Your Payroll Is Up. Your Productivity Is Up. So Why Does It Still Feel Tight?
The Numbers Are Telling Two Stories at Once
Compensation conversations feel harder than they used to. That’s not your imagination, and it’s not just because wages have gone up.
The 2026 Veterinary Payroll Report shows a genuine tension in the data. On one side, productivity improved. Revenue per FTE climbed from $185,238 to $189,032. Revenue per staff hour rose from $112 to $114. Revenue per exam room increased from $691,805 to $722,385. These are real gains.
On the other side: gross payroll as a percentage of revenue increased from 40.8% to 41.6%. Transactions per DVM FTE declined. Support staffing grew while the DVM count stayed flat. And the gains in efficiency are not outpacing inflation.
More Efficient, But Still Pinched
This is the efficiency paradox. A practice can improve on nearly every productivity measure and still feel financially squeezed — if staffing decisions aren’t tightly aligned with actual demand.
More staff doesn’t automatically mean more capacity. It means more cost. When the additional headcount isn’t tied to measurable throughput gains, you end up spreading the same work across more people at greater expense.
The Question Worth Asking
Before the next hire, ask: are we getting everything out of the team we already have? Are scheduling, delegation, and role utilization as tight as they need to be?
The practices that are winning on payroll efficiency aren’t necessarily paying less. They’re managing differently.