The hourly rate is the number a selection spends the most time discussing and which predicts the least. Two agencies with exactly the same rate can differ eightfold on the same proposal line, simply because one charges four hours for it and the other thirty-two.
Why a rate says so little
A rate is a price per unit. The question you are really asking is what the whole thing costs, which is rate times quantity. Agencies differ far more in that quantity than in that rate.
IKAg measures this with its own unit, PAR, where one PAR is roughly two agency days of work. The scope of an assignment is expressed in PAR, with the fee beside it. Those measurements produce two numbers that together tell the whole story:
- Up to eightfold differences between agencies on a single proposal line.
- Only 1.1 times difference across the full scope.
So agencies land at roughly the same total, but distribute the work completely differently. Where one puts its hours into strategy, another puts them into production. That difference decides what you get, and a day rate shows you none of it.
The second problem: a rate is not a price
Agencies work with blended rates, with profiles, with minimum volumes and with estimates that get revised later. A low rate with generous hours costs more than a high rate with tight hours, and you only find that out at the third invoice.
What to ask instead
Ask two things per proposal line: how much work is in it, and which profile does it. Then you see whether you are getting a senior strategist with a junior executor, or the other way round. Put those two columns side by side for three agencies and the comparison suddenly becomes fair.
And ask how additional work is handled. That is where the bill actually runs away, not at the rate. See how to keep costs from running away and paying by the hour or by the project.