In May 2025, Ignition released findings that should concern every agency owner: 82% of U.S. marketing agencies are delaying growth initiatives due to unpredictable cash flow. Not because clients aren’t paying, but because of what we, at GetDevDone, call “the delivery tax“ — the silent erosion of margin that happens when great creative ambition outpaces […]
In May 2025, Ignition released findings that should concern every agency owner: 82% of U.S. marketing agencies are delaying growth initiatives due to unpredictable cash flow. Not because clients aren’t paying, but because of what we, at GetDevDone, call “the delivery tax“ — the silent erosion of margin that happens when great creative ambition outpaces delivery discipline.
At first glance, the numbers seem modest. The data shows that 57% of agencies lose between $1,000 and $5,000 per month to unbilled work, last-minute rework and untracked scope creep. For a mid-sized firm managing ten concurrent projects, that’s between $12,000 and $60,000 every year disappearing into operational friction, not from strategic mistakes, but from inefficiencies so normalized they’re rarely questioned.
These losses are measurable in every missed deadline, untracked change request and “small tweak” that snowballs into full rework. They’re visible in the stress of teams constantly firefighting and the leadership teams perpetually explaining why margins are down despite steady revenue.
This was the exact conversation opened in the debut GetDevDone Horizons session, where Evgeniya Karelina, Delivery Director at GetDevDone, unpacked the anatomy of the delivery gap — and the invisible tax it imposes on every agency’s balance sheet.
The delivery gap is the space between what’s promised to a client and what’s actually shipped,” Evgeniya explained. “It’s measured in delays, rework, communication loops and duplicated effort. When you turn that into numbers, you get the delivery tax — the financial mirror of all that waste.
As we at GetDevDone observe it, the danger of the delivery gaps and taxes is that they hide inside routine operations. As Evgeniya noted, it isn’t limited by agency size or maturity; it scales with complexity. Whether it’s a Fortune 500 brand campaign or a boutique agency launch, the same traps appear in different forms:
Perhaps the most striking insight from the GetDevDone session was not about process, but about tension.
Every decade rewrites the rules of agency growth,” Evgeniya said. “A few years ago, the answer was more people: more designers, more developers, more managers. Today, that equation no longer works. Growth now depends on how well your delivery system turns creative intent into measurable, repeatable outcomes.
She described the familiar pattern: creative ambition expanding faster than the engineering structure that supports it. Campaigns stretch across channels, personalization layers multiply, and data sources fragment, but backend systems and delivery playbooks lag behind. The result is the coordination tax: endless internal syncs, conflicting updates, and missed deadlines that quietly drain morale and margin alike.
The human cost, she added, is as significant as the financial one. Burnout and churn rise as teams navigate shifting priorities and unclear ownership. According to Gallup, employees experiencing burnout are three times more likely to seek new jobs, and replacing a skilled contributor can cost up to one-third of their annual salary. These are the losses that few agencies account for until too late.
The cure, as Evgeniya emphasized, is not more process; it’s engineered delivery: creating systems where predictability and flexibility can coexist. “We don’t need heroics,” she said. “We need a structure that allows creativity to scale.”
Her prescription was pragmatic and immediately actionable:
Agencies that systematize delivery gain more than operational control – they gain resilience. At GetDevDone, two decades of delivery experience have shown that predictability builds client trust, stabilizes cash flow, and turns operational chaos into a measurable advantage.
Stop trying to fix the delivery gap alone,” Evgeniya concluded. “No agency can scale sustainably if success depends on last-minute saves. Build repeatable systems, choose partners who understand both creative and operational sides and you’ll protect not just your profit, but your reputation.
In a market defined by tightening budgets and rising client expectations, engineered delivery is a well-orchestrated strategy. And the agencies that put it to action will be the ones scaling profitably when everyone else is still firefighting.
Watch the full GetDevDone Horizons session: Fixing the delivery gap: How to choose the right partners, run pilots that work and protect your agency’s profit
Every decade rewrites the rules of agency growth. A few years ago, it was scale through people — more designers, more developers, more campaign managers. Today, that equation no longer works.
Agencies rarely lose profit in one crisis, they bleed it away hour by hour. We call this the delivery tax, the hidden cost of unclear discovery, scope creep, and weak governance. This piece shows where it comes from, why mid-size teams feel it most, and the simple structures that stop the margin leak.
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