Why we don't mark up your ad spend.

Most agencies take a cut of every dollar you put through Google or Meta. It's usually 10 to 20 percent, sometimes more, and almost never spelled out on the invoice. We don't. Here's why — and what it changes for what you actually pay.

The standard agency model works like this. You hand over a media budget. The agency funds the campaigns through their own ad account, charges you the spend plus a "media commission", and pockets the difference. On $5,000 a month in spend, a 15% markup is $750 — quietly, every month, on top of the management fee. Over a year that's $9,000. For a lot of small businesses, that's a full quarter of management fees just disappearing.

It also distorts the work

The problem isn't just the money. It's the incentive. When the agency makes more when you spend more, the conversation always tilts the same way — toward bigger budgets, more channels, more campaigns. Not toward fewer better-targeted ones.

That's why "let's try TikTok as well" comes up more often than "let's pause Meta until the landing page is fixed". The first one grows the spend. The second one doesn't.

What we do instead

Three changes, all boring, all important:

• Your ad accounts, in your name. Google and Meta bill your card directly. We never touch the money.
• A flat weekly management fee. The number doesn't change when your spend goes up. It doesn't shrink when we recommend you spend less for a month.
• If you leave, the accounts stay with you. All the history, all the audiences, all the conversion data — yours. No transfer fee. No hostage situation.

The trade-off — and there is one

This setup means we have to be honest, every month, about what's working. We don't have the cushion of a markup to make a quiet quarter look fine. If a campaign isn't pulling its weight, we have to tell you, and we have to fix it — or pause it. That's harder than it sounds, and it's the whole point.

"We don't do monthly meetings. We do monthly results."

The takeaway

If your current agency funds your ad account from theirs, ask them to send last quarter's media invoices alongside the platform's billing exports. The gap is the markup. It might be reasonable. It might not. Either way, you should know what it is.

If you want a setup where the gap doesn't exist, have a chat with us.