cash collected as a share of invoiced amount, per company, at a point in time. This includes recent invoices not yet due, so it runs below the company-level collection rate (median 85.1%). Read it as how fast the whole book turns to cash.
| Percentile | Invoice collection rate |
|---|---|
| Bottom 10% | 8.8% |
| 25th percentile | 43.0% |
| Median | 70.5% |
| 75th percentile | 82.5% |
| Top 10% | 88.8% |
For the company-level collection rate (median 85.1%) and billing speed, see the collection gap benchmark.
Frequently asked questions
Which invoices actually carry my revenue?
The big ones, and it is more concentrated than most owners think. Across 2.5M+ contractor invoices worth $11.6B, the 0.7% of invoices over $100K carry 38% of all revenue, and invoices of $10K or more (about 6.9% of invoice count) carry 71% of revenue. The 59% of invoices under $1K carry just 5%. If a large invoice sits uncollected, that is real money; if a $400 invoice does, it is noise. Chase the big ones first.
What share of invoiced work have contractors collected at a given time?
The median invoice-level collection rate is 70.5% (P25 43%, P75 82.5%, P90 88.8%) across the 2.5M+ invoice set. This is a point-in-time snapshot of all invoices, including recent ones not yet due, so it runs lower than the company-level collection rate (median 85.1% of billed revenue). Read invoice-level collection as a picture of how fast the whole book turns to cash, not a bad-debt rate.
Why does invoice size distribution matter for cash flow?
Because your AR follow-up should be weighted, not evenly spread. A power-law distribution means a handful of large invoices decide whether you make payroll. Contractors who age their AR by dollar value (not invoice count) and escalate the $10K-plus invoices at 30 days, not 90, collect materially faster. Treating a $500 and a $150K invoice with the same dunning cadence wastes effort on the invoices that do not move the number.
How is this measured?
From 2.5M+ contractor invoices totaling $11.6B in Level's contractor benchmark research. Size distribution is invoice count and dollars by size tier; collection percentiles are cash collected as a share of invoiced amount, per company, at time of measurement. Aggregated and anonymized; no individual company is identified.
From clients
What contractors say after working with us.
“Finished work would sit two, three weeks before anyone invoiced it, and I didn't think it mattered because it all got billed eventually. Then it clicked that a handful of big invoices were basically all my outstanding cash, a couple hundred grand tied up, and meanwhile we chase a $400 invoice as hard as a $150K one. Now we go after the big ones at 30 days. Totally different cash position.”
“We had thousands of invoices and treated them all the same. Once someone laid it out, a handful of big invoices were basically all my outstanding cash, so aging AR by count is pointless, you age it by dollars. Reorganized collections around the big ones first and pulled in around $300K we'd honestly half forgotten about.”
“My office manager was doing collections oldest-first, tiny ones and huge ones all mixed together. We switched to sorting by dollar value and just going after the top 20. Two of them were six figures and 90 days out. Both paid inside three weeks once somebody actually called about the invoices that mattered.”
Analysis by Sam Yang, Founder, Level. Compiled from Level's proprietary contractor benchmark research.
Source: The Level Index, Contractor Invoice Benchmarks, 2.5M+ invoices. US contractors. Data vintage 2022 to 2026, last updated Q3 2026. Aggregated and anonymized.
Company-level collection rate (median 85.1%) corroborated by CFMA 2024 (56.6 days in AR, n=1,290) and Levelset 2022.
Suggested citation: "The Level Index, Contractor Invoice Benchmarks, Level (levelcfo.com), 2026." Method: see the benchmark methodology.
Simple pricing
Three tiers, one ladder.
$99-$500/mo
Bookkeeping
The clean data layer: monthly books, reconciliations, and organized financials AI can work with.
$1,500-$5,000/mo
Scale
The full AI operating layer: custom agents, weekly actions, and benchmarks to grow margin per hour.
Custom
Platform / Multi-Office
Multi-branch benchmarking and scorecards for PE-backed and multi-location groups.
Make more money with the crew you already have
Drop your info and we’ll show where your team’s time is turning into margin, where it is getting wasted, and where cash is trapped in open jobs. Free audit included.
No commitment. Real numbers, not generic advice.