# Which remuneration models exist?

**Short answer.** Five occur in practice: hourly rate, project price, fixed monthly fee, commission on media spend, and performance-related pay. Most contracts combine two of them.

Five models occur in Belgian practice. Each one drives behaviour, and that matters more than what each one costs: over time you get the behaviour you reward.

## The five

**1. Hourly rate.** You pay hours worked at a rate per profile. Fair for unpredictable work, awkward for the rest: the agency earns more the longer something takes, so you end up checking timesheets.

**2. Project price.** One amount for a bounded scope. The agency carries the risk of surprises, you get certainty. Only works when the scope is genuinely fixed, otherwise every change becomes a negotiation.

**3. Fixed monthly fee, or retainer.** An amount per month for agreed capacity or an agreed package. Comfortable for both sides, and the most common form in a longer relationship. The risk is scope creep: something is added every month while the fee stays the same, until someone reopens the conversation.

**4. Commission on media spend.** A percentage of what you spend on media. Historically the media agency model. It rewards volume rather than effect, which is an uncomfortable incentive when your agency also advises how much to spend.

**5. Performance-related pay.** Part of the remuneration hangs on agreed outcomes. Sounds fairest and is hardest: everything depends on a measure both parties accept in advance and that is not influenced by thirty other things. See [value-based pricing](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/value-based-pricing).

## What you see in practice

Most contracts combine two: a fixed fee for the running work plus project prices for anything on top. That is a good standard, provided you write down exactly what the fee contains. Without that list, every discussion about additional work becomes a discussion about memory.

## The question to ask before choosing

"What behaviour does this model reward?" Pay by the hour and you reward hours. Pay by project and you reward speed. Pay on media spend and you reward spending. Choose the model whose incentive sits closest to your goal, not the one that looks cheapest on paper.

IKAg builds remuneration models on both sides of the table, for advertisers and for agencies. That is the work behind [Agency evaluation & remuneration](https://www.ikag.be/en/agency-evaluation).

See also: [fee, commission or hourly rate](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/fee-commissie-of-uurtarief) and [pay by the hour or by the project](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/per-uur-of-per-project).

## Related questions

- [Fee, commission or hourly rate: which do I choose?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/fee-commissie-of-uurtarief): A fixed fee when the work returns every month, a project price when it is bounded, an hourly rate only for what you cannot bound. Commission on media spend rewards volume, not effect.
- [What is value-based pricing at an agency?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/value-based-pricing): Paying for the effect of the work instead of the hours that went into it. It sounds fairer than it usually is: everything hangs on a measure both sides accept up front.
- [Do I pay by the hour or by the project?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/per-uur-of-per-project): By project as soon as you can describe the scope: then the agency carries the risk of surprises and you get certainty on the amount. By the hour, you pay for uncertainty you created yourself.

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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