Agencies treat pricing like a state secret, and the secrecy serves nobody, least of all the founders trying to budget honestly. So here is ours, in the open. What Add Hype charges, what the money actually pays for, and why the cheapest option in any market usually costs the most by the time the work has failed politely. This is the post most agencies will not write.
What you are actually buying
An agency invoice buys four things, in descending order of visibility and ascending order of value. Production: the films, designs, and assets you can point at. Coordination: the project management that makes twenty moving pieces arrive as one campaign. Craft seniority: the difference between work that is correct and work that is sharp. And judgment: the accumulated scar tissue from a hundred campaigns that knows which brave idea will work and which will embarrass you. Cheap providers sell you the first one. The fee difference is almost entirely the last two.
How our pricing is structured
Project work is scoped against three variables: strategic complexity, production weight, and timeline pressure. A launch with positioning work, a film, and a 90-day distribution plan prices differently from a content batch, and both are quoted as fixed scopes with named deliverables so nobody discovers the real price in month two. Retainers price a standing team: a fixed senior-weighted crew reserved for the brand monthly, at a rate below the same hours bought as projects, because predictability has value in both directions. We do not bill surprise hours. A scope change is a conversation, not an invoice.
Where the money goes
On a typical engagement, roughly 55 to 65 percent of the fee is senior and mid-level talent time: strategists, creatives, producers, and the people actually building the work. Fifteen to 20 percent is production hard costs when the scope includes them. Ten to 15 percent runs the studio: the operations that let a multi-city team in Lahore, Dubai, and Toronto serve a brand without dropping handoffs. The remainder is margin, and we are not embarrassed by it: margin is what funds the team you will want available in your difficult week, not just your launch week.
Why we cost more than some and less than others
We cost more than freelancer collectives and template shops because we hold problems end to end and put senior people in the actual work, not just the pitch. We cost meaningfully less than network agencies because you are not funding floors of account management between you and the people making things. The honest test we invite: take any quote, ours included, and ask what happens when the work needs to be rethought halfway through, because something always does. The answer to that question is what you are pricing.
Key takeaways
- The fee buys production, coordination, craft seniority, and judgment. Cheap sells only the first.
- Fixed scopes with named deliverables. Scope changes are conversations, not surprise invoices.
- Most of the fee is talent time on your work. Margin funds the team being there in the hard weeks.
- More than freelancers because we own outcomes. Less than networks because you skip the account floors.
- Price the rethink, not the quote. Something always needs rethinking halfway.
Sources
- Add Hype retainer and project pricing structure.
If this is the kind of transparency you want from a partner, see if we are right for you. Write to us at hype@weaddhype.com.
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