What Should a Contractor Pay a Marketing Agency? Published Fees for 2026

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The reason this question is hard to answer

We read 62 contractor marketing agency websites and asked each one three questions. Does it publish a price, does it state contract terms, and does it say who owns the advertising account when you leave. 22 publish a price. 28 state terms. 8 name the advertising account. The full table, with the sentence every answer came from, is in the agency pricing study.

So when a contractor asks what an agency should cost, the honest answer is that two thirds of the market has decided not to say. That leaves you comparing one quote against nothing. What follows is built only from the agencies that do publish, because those are the only numbers anybody can check.

22 of 62publish any price

A budget dropdown in a contact form does not count. That is asking what you will spend, not telling you what they charge.

$97 to $8,333a month, published

The spread is real, and it is mostly explained by what the fee buys. A website plan and a consulting engagement are not the same purchase.

8 of 62name the ad account

17 say something about ownership. Only 8 name the advertising account itself rather than the website, the leads or the reports.

The published fees

What contractor marketing agencies actually charge

Monthly management fees from the agencies in our study that publish one, plus our own. Annual programs are divided by twelve so they sit on the same scale, and the third column says what the figure buys, because that is where most of the spread comes from. Each name links to the page the figure was read on.

Two of the 22 agencies that publish a price are missing from this table on purpose. CI Web Group publishes website build ranges rather than a management fee, and Spark Marketer's own two pages disagree with each other, one saying there is no minimum and the other quoting $3,000 to $5,000 a month. Both are in the study with the sentences that caused the problem.

Agency	Published monthly fee	What the figure covers
Ringneck Marketing	$97 to $497	Setup of $649 first, then the monthly fee
Mediagistic	From $249	Marketing plans, with Local Services Ads management from $750
Footbridge Media	$249	Contractor program with the website included. Google Ads is $149 the first month, then $249
Media Spearhead	$300 to $500	Management fee, locksmith campaigns
MB Adv	$397	Management on $1,000 to $2,000 of monthly ad spend
Blue Grid Media	$445 to $995	$445 Local Services Ads, from $695 Google Ads, $995 for both
Contractor Bear	$500 to $3,500	Tiered by lead volume, starting under five leads a month
WebFX	From $750	Paid search management, rising to percentage-of-spend tiers
On The Map Marketing	$1,000 or 10%	Pay-per-click management, whichever of the two is greater
Max Conversion	$1,050	Management under $7,500 of monthly ad spend
Built-Right Digital	From $1,199	Bundled marketing packages
Garage Door Marketers	From $1,495	Package including pay-per-click
Wise Digital Partners	From $1,500	Strategy and implementation
Roofing Revenue Marketing	From $1,537	Entry tier, gated at $1m or more of gross revenue
Digital Logic	$1,500 to $5,000	Stated as the typical range of its monthly service fees
Click Track Marketing	From $2,000	Bundled packages, 90-day minimum then monthly
Hook Agency	From $2,000	Pay-per-click covering Google Ads and Local Services Ads
Contractor Dynamics	$2,083 to $5,000	A $25,000 to $60,000 annual consulting program, on a 12-month engagement
Estes Media	From $2,775	Content programs, on a 12-month agreement
Comrade Digital Marketing	From $4,000	Its Revenue Engine program
Landscape Leadership	$5,833 to $8,333	Stated as $70,000 to $100,000 a year, project work from $25,000

Read the third column before the second. Footbridge at $249 includes a website and Landscape Leadership at $70,000 a year is a different category of engagement, so the two numbers are not competing. None of these figures includes your ad spend, which you pay to Google separately. Fees were read on 14, 15 and 18 September 2026 and agencies change their pages, so check the link before you quote one back at anybody.

Fee models

Three ways agencies price the work, and what each one does to the incentive

The model matters more than the number, because it decides whose interest is served when your budget changes. All three of these are in use right now by agencies that publish their pricing.

Flat monthly feeYou pay the same number whether the ad budget is $2,000 or $20,000.

The fee is predictable and it does not rise when you scale spend, so nobody has a reason to push the budget up. The other side of that: a flat fee on a very small budget is a large share of your total, so run the arithmetic below before you sign.

Blue Grid Media at $445 for Local Services Ads and from $695 for Google Ads. Footbridge Media at $249 a month.

Percentage of ad spend, with a floorYou pay a percentage, or a minimum fee, whichever is greater.

