Why We Post Our Prices (And What It Says About How We Work)

Most marketing agencies don't post their rates. There's usually a reason for that — and it's not that pricing is complicated.

Working Model posts its rates. Here's why, and what it means for anyone considering working with us.

The "contact us for pricing" model is a red flag

Hidden pricing serves the agency, not the client.

When an agency doesn't publish its rates, the dynamic is set before the first call: they know your budget, you don't know their cost. That information gap doesn't exist by accident. It creates room to price to the ceiling of what you'll spend rather than what the work actually costs. It enables scope to expand without clear accountability. It means you sit through a 45-minute discovery call only to find out the engagement starts at three times what you had in mind.

That model treats your time as less valuable than theirs. We find it frustrating as practitioners and, frankly, disrespectful of clients who are trying to make a real business decision.

What our rates actually are

These are our current rates, in Canadian dollars:

• Strategy & Planning: $105/hr
• Marketing Support & Operations: $95/hr
• Development & Engineering: $125/hr
• SEO / AIO & Technical Marketing: $115/hr

Minimum engagement: approximately 20 hours.

No "starting from." No asterisks. No per-project mystery multipliers that appear after the proposal. What you see here is what you pay.

How this compares to the market

Toronto marketing agencies charge $75–$250/hr, depending on the firm's size, the seniority of the people doing the work, and how much overhead you're funding.

Working Model's rates sit in the mid-range deliberately. The difference worth understanding: our rates are for senior practitioners doing the work, not for junior staff managed by a senior who appears on the sales call and disappears after the contract is signed. There's no account manager layer. The person you talk to is the person who does the work.

Larger agencies carry more overhead — offices, layers of approval, dedicated sales teams. Some of that overhead produces value. Some of it you're just paying for. With a smaller firm, you get a clearer view of what you're actually buying.

What transparent pricing forces us to do

This is the part that matters most.

Posting our rates is a constraint on us, not just a courtesy to clients. When your prices are public, every estimate has to be honest. There's no room to pad a budget because the rate is visible and the math is checkable. Every project has to be scoped properly — if the scope is wrong, the hours are wrong, and the client can see it.

It forces a model built on efficiency rather than information advantage. We have to be good at scoping. We have to be accurate about what things take. And if a project runs long for reasons within our control, we have to own that rather than bury it in a retainer.

Transparent pricing, in other words, makes us accountable in a way that opaque pricing never does. That's uncomfortable occasionally. We think it's the right trade.

What you get with hourly vs. retainer

Both models have legitimate uses. The honest version of the trade-off:

Retainer: Predictable cost for both sides. Good for ongoing work where volume is consistent month to month. The risk is that it can mask inefficiency — if the work could be done in fewer hours, neither party has a strong incentive to find out.

Hourly: You see exactly what you're paying for. Better for project-based work, defined deliverables, and situations where the scope might change. Requires good scoping upfront, which is work — but it's work that produces clarity.

Working Model does both. For new client relationships, we start hourly. It lets both sides calibrate before committing to a longer structure. Once the working relationship is established and the scope of ongoing work is clear, a retainer often makes sense.

The minimum to get started

About 20 hours for discovery and planning. At our rates, that's $1,900–$2,500 CAD.

That first phase isn't a loss leader or a free consultation dressed up as a paid engagement. It produces something real: a clear picture of where you are, what the highest-leverage opportunities are, and a plan for what to do next. That deliverable is useful whether or not you continue working with us — and we scope it that way.

If the engagement continues, the discovery phase informs everything after it. If it doesn't, you still have something concrete to work from.