Remuneration based on facts, not on gut feeling.
COMPARE is our remuneration benchmark. We convert your agency's scope into work, put the fee next to it and compare it with what agencies of the same kind charge for the same work. So you know whether your fee is right before you negotiate it.
What COMPARE is
COMPARE is IKAg’s remuneration benchmark. It runs on PAR, our internal database: hundreds of agency quotes from the pitch cases IKAg and PitchPoint built up over more than ten years of agency selection. In those cases several agencies priced exactly the same brief, and from that we derived how much work each part of a scope takes.
PAR stands for Planned Agency Resource: a fixed amount of agency work, roughly two working days. Because a PAR measures work and not money, it makes quotes comparable that cannot be compared in euros. On a single line of the same quote we saw agencies differ by a factor of eight, and by twelve per cent on the scope as a whole. How the measure works is explained on the PAR page.
COMPARE puts your fee next to the market within the right kind of agency, because a small team, a full-service agency and an international network should not cost the same. One of four outcomes comes out: suspiciously low, in line, explainable or needs explaining.
The most expensive item is often on the advertiser’s side. Across the cases we costed out, roughly a fifth of the fee goes to meetings and follow-up, and more than a third in a quarter of cases. That part of the invoice is in your own hands. COMPARE is not a price list: the values in PAR stay internal, and we do not publish hourly or day rates.
Four questions about your fee.
How much work it takes
Your scope converted into PAR: one number for its size, separate from the price.
Whether the fee is in line
Your fee next to what comparable agencies charge for the same work, with one of four outcomes.
What goes to meetings
Meetings, feedback rounds and follow-up: the part of the invoice that is in your own hands.
What it means in people
An annual contract converted into headcount: how many people work on your brand all year round.
From quote to the negotiating table.
We measure one quote, one contract or your entire roster. You only pay for the work.
Intake
We agree which scopes or quotes we look at and the question behind it: a fee under review, a new contract, or three quotes you cannot compare.
Conversion
We convert the scope into PAR, item by item, including versions, languages and feedback rounds.
Read-out
Per quote or contract: the size, the fee against the market and the share that goes to meetings.
Conversation
We turn the read-out into a proposal that works for both sides, and guide the conversation with the agency if you want us to.
Questions we often get.
Where do the figures come from?
Will I see other agencies' rates?
Does my agency have to quote in PAR?
Is this a way to push the fee down?
What fits alongside.
Let's talk.
Call us, send an email, or fill in the form. We typically respond within a day.
