Agency Setup Offer Rebuild

I was senior media buyer and analyst at a Facebook-ads agency in 2020. Its entry product was an account setup: about two weeks of research and audits, then a month of management, sold as a six-week project for about $12,000.

The six weeks routinely ran to eight, and nearer ten when an audit sat waiting. The setup fee was also more than a month's retainer, while the client saw managed ads for only about half the period. The sharp clients did that math on their own: they were paying more than a retainer and getting less, and once a client starts counting days that way, the relationship gets worse from there.

I chopped the setup down to two weeks of research, audits and analysis, ending on a kickoff call where the team presented its findings: the customer avatars, the angles, the creative strategy. The client's retainer month started on the day they approved, so the first month they paid for was a full month they could see. The price moved with the timeline: a larger fee up front and a second month after it, over $30,000 in all. We pulled the client's net costs into one dashboard during that second month and set performance pricing from their real profit and loss, or moved them to a consulting plan. A new management tier priced on performance, created six weeks earlier, gave every setup somewhere to go next. Starting the clock at kickoff also gave the team room: if creative ran late, the client's paid month hadn't begun.

• Two-week research and audit sprint
• Kickoff call with avatars, angles and creative strategy
• Profit-and-loss dashboard for performance pricing
• Facebook Ads management

Each setup client went from about $12,000 for eight weeks of team time to over $30,000 for about the same effort. The offer was clearer to the client, and the agency had far more cash on hand to work with.

The price now matched what the client could see on the calendar. The second month turned every setup into a profit-share conversation built on the client's real numbers.

A client judges a setup fee against the calendar. Start their paid month on the day they can see the work, and the same work sells for more.