The founder still held the ads login after the cheaper quote landed.

The social-only quotes I see sit around $1,200 to $1,800 a month. The founder who asked me to look at the last one still had the Meta Ads login in their password manager. They wrote the sale email after 9pm because email was never in the scope.

Google had served that PDF from a search for cheaper than a marketing agency. The results page is full of software round-ups and freelancer rate cards. The person searching already runs a shop floor and a wholesale book. They want the online channel off their desk. They are hunting a smaller number. The job on the desk stays the same size.

What that Google search puts in the inbox

I read those quotes the way I read a line sheet. I look for the work that is named, then I look for the work that is missing.

A cheap PDF is usually one channel. Twelve posts and a Canva pack from a freelancer who will “help with social” two days a week. Sometimes a Google Ads specialist who won’t touch Klaviyo. Sometimes an SEO writer who never opens the ads manager. Each of those people can be good at their slice. None of them own the week.

The founder still exports the shoot files. They still decide which twenty SKUs go into the sale. They still check whether the discount code fired. They still write the subject line at the kitchen table because email sat outside the quote. That is the cheaper quote, fully costed.

I wrote a longer fee map in how much outsourced marketing costs. This piece is narrower. It is about the search that treats a smaller invoice as a smaller marketing function.

Hours the cheap PDF never prices

A product brand at this stage already has a calendar of new colourways, a wholesale drop, and a floor event in the shop. The marketing work has to meet those dates, or the dates slip and the stock sits.

When the hire is a channel, the founder becomes the project manager. They brief the freelancer on Monday. They chase assets on Wednesday. They approve a caption on Friday after close. They notice on Saturday that the retargeting audience still points at last season. Nobody else was paid to notice.

I see that pattern on established offline businesses more than on digital-first shops. The boutique or the wholesale book is already real. The online channel was added later, often by the owner, between freight and the floor. A cheaper quote feels like relief because the invoice is small. The relief lasts until the next collection, when the owner is back in the ads account at night.

Those hours have a rate. If you price even six of them a week at what the founder is worth on the floor, the $1,800 social quote is no longer the cheap option. It is a channel fee plus an unpaid coordinator.

What $4,900 buys when one person owns the week

McKee Creative’s Economy Package is $4,900 AUD per month: paid ads on Meta and Google, email (campaigns and the flows), SEO content, and a weekly commercial read. One strategist carries that, with an in-house AI marketing system I built so the output matches a full function.

That is the comparison I want on the table. The retainer is higher than a social quote because the job is larger. Ads, email, and search have to point at the same twenty products in the same week, or you pay three times for three different stories.

I have run that model since 2017. You work with me. The person doing the thinking is the person in the ads account, and we skip the approvals loop. The client owns product, shoot files, brand truth, and the floor. Media structure, creative testing, email architecture, SEO content, and the weekly read of what the money did sit on my side.

If you’re comparing agencies in this country, start with what a marketing agency in Australia has to own. Brochures skip the part where someone still has to sit in the ads account on a week the collection is late.

How I compare two quotes on a product brand

I don’t start with the monthly number. I start with the logins.

I want to know who can publish in Meta Ads without asking the founder, who can send the Klaviyo campaign, and who ships a blog post that matches the sale rather than a generic season essay. I also want the person who reads revenue against the same SKUs the floor is pushing.

If the answer to any of those is “the owner, after 9pm,” the cheaper quote has rented a slice of the function and left the rest on the desk.

A fashion or homewares brand with a shop and a wholesale book already has the hard part: a product people pay for, in rooms you can walk into. The online miss is usually coordination. The January email, the retargeting audience, and the week’s post have to name the same forty products. A social freelancer has no reason to know what the Google campaign is doing. A Google specialist has no reason to write the restock email. That split is how a $1,800 line item and a $2,000 line item add up to more than $4,900 and still leave the owner in the middle.

Documented work sits in the case studies. Same products, same team on one long retainer. Coordinated marketing produced 52% revenue growth in year one for Cienna Designs. The number came from one person running ads, email, and search as a single commercial week.

Someone still has to sit with the ads account, change the creative, and stop the spend that is buying the wrong SKU. A post pack leaves that work on the founder.

The software listicle sitting next to the quote

The same search also serves Mailchimp, Thryv, and a dozen “all-in-one” tools. Software can send the email. It cannot decide which twenty SKUs deserve the email, write it in the brand’s voice, and point the ads at the same set. I have watched owners buy the tool, then leave the list untouched because the tool still needs an operator.

Software wins on the invoice. Matching an online channel to a shop that already works means buying an operator. The fee is for that person. The logins are how you tell whether you bought one.

A $4,900 retainer is the wrong spend for a pre-revenue label. It is built for a product business already doing real volume offline, roughly $300k to $1M across the shop and wholesale, where the online channel is the underbuilt part. Below that, the retainer is usually too heavy. Above it, the founder is often already paying two or three specialists and doing the coordination themselves.

Where I send people who are done holding the logins

If you recognised the $1,800 PDF and the 9pm email, the next step is the notes I keep for offline-strong brands. Physical retail, wholesale, or both, and an online channel that still sits on the owner’s desk. Read that page, then look at the Economy Package if you want the hand-off priced in AUD.