Playbook, marketing agency
How an agency charges, before anyone talks about what it costs
Prospects choose between shapes of engagement before they choose between agencies, and that decision is made on structure rather than on price: monthly or per project, what the minimum term is, whether spend runs through the agency, who owns what at the end. All of that is fixed, publishable and considerably more useful than a rate card. It is also where an agency looks either professional or evasive, because most sites say nothing about any of it.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for pricing questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The question is about the commercial shape rather than the amount, so the material that answers it is the engagement model, not any figure.
- Media spend passing through the agency confuses every fee conversation, because a prospect who has been quoted a monthly number does not know whether it includes what they are buying.
- Retainers carry a minimum term and a notice period, which prospects treat as the real cost of being wrong about the agency.
- Asset and account ownership is decided by this structure and asked about far too late, usually at the point somebody wants to leave.
How it arrives
- do you work on retainer or per project
- what is your minimum term on a retainer
- how much notice do we need to give to end a retainer
- what is included in your social management
- is ad spend billed through you or do we pay direct
- how do you handle work that goes outside the scope
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Engagement models set out side by side | Project, retainer and consulting arrangements together, with the minimum term, the notice period, how scope changes are handled and how out of scope work is quoted. Prospects are choosing between these shapes before anything else. |
|---|---|
| What a retainer actually contains each month | The deliverables, the cadence, the reporting, the meetings, and how unused capacity is treated. Retainers get cancelled over a disagreement about what was included, and that disagreement starts on the website. |
| How media spend is handled | Whether it is billed through you or paid direct, whether your fee is a percentage or fixed, and who holds the accounts. This single question reshapes the whole fee conversation and almost no agency site answers it. |
| Asset and account ownership at the end of an engagement | Who owns the work, who holds the ad accounts and analytics properties, and what happens to work in progress on termination. These decide renewals, and prospects who ask early are the ones who have been burned before. |
The reply
We work both ways. Projects are quoted per piece of work with a defined scope, and retainers run monthly with a minimum term and a notice period, both of which are on the engagement terms page along with what a retainer includes each month. Media spend is separate from our fee, and the terms page also sets out who holds the ad accounts and what happens to assets if we stop working together. If you tell me roughly what you are trying to do I can point you at whichever model tends to fit.
It gives both shapes without pushing one, because a prospect at this stage is comparing structures rather than being sold. Volunteering the spend and ownership positions before being asked is the move that makes an agency look like it has done this before. It closes by offering to narrow, which keeps a conversation going without demanding contact details yet.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks what a retainer would cost for them, or proposes a variation on the published terms.
The engagement terms are published, but what the right model and the monthly figure look like for you comes out of a conversation rather than from me. Leave your name, email and a line on what you are trying to do and someone will pick it up.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never quote a monthly retainer figure for a prospect's situation.
- Never agree to a shorter minimum term, a longer notice period or any variation on the published terms.
- Never say that media spend is included in a fee unless your published terms say so.
- Never state ownership of assets or accounts in terms that differ from your contract.
Questions
- Is publishing the notice period risky?
- It is less risky than not publishing it. Prospects assume the worst about terms they cannot see, and a minimum term stated plainly with what the retainer contains reads as confidence rather than as a trap.
- Why does media spend keep coming up here?
- Because it is the largest number in most engagements and prospects cannot tell whether a fee includes it. Answering it in the same breath as the fee structure removes the single biggest source of confusion on an agency site.
- Should it recommend a model?
- It can describe which model each service is normally delivered under, which is a fact about your agency. It should not tell a prospect which one suits them, because that judgement depends on things they have not said and it is the beginning of the scoping conversation.
Keep reading
- Everything for a marketing agencyService definitions and engagement terms convert. A price quoted for work nobody has scoped is the trap on an agency site.
- Handling pricing questions in generalPublished price versus the price for this buyer. Bands, ranges and from pricing, and why a firm number for unscoped work is the damaging failure.
- Data and security questions from the prospect's procurement teamAgencies process customer data for clients. What the assistant can answer from a published position, and where a person has to commit the firm.
- What happens when a client wants to stop working with the agencyNotice periods, work in progress and who keeps the ad accounts. The questions clients ask late and should have been able to read early.
- The handover an agency actually wants to happenHere the handover is the product. A brief arriving in the chat is the signal, and a discovery call is what the assistant is trying to produce.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.