Agency pricing is not a universal price per post. A sustainable fee must cover the promised scope, experienced delivery time, account and client communication, tools, management, non-billable work, risk, and a margin that lets the service recover from variance.
The calculator below is a planning model, not financial, tax, legal, or market-rate advice. Use the currency that fits your business and replace the example inputs with observed delivery data.
Define the service unit and scope
Choose the commercial unit: monthly retainer, project, campaign, channel package, consulting block, production package, community coverage, or a hybrid. State what the client receives and what the agency must do to deliver it.
Document accounts, channels, content volume, formats, adaptation, copy, design, video, community management, meetings, reporting, strategy, approval rounds, turnaround, languages, publishing, analytics, crisis support, and business hours. Separate included work from optional services and pass-through costs.
One “post” may mean a text update or a multi-channel campaign containing video, carousel, subtitles, localization, client review, link tracking, publishing, and reporting. Price the operating unit rather than the label.
Calculate delivery labor and capacity
Measure planned hours for strategy, account management, production, adaptation, review, scheduling, community work, reporting, and administration. Use a blended internal cost that reflects compensation and employment burden, or model roles separately in a detailed financial system.
Capacity must leave room for sales, leadership, training, leave, internal operations, rework, and incidents. Do not sell every paid hour as client capacity. Track planned versus actual time by service component and client without turning time alone into the measure of value.
If a retainer repeatedly exceeds its planned hours, decide whether the issue is estimation, scope creep, quality failure, inefficient workflow, or an underpriced service.
Model margin and uncertainty
The calculator estimates:
- monthly revenue from active clients and average retainer;
- delivery labor from included hours and blended hourly cost;
- software and allocated overhead;
- gross profit and gross margin before taxes and other excluded costs;
- effective revenue per included delivery hour;
- approximate break-even monthly fee per client.
Create conservative, expected, and high-effort scenarios. Include onboarding, offboarding, difficult approval cycles, platform changes, rush work, content reshoots, client delays, and seasonal volume when they are credible.
Define a minimum acceptable margin and an action rule. Margin below the threshold may require scope reduction, workflow redesign, price change, staffing change, or ending the engagement—not simply asking the team to absorb more work.
Write scope, overage, and change rules
A proposal should identify included deliverables, accounts, channels, formats, revision rounds, meetings, response coverage, reporting, turnaround, dependencies, client responsibilities, and approval deadlines.
Define what triggers a change order or overage: additional formats, channels, campaigns, revision rounds, rush requests, weekend coverage, community spikes, creator management, paid usage, travel, reshoots, translation, data reconstruction, or delayed client feedback that compresses the schedule.
State pause, reschedule, cancellation, payment, rights, confidentiality, account access, and crisis boundaries. Obtain professional financial and legal advice for the applicable jurisdiction and business.
Agency pricing review checklist
- Commercial unit and promised scope are explicit
- Planned hours include strategy, delivery, account work, reporting, and admin
- Blended cost, software, overhead, and non-billable capacity are included
- Conservative, expected, and high-effort scenarios are reviewed
- Minimum margin and corrective action rule are documented
- Revision, rush, overage, change-order, and client-delay rules are clear
- Pass-through media, creator, travel, and production costs are separated
- Actual hours, margin, client value, and scope are reviewed regularly
Use the interactive calculator below as a first pass, then connect the result to the agency operating playbook and client onboarding template.
