Fixed-cost working: a better way to pay for agency services

From a feature of four articles on agency remuneration. Argues in favour of a disciplined, transparent approach to costing and charging for the full range of agency services: how the author's agency does this with its Fixed Cost system is described.

Fixed-cost working: a better way to pay for agency services

John Orsmond, ARM, outlines a disciplined, transparent approach to costing and charging for the full range of agency services

John Orsmond

Agency remuneration used to be something of a lottery for the agency and a mystery for the client. The agency was financed out of the commission paid it by the media, potentially yielding earnings out of all proportion to the costs incurred by the agency in servicing the account. Smaller, more labour-intensive budgets were usually topped up with some form of service fee. In either case, the itemised accounting...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands