Agency revenue is the fee for agreed strategy, creative, campaign management and analysis. In this fictional hybrid US agency, clients buy media directly, so advertising budgets supply neither agency revenue nor cash. The January 2027–December 2029 forecast must pay the specialists, director and operations support from service fees alone.
Price approved specialist work against its full paid cost. A larger client media budget cannot repair an agency service fee that leaves too little contribution.
Which campaign payments belong to the agency?
The client pays the agency for defined services and pays media platforms separately. Strategy, creative, paid search, paid social and analytics share one delivery pool. Adding client media spending to agency fees would overstate the money available for salaries.
The specialist calendar totals 720 scheduled delivery hours per month. The paid owner-director and quarter-time operations support add no delivery hours. April applies 50% sold utilization to this pool; unsold availability and internal work still cost money.
| Service | Sold specialist hours | Fee/hour | Agency fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strategy | 72 | $175.00 | $12,600.00 |
| Ad creative | 90 | $150.00 | $13,500.00 |
| Paid search | 72 | $155.00 | $11,160.00 |
| Paid social | 72 | $150.00 | $10,800.00 |
| Analytics | 54 | $150.00 | $8,100.00 |
What must a campaign fee include?
Define the channel scope, creative outputs, reporting, approval contact and revision boundary before quoting. A campaign may use several specialists, but each hour must be allocated once. Delayed client access or repeated revisions can consume the same calendar without adding another accepted fee.
Purchased production services are direct costs in this case. They do not create an unlimited second team. If the director repeatedly takes over execution, measure that effort and revise the allocation rather than treating it as free overflow capacity.
Does April pay for the roster?
April service fees total $56,160.00. Direct costs are $4,212.00 and operating expenses are $54,526.62, leaving EBITDA of -$2,578.62. The client’s media budget cannot close that loss.
The owner-director salary allowance is $9,166.67 before the model employer allowance. Specialist salaries, operations, software and workspace also remain included. EBITDA is before depreciation, interest and tax; owner salary is already a company expense.
How much earned revenue is still waiting for payment?
The case assumes 30 collection days. Operating-year 2027 earns $617,760.00, collects $561,600.00 and records operating cash flow of -$136,805.04. Payroll is paid before all earned fees arrive.
Proposed equity of $260,000.00 is uncommitted. Later annual EBITDA becomes positive in this saved case, but initial project spending is not recovered within the forecast horizon. The paid credit-control contingency is an allowance, not an observed default rate.
What should a paid campaign trial establish?
Follow a paid assignment through briefing, production, revisions, approval, invoicing and collection. Log effort by specialist role and separate a larger scope from a late approval. Compare the accepted fee with all purchased services and paid hours.
Keep media authorization and payment responsibility explicit. Replace workload assumptions with accepted scopes that fit the roster; no campaign outcome, achieved acquisition rate or actual client portfolio is verified here. A repeat engagement needs both a viable fee and available specialist time.
Make the next decision with your own evidence
Collect an accepted campaign scope and role-level time log, then confirm when its agency fee was collected.
Explore published business plan examples ↗FrameHarbor Campaigns is a fictional prelaunch scenario prepared with AI assistance. Inputs are illustrative; forecast results come from the matching saved financial model. Funding is proposed. The diagrams explain the case and do not depict actual premises, established demand or promised earnings. Replace the assumptions with evidence before committing.
Read our methodology