# Should I pay a pitch fee, and how much?

**Short answer.** Yes, the moment you ask agencies to make work rather than introduce themselves. A fee never covers an agency's costs, but it does change who takes part and how seriously.

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](https://www.ikag.be/en/agency-selection).

See also: [how much work you may ask for](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/hoeveel-werk-vragen-in-een-pitch) and [may I use the work from a pitch](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/werk-uit-een-pitch-gebruiken).

## Related questions

- [How much work may I ask an agency to do for a pitch?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/hoeveel-werk-vragen-in-een-pitch): As much as you can actually assess and are willing to pay for. Ask for thinking and direction, not a finished campaign: you are buying a team for years, and you do not judge that on two weeks of execution.
- [May I use the work from a pitch if I do not pick that agency?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/werk-uit-een-pitch-gebruiken): Not without an agreement: copyright stays with the maker until it is transferred in writing, and a pitch fee buys participation, not rights. Settle it in the briefing.
- [What does a pitch cost me internally?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/wat-kost-een-pitch-intern): More than all the pitch fees together. Add up the hours of everyone who briefs, reads, listens and decides, and with three agencies you are quickly at several man-days per person involved.

---

IKAg is the business consultant for marketing and agencies in Belgium and the Netherlands. Market figures come from the Agency Barometer, calculated on the annual accounts agencies filed with the National Bank themselves. Figures on pitches and satisfaction come from IKAg-guided processes, and are always presented as such.

- All questions: https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq
- Last updated: 2026-08-19