How do advertising agencies charge?

Most agencies charge a percentage of your media spend — typically 10–20%, and often effectively more once stacked DSP, data and management fees are counted. Creative, production, setup and tooling are usually billed separately on top.

How is Marque's pricing different?

Marque charges for the work you run — campaigns, channels and tools — with strategy, concept, creative, production and activation built in. It takes no percentage of your media spend, so raising the budget on a channel you already run doesn't raise what you pay Marque.

Why does a percentage-of-spend model cost more as you grow?

Because the agency fee is tied to your media spend, not to the work. Doubling your media budget can double the fee even though the underlying work has not doubled. Pricing that follows the work instead breaks that link.

Why choose Marque

The agency model charges you a share of your spend. Marque doesn’t.

Advertising agencies take a percentage of your media spend — and bill creative, production, setup and tooling on top. The more you spend, the more they earn, for work that hasn’t grown with it. Marque charges for the work you actually run, not a slice of your media. Raise the budget on a channel you’re already running and what you pay Marque doesn’t move.

The agency cost stack

What an agency invoice actually looks like.

The headline percentage is rarely the whole bill. A typical engagement stacks several charges, most of which scale independently or get marked up.

% of spend

Media management

Typically 10–20% of everything you put through them. On programmatic, stacked management, DSP and data fees can push the effective rate past 40%. This line grows every time you raise your budget.

Retainer

Creative development

Ideation, concept and creative are usually charged on top of media management — commonly a monthly retainer running into five figures. Two line items, not one.

Per asset

Production

Versioning, stock and production are often passed through individually. Even “included” stock has limits — a single premium stock video can run into the hundreds.

Upfront

Setup & onboarding

Account creation, research and initial strategy are frequently billed as a one-off fee before any work ships.

Markup

Tooling

Premium platforms and tools are either absorbed into your fee or charged on — and you often have to ask which.

Effective fee rate at the high end: 40%+
effective fee rate once programmatic fees stack
Share of budget lost to fees: ~⅓
of a typical budget can go to fees before a single ad runs
Direction of travel: ↑
the agency fee share rises as your media spend grows

The Marque model

What Marque replaces it with.

Pricing that follows the work you run, not a share of your media.

Usage

You pay for what you use

Strategy, concept, creative, production and activation are built into the platform — not separate, compounding line items. You pay for the work you actually run, not a percentage of whatever you put through the ad networks, and not a setup fee.

Yours

We don’t take a cut of your media

You buy media directly; Marque takes no percentage of it. Spend more on a channel you’re already running and what you pay Marque doesn’t change — because our pricing follows the work, not your media budget.

Control

You own every decision

A named human signs off at every checkpoint. Brand identity, prompts and campaign artefacts stay yours and exportable — nothing is locked inside an agency relationship.

The structural point

The difference is structural, not just cheaper.

A percentage model ties what you pay to how much you spend on media, rather than to the work being done. Double your media budget and the agency fee can double too — even though the campaign didn’t get twice as hard to make. Marque’s pricing follows the work instead, so growing your spend on what you already run doesn’t grow what you pay us. The distinction matters most precisely when you’re scaling.