What pricing structure do you use when charging clients for agency work?
We usually start with an upfront deposit, then collect the delivery payment, and finally move the client onto a retainer. It’s essentially an intro‑offer plus a recurring service model. The intro offer is a low‑ticket, highly deliverable product that proves value quickly—often priced around $2 K (or even $998 to make it more palatable). After you deliver and show ROI, you pitch a monthly retainer, typically $5 K per month for a four‑month commitment, which becomes the bulk of the revenue. The flow looks like: upfront deposit → delivery payment → retainer. This structure makes it easier to sell recurring services, which are hard to sell cold, by first establishing trust with a concrete, repeatable deliverable.
I do almost exclusively fixed monthlies now because I have a small recurring client base and I chose not to increase the size of the space, as it would move me away from the coaching and consulting offers I’m doing. When I was scaling my agency to $72K a month, I did almost exclusively one‑time setup fees for an intro offer. After the intro offer I’d try to upsell them to a recurring retainer—a fractional COO‑style retainer. I also have a few clients on revenue share for the fractional COO offer.
One‑time payments are much easier to sell because prospects don’t yet trust you enough for a long‑term retainer. Start with a simple, short‑turnaround onetime offer—often called an OTP (one‑time payment) or intro offer—to deliver quick ROI and make the client happy. Then transition them to a monthly recurring model to capture leverage. I usually split the payment 50% upfront and 50% on delivery to hedge risk, then move them into a monthly retainer. I hand over the system to clients on their own cloud (NAN) and have them sign up for the hosted offering, though you can also host it yourself if you prefer. Keeping the model lean and offering affiliate revenue can also add value.
The most suitable niches and products or services to build for clients that allow a monthly recurring relationship are those that can be delivered as ongoing systems. In a nutshell, focus on things like cold‑email systems, CRM management, or voice‑agent solutions—any service that you can justify a monthly retainer for. For example, with a cold‑email system you could send 10 000 leads a month, provide a 45‑minute strategy session, a monthly report, and end‑to‑end campaign management with nurturing, and charge around $3 270 per month plus $98 per lead. With CRM management you could offer 40 hours of new‑build work plus unlimited maintenance on old systems, plus Slack availability, and price it at roughly $4 000–$4 120 per month (assuming a $120 hourly rate and a 20 % discount). For voice‑agent services you could bundle a weekly strategy call, a weekly report, call‑analysis, and up to 100 hours of agent uptime, pricing it around $2 180 per month. These three retainer models aren’t the only ones, but they’re quick to set up and sell.
Charge a monthly retainer because you continuously deliver value. The automation you build keeps producing repeat value for the client, and you act as a strategist and consultant who maintains the system. Systems can break, and handling that month‑to‑month is a big pain point for clients, so they prefer to pay you to ensure everything runs smoothly. By positioning yourself as the person who provides ongoing support, maintenance, and incremental value, a recurring fee is justified.