This is the model to read hardest, because the agency earns more when you spend more, and the work of running a campaign does not scale the same way. It can still be the right answer at real budgets. Ask what the percentage pays for that the floor does not.

On The Map Marketing publishes "$1000 or 10% of the budget (whichever is greater)". WebFX publishes tiers that move to $975 or 15% of spend, then $4,500 or 12% of spend as budgets rise.

Flat fee, banded by spendA fixed fee inside a spend band, stepping up at the band edges.

A middle position. You get a predictable number, and the agency is paid more for larger accounts without taking a cut of every dollar. Find out what happens at the edge of a band, since a small budget increase can trigger the next step.

MB Adv at $397 a month on $1,000 to $2,000 of spend. Max Conversion at $1,050 a month under $7,500 of spend.

The arithmetic

The number to check is not the fee, it is the share

There is no published industry rule for what a management fee should be as a percentage of spend, and we are not going to make one up. What you can do is simple arithmetic. Add the fee to the ad budget. That total is what leaves your account every month. Now ask how much of it reaches an auction and buys a click, a call or a lead.

A $1,000 fee on a $1,000 budget means half your money never reaches Google. The same $1,000 fee on a $10,000 budget is nine percent of the total. Same agency, same work, completely different purchase. This is also why a percentage model and a flat model swap places as budgets grow.

What share of your money actually buys clicks?

Put in your monthly ad budget and how the agency charges. Nothing is sent anywhere, the sum runs in your browser.

Monthly ad spend

How they charge

Monthly fee

$3,695leaves your account each month

18.8%of that is the management fee

$81of every $100 reaches the auction

This tells you what you are buying, not whether it is worth it. A fee that looks large against a small budget can still be the cheapest thing you do that year if it stops the budget being wasted. The measure that settles it is cost per booked job, which we cover in the cost per lead by channel guide.

The other two options

Agency, in house, or buying leads

The fee only means something next to what else that money could do. Here is the honest version of all three, including where an agency is the wrong answer.

Hire an agency $97 to $4,000+ a month, published

You get people who have run your trade before and you can stop in a month if the arrangement is month to month. You are one of several accounts, and the work only stays valuable if the accounts are in your name.

Wrong answer when: nobody at your company will answer the phone fast. No agency fixes that.

Hire in house Median $78,760 a year, US, before everything else

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the May 2025 median wage for market research analysts and marketing specialists at $78,760 a year, and marketing managers at $166,790. Those are national medians across all industries, so a lower cost market will hire for less.

Add payroll taxes, benefits, software and the ad budget itself. What you get for it is somebody entirely yours, which no agency can offer.

Buy leads Priced per lead, not per month

No management fee at all, which is the appeal. The catch is that the aggregators sell the same lead to several contractors, so a cheap lead often turns into an expensive booked job.

We keep the channel by channel numbers on the cost per lead guide rather than repeating them here.

The contract

Nine things that belong in a contractor marketing agreement, in writing

This is where the money is actually won or lost. A fee you overpaid by $200 a month for a year costs $2,400. An ad account you cannot take with you costs the entire history of what you spent to build it. In our study, 17 of 62 agencies say anything at all about ownership on exit, and only 8 name the advertising account rather than the website, the creatives, the leads or the reports.

The Google Ads account is opened in your name

Not transferred to you later, opened in your name at the start. A transfer promise is only as good as the relationship on the day you leave, and the account holds every conversion, every negative keyword and every bid adjustment somebody paid for.

The Local Services Ads profile stays with you

It carries your reviews and your Google Verified status. Those are yours in a way an ad account is not, because you earned the reviews job by job.

The Google Business Profile is never moved into an agency account

Ask specifically whether they add themselves as a manager or claim ownership. Manager access is normal, ownership is not.

Call tracking numbers port to you

Numbers that sit inside the agency tracking account leave with the agency. Yours have been on trucks, yard signs and door hangers for years.

Landing pages and the website are yours, in a form you can use

Ask what you actually receive. Static files that need rebuilding are not the same thing as a working site.

Conversion history and analytics stay accessible

That history is what makes the next agency effective in month one instead of month four.

Google bills you directly for ad spend

If the agency pays Google and invoices you, you are relying on their statement for what was really spent.

Notice period, in days, in writing

A month to month arrangement with a vague exit is not month to month.

What happens if you leave mid-term

The most common gap in the contracts we read. An agreement can state its length and still say nothing at all about early exit.

