Should I pay a marketer a monthly retainer or for a one-time project?

This one comes up on first calls, usually phrased as “wait, what was that price for?” The confusion is fair. Marketers quote both kinds of price, often in the same proposal, and rarely say which problem each one solves.

The test: does the work have a finish line?

A project ends. You can write down what done looks like before it starts. Tracking that records every sale. A site with every old URL redirected. A storefront live on your domain. When it ships, the invoice is over.

Monthly work doesn’t end. An ad account drifts every week: search terms change, competitors move bids, creative wears out, a platform rolls out a new default that quietly spends your money. Somebody has to look, change things and report what changed. That’s ongoing labor, so it’s priced by the month.

If a marketer quotes a retainer for something with a finish line, ask what happens in month four. If they quote a project for something that never ends, ask who runs it after launch.

What each price should cover

A project price should name what you get and when. Mine are fixed prices, quoted after a free audit and agreed before work starts. Typical figures from my pricing page:

• Fixing tracking: typically $2,500
• A Shopify storefront: usually $5,000 to $12,000
• A product launch: $8,000
• A service-business site, up to about 40 pages: from $10,000
• A 200+ page site, or a migration of several hundred URLs: $18,000

A monthly price should name the channels and the cadence. Mine starts at $2,500 a month for one ad channel run end to end, with tracking kept healthy and a written report every Monday. Each add-on is $1,500: a second ad platform, landing pages and site upkeep, imagery and creative, lead-quality and call scoring, or the strategy seat. Four add-ons bring it to $8,500, which is the cap: at the cap every add-on is included, and it’s the full Fractional Marketing Lead seat. Ad spend is never marked up.

Why most engagements start with a project

Running ads on broken tracking means paying the platform to learn from bad data. So the order that works is usually: fix the foundation as a project, then run the accounts monthly on top of it.

That doesn’t mean you have to buy both. Some businesses take the tracking fix and run their own ads well. Some already have clean tracking and only need the monthly work. The free audit is where I tell you which one you need, and sometimes the answer is neither.

The term matters more than the price

A three-month or six-month minimum is common in this market. Mine are month-to-month, with no minimum term. The reason is simple: if the work isn’t paying for itself, you shouldn’t be stuck paying for it. You also own every account, tag and file from day one, so leaving costs you nothing but the next invoice.

Whoever you hire, ask two things before you sign. What exactly is done when this project ends? And what do I get every week for this monthly fee? If either answer is vague, the price doesn’t matter yet.

I’m Conner Crowe, a fractional marketing lead for ecommerce and service businesses. The full price list is at /pricing, and the free audit that tells you which kind of work you need is at /audit-request.