We checked the public homepages of the ten agencies most often recommended for Shopify brands in August 2026 — Needle, Common Thread Collective, Hawke Media, Disruptive Advertising, Tinuiti and others. Not one of them publishes a monthly retainer figure. You have to book a call to find out what it costs.
That's the first thing worth knowing about agency pricing: the number is deliberately hard to find. Here's what the tiers actually look like, what each one buys, and where we sit.
The tiers
| Monthly retainer | What it realistically buys | Fits brands at |
|---|---|---|
| $1,200 – $2,400 | One platform (Meta *or* Google), campaign management, reporting. Creative iteration only — no new concepts | Under $250K/year, in-house creative |
| $2,400 – $4,000 | Both platforms, reporting, creative iteration, monthly strategy call | $300K – $800K/year |
| $3,500 – $6,000 | Ads + creative strategy + landing page and CRO work | $600K – $2M/year |
| $5,000 – $10,000 | Full funnel: ads, creative production, CRO, email and retention | $1.5M+/year |
| $10,000+ | Multi-channel, dedicated pod, in-house creative studio | $5M+/year |
Basic charges $2,000/month for performance marketing, $2,000/month for GEO (AI search visibility), or $3,000/month for both. That's published on our pricing section — no call required to see it.
The number that matters more than the retainer
Ask every agency this: how many active clients does each strategist manage?
The retainer tells you what you pay. This tells you what you get.
A $1,500/month agency running 40 accounts has a revenue model that requires low touch-time. Forty clients at roughly 12 hours a month each is 480 hours, spread across maybe eight strategists — so 12 to 14 accounts per person. Your account gets a few hours a month.
A $4,000/month agency with 8 clients per strategist gives you roughly four times the attention for 2.6 times the price. Same category of service, completely different product.
If the answer is above 12 clients per strategist, you're buying a volume model. Below 8, a boutique one. Neither is wrong — but you should know which you're paying for.
Two things that are never in the retainer
Almost every proposal quietly excludes these. Confirm both in writing before signing.
Creative production. "Creative iteration" means resizing and copy variants of what you already have. "Creative production" means new concepts, video, UGC. The first is usually included; the second is usually $500–$3,000/month extra. Ask which one the retainer covers.
Landing page and CRO work. Most ad agencies don't touch your site. If the funnel is your actual constraint — and for most brands under $1M it is — an ads-only retainer will not fix it. We wrote about auditing your landing page in 15 minutes if you want to check before you buy.
The maths on whether a retainer pays for itself
A $3,000/month agency managing $15K/month in ad spend needs to move ROAS about 0.3 points to break even. At a $55 AOV and 40% contribution margin, going from 3.1 to 3.4 ROAS on $15K adds roughly $4,500/month in attributed revenue. That covers the fee with room left.
Move it 0.1 points instead — 3.1 to 3.2 — and you've added $1,500/month against a $3,000 fee. The engagement is losing you money and the ROAS chart still looks like it's going up.
Before you sign, ask for a realistic 90-day ROAS target for an account at your current baseline. Get a specific number. Write it down.
Cheap is only cheap if it works
One of our engagements — a DTC apparel brand — cut CAC by 38% over three months without increasing ad spend. That result came from fixing fundamentals, not from buying more media. A cheaper retainer that leaves the fundamentals untouched costs you the difference every month it runs.
The related question is whether you need an agency at all yet. We covered the honest version in when a Shopify brand actually needs an agency, and if you're weighing structure rather than price, the retainer models breakdown explains what each one incentivises.
What to do today
Take whatever proposal you're holding and find three things: the monthly fee, the number of clients per strategist, and a line saying whether creative production and landing page work are included. If any of the three isn't written down, email and ask. The reply — and how fast it comes — tells you most of what you need to know.
If you'd rather start from a published number, ours is $2,000/month and the pricing page says exactly what's in it. Book a 20-minute call and we'll tell you what we'd fix first, before you pay anything.