# What does an advertising agency cost in Belgium?

**Short answer.** There is no price tag, but there is a public floor: in financial year 2024 the median Belgian agency made a gross margin of about 76,000 euro per full-time equivalent. That is what an agency person-year costs.

There is no price list, and any agency showing you one is selling a package rather than work. What does exist is a public floor and a way to convert a budget into capacity.

## What an agency person-year yields

From the annual accounts Belgian agencies file with the National Bank themselves: in financial year 2024 the median agency made about 76,000 euro of gross margin per full-time equivalent. The bottom quartile sat around 61,000.

Gross margin is what remains after pass-through costs such as media, print and production. So it is the fee portion: what an agency genuinely earns on its people. On that basis, 38,000 euro a year buys roughly half a full-time equivalent of agency capacity, spread across several people and crafts.

That is not a quote, but it is the only public benchmark there is, and it is more useful than a day rate: it tells you how much human you are buying.

## The three layers in every invoice

- **Fees.** The agency's thinking and making. This is what comparison between agencies should be about.
- **Production.** Photography, film, print, development. Often passed through, sometimes with a mark-up; ask which of the two.
- **Media.** What you buy in visibility. This should never be confused with fees, and in a commission model that is exactly what happens.

A budget of 100,000 euro with 60,000 going to media is a 40,000 euro assignment for the agency. Two agencies handling that differently submit incomparable proposals without anyone lying.

## Why the spread is so wide

Price sits in the amount of work, not in the rate. IKAg measures scope in its own unit, PAR, where one PAR is roughly two agency days. Those measurements show up to eightfold differences between agencies on a single proposal line, and only 1.1 times across the full scope. Agencies distribute the work very differently and charge roughly the same in total.

## How to make it comparable

Give your budget in the briefing and ask what they will do for it, instead of asking what it costs. Then you compare three proposals at the same price, and the conversation is about substance.

See also: [what a normal hourly rate is](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/normaal-uurtarief-bureau), [what a rebranding or campaign costs](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/wat-kost-een-rebranding) and [what an agency earns on you](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/wat-verdient-een-bureau-aan-mij).

## Related questions

- [What is a normal hourly rate for an agency?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/normaal-uurtarief-bureau): The hourly rate is the least meaningful number in a proposal: it says nothing about how many hours are in it. Two agencies at the same rate can differ eightfold on the same line.
- [What does a rebranding, a campaign or a website cost?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/wat-kost-een-rebranding): Each of the three runs from a few thousand euro to six figures, and the spread comes from scope, not from the agency. So never ask for a price before you have pinned down the deliverables.
- [What does an agency actually earn on me?](https://www.ikag.be/en/factsheets/faq/wat-verdient-een-bureau-aan-mij): Less than most advertisers assume: in 2024 the median Belgian agency kept about 22 percent of its gross margin as EBITDA, the bottom quarter 7 percent. One in seven ran a loss.
- [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.

---

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