No marketing agency in Quebec publishes its pricing. So you shop blind, with proposals that vary five-fold for the same scope. We compiled the ranges we actually see in the market in 2026 - not our prices, the market's. Here's a real basis for comparison.
The five options, with the real ranges
Here's what we see in the Quebec market in 2026 - real proposals, real conversations with brands shopping around. Not our prices: the market's.
- Freelance media buyer: $1.5k-3k/month. One platform, sometimes two. No strategy, no creative, no tracking. You're buying hands on the account.
- Boutique agency (5-20 people): $2.5k-6k/month retainer. Usually multi-platform, with some strategy included.
- Large agency: $6k-15k/month and up. You're paying for structure: account manager, strategy director, process. Useful at scale, heavy below it.
- Senior in-house hire: $90k-130k/year in salary in Quebec. Add 15-20% in payroll costs, tools and recruiting: the real cost easily tops $130k/year - about $11k/month. And one person never covers media, creative and data at the same time.
- Fractional CMO: $3k-8k/month for strategy without execution. We broke down when that beats an agency in fractional CMO vs. agency.
These ranges overlap, and that's exactly the problem: a $4k/month proposal can hide an overloaded freelancer or a full team. The price alone tells you nothing. What's included tells you everything.
“The 2026 market: $1.5k-3k/month freelance, $2.5k-6k boutique, $6k-15k+ big agency - compare what's included, not the price.”
Three fee models, one built-in conflict of interest
Whatever option you pick, the invoice arrives under one of three models.
Flat retainer. A fixed monthly amount, a defined scope. Predictable for you, but watch the scope: an agency on a flat fee has an incentive to cap hours. Demand specific deliverables, not "management hours."
Percentage of ad spend. Typically 10-20% of media spend in what we see. The problem is structural: the agency earns more when you spend more, whether it's profitable or not. When it recommends raising the budget, you can't tell whose interest that serves. At $20k/month in ad spend, this model costs $2k-4k/month - often more than a flat retainer for the same work.
Hybrid. A fixed base plus a performance component. On paper, it's the best-aligned. In practice, everything hinges on how "performance" is defined: a bonus on Meta-reported ROAS rewards attribution, not revenue. If the variable part isn't wired to your actual sales, you're paying a bonus on numbers the agency controls.
Our read: the model matters less than the transparency of the model. An agency that explains exactly how it makes its money, and why, starts miles ahead of one that buries its fee structure in a 14-page proposal.
Included or extra: the real difference between two proposals
Two $4k/month retainers can cover completely different realities. Here's what most often gets billed as extra in the proposals we see.
- Creative production: rarely included beyond a few copy variants. Budget $500-2k/month extra, or per-asset rates. It's the most underestimated line - in 2026, creative moves the needle more than media buying.
- Landing pages and CRO: almost always extra, often $1k-3k per page.
- Tracking and analytics: billed as a $1k-5k "setup fee" - or worse, skipped entirely. An account optimized on broken data burns budget no matter how good the buyer is.
- Email and SMS: usually a separate $1.5k-3k/month retainer, even at "full service" agencies.
Add it all up and the $4k retainer becomes a $7-8k/month program. That's not dishonest in itself - but if you discover it in month three, it kind of is.
Before signing, demand the line-by-line list: platforms managed, creatives produced per month, who owns tracking, who owns the landing pages. Avoiding exactly that fragmentation is why we structured our e-commerce funnel growth program around the full funnel instead of channel by channel.
Four red flags that cost more than the retainer
Price isn't the main risk. These clauses are.
12-month lock-ins. No agency needs a year to prove its value. Ninety days is enough to see a trend on an active e-commerce account. A 12-month lock-in protects the agency's revenue, not your results. Three months initial, then month-to-month: that's the reasonable standard we see from the good ones.
Opaque reporting. If reporting is a monthly PDF with screenshots, you'll never know what's actually happening. You need admin access to your own ad accounts - not access "on request."
The "proprietary dashboard." Often sold as an advantage. Sometimes it's the opposite: a layer between you and the raw data, with metrics chosen by the party being graded on them. Always ask for access to the source platforms.
Guaranteed ROAS.
An agency that guarantees a ROAS before seeing your data mostly guarantees it will tell you what you want to hear.
Nobody controls the algorithm, seasonality or your margins. A ROAS guarantee is either a clause full of holes or a signal the agency plans to lean on platform attribution to inflate the number. Both cost you.
One last simple test: ask who keeps the accounts, pixels and creatives if you leave. If the answer is vague, the relationship will be too.
The real question: at what revenue each option makes sense
The right choice depends less on price than on your revenue base.
Under $25k/month in revenue: none of the above. The math doesn't work: a $3k retainer on $20k in sales is 15% of your revenue before you've spent a dollar on ads. It's exactly why we turn down about 60% of the inquiries we get - we laid it out in why we turn down 60% of prospects. At that stage, invest in product, organic and foundations. Not in an agency.
$25k-80k/month: freelancer or small boutique. A good media buyer with a tight scope, or a boutique that takes small accounts. Keep strategy in-house.
$80k-250k/month: specialized boutique or fractional CMO plus execution. This is the zone where a specialized agency delivers the best ratio. The accounts we see perform here - our average sits around 4.2x ROAS - all share one trait: tracking and creative are treated like media, not like extras.
$250k/month and up: large agency, internal team, or hybrid. At that scale, the cost of structure earns its keep. The real question becomes knowledge retention: fully outsourced, you restart from zero every time you switch agencies.
The price range is the easy part. The fit between your stage and the agency's model is what determines ROI.