The distinction that costs contractors the most

"You own your data" and "the Google Ads account is in your name" sound like the same promise. They are not. Reports, creatives and lead lists are easy to hand over. The ad account holds the conversion history, and that is what makes the next agency effective immediately instead of starting over.

One agency in our study states both, in different places: its FAQ promises it will not hold your site hostage, while its Google Ads page says it retains ownership of the Google Ads account it creates. Both sentences are quoted in the study.

Before you sign

Eight questions, and what a good answer sounds like

Ask all eight on the first call. An agency that answers them quickly has answered them before, which is the point.

What is the fee, and what is the ad spend?

Two separate numbers. If an agency quotes one number that includes both, ask for the split in writing.

Is the fee flat, a percentage, or banded?

And if it is a percentage, what does the extra buy at a larger budget that it did not buy at a smaller one?

Whose name is on the Google Ads account?

The single question that separates a service from a dependency.

Who pays Google?

You should, directly, on your own card.

What is the contract length, and the notice period?

Ask for both. Plenty of agencies state one and not the other.

What happens to my website when I leave?

Ask whether you get a working site or a folder of files.

Who does the work, and how many accounts do they carry?

The person on the sales call is often not the person in the account.

What will you report, and can I see the raw account?

A monthly slide deck is not account access.

Our own answers

What we charge, since we are asking everyone else

We are in the category this page measures, which is worth saying plainly. So here are our answers to the same questions: $445 a month for Local Services Ads, from $695 for Google Ads, $995 for both. No setup fee. Month to month. Ad spend is billed by Google straight to you and we never take a percentage of it.

The Google Ads account is opened in your name and stays there, along with the landing pages, the call tracking numbers and the conversion history. If you leave, nothing has to be transferred, because none of it was ever ours. The full price list is on the services page, and multi-location and franchise pricing is on its own page.

Straight answers

Questions contractors ask about agency fees

How much should a contractor pay a marketing agency?

Among the agencies that publish a price, monthly management runs from about $97 a month at the entry end to $4,000 a month and above, with several programs priced annually at $25,000 to $100,000. The spread is that wide because the figures buy different things, from a website plan to a full consulting engagement. The more useful test is not the fee on its own but the fee as a share of everything you send out each month, ad spend included.

Is a percentage of ad spend a fair way to pay an agency?

It can be, at real budgets, but read it hard. The agency earns more when you spend more, and running a campaign does not get proportionally harder as the budget grows. Two agencies publish this model plainly: On The Map Marketing charges $1,000 or 10% of budget, whichever is greater, and WebFX moves to tiers of $975 or 15% of spend, then $4,500 or 12%. Ask what the percentage pays for that the floor does not.

Is it cheaper to hire someone in house?

Compare the whole cost rather than the fee. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the May 2025 median wage for market research analysts and marketing specialists at $78,760 a year, and for marketing managers at $166,790. Those are national medians across all industries, so a contractor hiring in a lower cost market will pay less. Salary is also only part of it, before payroll taxes, benefits, software and the ad budget itself. The real difference is not the price. It is that an employee is entirely yours and an agency is not.

Should I buy leads instead of paying an agency?

Shared leads from the aggregators look cheaper per lead and usually are not cheaper per booked job, because the same lead is sold to several contractors at once. We keep the channel by channel numbers on a separate page rather than repeating them here.

What percentage of my budget should go to management?

There is no published industry rule, and we are not going to invent one. What you can do is the arithmetic: add the fee to the ad spend and see what share of the total actually buys clicks or calls. A $1,000 fee on $1,000 of spend means half your money never reaches an auction. The same fee on $10,000 of spend is nine percent. The calculator on this page does that sum.

Who owns the Google Ads account if I leave?

Usually nobody says. In our study of 62 contractor marketing agencies, 17 make any statement about ownership on exit and only 8 name the advertising account itself rather than the website, the creatives, the leads or the reports. Get the answer in writing before you sign.

Is a setup fee normal?

It is common and it is not automatically a problem. Ask what it covers and whether anything built with it is yours. A setup fee that produces landing pages you own is a different purchase from one that produces landing pages that disappear when you leave.

What does Blue Grid Media charge?

We publish the whole list: $445 a month for Local Services Ads, from $695 for Google Ads, $995 for both, no setup fee, month to month. Ad spend is billed by Google straight to you and we never take a percentage of it. The account is opened in your name and stays there.

What should a contractor pay a marketing agency?