The School of Real Marketing
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F10-03·F10 — Marketing Organisation

The Agency Business Model Problem

The productive tension

Hours-based billingandvalue-based pricing

The synthesis

Neither pure hours nor pure value-based pricing works for most agency-client relationships. The best fee structures are explicit hybrids — retainers for capability access, project fees for specific deliverables, performance bonuses for measurable outcomes. The evidence-based marketer matches the fee model to the nature of the work and refuses to let procurement default everything to hours.

Learning objectives

  • Explain the history of agency pricing from commission through hours to value-based
  • Identify the perverse incentives of pure hours-based billing
  • Evaluate the conditions under which value-based pricing works
  • Design hybrid fee structures appropriate to different types of agency work
  • Recognise the pitch economy problem and its hidden costs

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