Yes, the moment you ask agencies to make work rather than introduce themselves. That is the line, and it is sharper than most briefings draw it.
The line
A chemistry meeting needs no fee: the agency introduces itself, so do you, and both sides invest an afternoon. That is selling.
A work-up on a briefing does: you are asking for strategic thinking, creative direction, sometimes production, from a team that cannot bill it to another client. With three agencies the market therefore pays twice for work nobody uses.
What a fee does and does not do
It does not cover the cost. A pitch costs an agency a multiple of the fee on offer. Thinking you are buying the work with it is a mistake, and that is exactly why the rights have to be settled separately.
It does change who takes part. Agencies with work choose between pitches, and a fee is the clearest signal that you mean it. It also changes what you get back: a paid assignment lands in the planning rather than with whoever happened to have time.
And it changes your position. Whoever pays may set requirements on format, deadline and participation. Whoever pays nothing is asking a favour.
How to set the amount
We publish no amount here, and that is deliberate: on pitch fees in our own files we have measured too little to attach a figure, and an invented guideline becomes within a year the norm everyone refers to.
What can be said about the form:
- The same amount for everyone, including the winner. Otherwise it is a discount, not a fee.
- Paid regardless of outcome, and on delivery rather than after the decision.
- Scaled to what you ask. If you ask two weeks of work from four people, the fee should reference that, not the campaign budget.
- Separate from the rights. A fee buys participation, not ownership.
If needed, ask the agencies themselves what a reasonable fee would be for what you are asking. The answer is informative, and so is how they justify it.
In the processes IKAg guides, the fee sits in the briefing alongside the rights and the calendar, not in a separate email afterwards. See Agency selection & pitches.
See also: how much work you may ask for and may I use the work from a pitch.