More than all the pitch fees together, and it appears on no invoice. That is exactly why pitches get launched too easily: the most expensive item is invisible.
The sum nobody makes
Add up the hours of everyone involved:
- Writing the briefing and aligning internally. Usually two to four days, spread over more people than you think.
- Building and checking the longlist. Half a day per agency if you do it properly.
- Chemistry meetings. An hour and a half per agency, times the number of attendees, plus preparation and debrief.
- Answering questions. Every agency sends ten, and they have to be resolved internally.
- Presentations. Two hours per agency, times everyone in the room. With three agencies and six attendees that alone is thirty-five man-hours.
- Scoring, deciding, feeding back, negotiating, contracting.
With three agencies and a normal steering group you quickly reach several man-days per person involved. Convert that to your own salary cost and you have a number that makes the comparison with an alternative honest.
The cost on top of that
The slowdown. Two to four months in which your marketing runs at half speed, because the attention sits in the procedure. With a running relationship, add the notice period.
The loss of knowledge. A new agency does not know your brand. The first months are learning costs you had already paid at your existing agency.
What to do with that number
Not: stop pitching. But: put it next to the expected gain. If you expect a better price or better work that earns the investment back, it is a good decision and you can defend it. If you mainly expect confirmation that your current agency is fine, there is a cheaper route: an evaluation. See how to evaluate your agency.
And if you do pitch: inviting fewer agencies is the only dial that genuinely lowers the internal cost without sacrificing quality.
The second dial is outsourcing the process: what stays with you are the hours that genuinely matter, the briefing and the decision. That is Agency selection & pitches.
See also: how many agencies to invite and pitch or award directly.