In August 2026 we checked the public homepages of the ten agencies most often recommended for Shopify brands — Needle, Common Thread Collective, Hawke Media, Disruptive Advertising, Tinuiti among them. None of them publish a monthly retainer. Every one requires a call.
The stated reason is always that pricing depends on scope. The real reason is simpler, and it costs you money.
The actual reason
A hidden price can be set *after* the prospect has revealed their budget.
The standard discovery call asks three questions early: what's your monthly revenue, what's your current ad spend, and what are you paying now? By the time pricing comes up, the agency knows what you can afford and what you're used to paying. The number that follows is calibrated to that, not to the work.
This isn't a conspiracy — it's just what unpublished pricing is *for*. If the price were the same for everyone doing the same scope, publishing it would cost nothing.
What it costs you
| Hidden pricing | Published pricing |
|---|---|
| You spend a 30–45 min call to learn the number | You know in 10 seconds |
| Price is quoted after they know your budget | Price is the same before you speak |
| You can't compare without booking 4 calls | You can compare in an afternoon |
| Scope is described verbally, then written to match the price | Scope is fixed and written first |
| Negotiation rewards whoever pushes hardest | No negotiation needed |
The compounding cost is the comparison problem. Getting three real quotes means three discovery calls, three follow-ups and usually two weeks. Most brands don't do it — they take the second quote because they're tired. That's the mechanism working as designed.
The tell: what happens when you ask upfront
Email any agency before a call and ask: *"What's your monthly retainer for managing Meta and Google for a brand at $600K/year?"*
There are three replies, and they sort the market cleanly:
- A number, or a tight range. They have standard packages and they're comfortable with you comparing.
- A range with a genuine variable named — "between $3,000 and $4,500 depending on whether you need creative production." Also fine. That's a real scope question.
- "Let's hop on a call to understand your needs." Now you know the price depends on you, not on the work.
The third answer isn't automatically disqualifying. Plenty of good agencies work this way out of habit. But it tells you to get the scope in writing before you discuss budget — and never to say your current retainer first.
Why we publish ours
We charge $2,000/month for performance marketing, $2,000/month for GEO, and $3,000/month for both. It's on the pricing section and it's the same number for everyone.
Two reasons. The first is practical: it filters. Brands for whom $2,000 is wrong self-select out before either of us spends 20 minutes finding that out.
The second is that we'd rather compete on what we fix than on how well we negotiate. One engagement — a pet products brand — found and cut $12,000/month in wasted ad spend without revenue dropping. That's six times the retainer, and it's a much better argument than a discount.
The one caveat, honestly
Published pricing has a real limitation: it can't flex for genuinely unusual scope. If your account needs something outside a standard package, a fixed price either overcharges you or under-delivers.
So published pricing is best when the work is well-defined — ads, creative direction, funnel fixes for a Shopify brand. For a multi-market, multi-brand, seven-channel operation, a custom quote genuinely is the honest answer. Know which situation you're in.
If you're comparing quotes right now, the full market pricing breakdown has the real tiers, and what $2,000 should actually deliver covers scope.
What to do today
Send that one-line email to every agency on your shortlist: *"What's your monthly retainer for [your scope] at [your revenue]?"* Send it before any call.
Sort the replies into the three buckets above. You'll have a shortlist by tomorrow instead of a calendar full of discovery calls next week.