WorkflowMaxWhat creative agencies can do to stay profitable, even when projects stretch, scope shifts, and the team’s time disappears
By Ryan Kagan (WorkflowMax) with insights from Kathryn Williams (K.Mint)
“We thought we had it priced right… and then it took twice as long.” – Every Scaling Agency Owner Ever
Most creative agency owners have been there.
You scope out a campaign. Make a great pitch. You win the work. Your team dives in.
And somewhere along the way between the fourth round of feedback, the new client contact, or the last-minute change in direction, what was once a profitable job ends up in the red
Why does this happen so often?
It’s not because agencies don’t know what they’re doing.
It’s because most creative businesses weren’t built with profitability tracking baked in.
They’re built for ideas. For collaboration. For getting the job done.
Not for tracking every internal strategy meeting, rescope email, or late-night redesign.
That’s why we’re writing this. We’ve teamed up with pricing expert (and long-time Workflowmax partner) Kathryn Williams to show you how to:
- Rethink how you price (and what you’re not charging for)
- Understand the full scope of what really goes into a project
- Build a more resilient pricing strategy as you’re scaling your agency
- Use real-time data to learn and evolve your pricing based on actual delivery time
And perhaps most importantly, we’re including practical guidelines and quick wins you can apply right away. Whether it’s charging for the concept phase, building in execution support, or getting your team’s time tracking aligned with your quoting… this article is about giving you clarity and control.
Finally, we’ll show how tools like our Job Profitability OS can make profit visibility part of your day-to-day workflow without adding extra admin.
1. What Most Agencies Miss: Charging for the Concept Phase
In her book Value & Price, Kathryn outlines an important blind spot for most agencies: the concept development phase.
“The concept fee acts as compensation and ‘reward’ recognition, for research and development costs of creative ideas.”
– K.Mint
Agencies spend hours brainstorming, pitching, moodboarding, and iterating, all before the client says yes. And more often than not, that time isn’t factored into the proposal. Or worse, it’s priced as if the execution were the only value.
Kathryn suggests separating the concept fee, and attaching value to it.
Not only does this set the tone for a more transparent engagement, it also helps clients understand the asset they’re paying for in addition to the deliverables.
2. Don’t Forget the Invisible Work: The Execution Gap
Even once the creative direction is locked, Kathryn points out another mistake: not charging for the full scope of execution.
“Think strategy sessions. Internal team briefings. Quality control. Post-campaign Return On Investment (ROI) reports. These tasks are crucial, but often left out of quotes.”
It’s not intentional. It’s just that creative work is rarely linear.
But these hours add up. And if they’re not priced in, they come out of your margins.
Make sure all your time is properly tracked. With time tracking connected to every job, and visibility into both billable and non-billable hours, owners should be able to see exactly where time is being spent.
Over time, it builds a profile of effort vs. value across different job types.
You start to see that your $8,000 campaign with 20 internal hours was more profitable than the $15,000 one that took 65 hours.
3. Compete on Value, Not Price
Kathryn’s philosophy is clear: price based on value, not just inputs.
This means shifting the conversation with clients from “how many hours will it take?” to “what will this project do for your business?”
- You’re not just selling a brochure.
You’re selling a sales tool that drives conversion.
- You’re not selling a rebrand.
You’re helping reposition a company to unlock new markets, confidence, and reputation.
“Clients don’t pay for hours. They pay for outcomes. When you price on value, your expertise becomes your advantage, not your cost.”
– Kathryn Williams
So how do you do that?
Value-based pricing doesn’t mean guesswork or bluffing. It means becoming clear on the transformation you offer, and learning to structure your proposals around that.
Mature agencies have already made this leap. They’ve found a niche. They’ve built trust. They often have a name that carries weight. That credibility lets them embed value into their fees and charge accordingly.
For growing agencies, it’s more of a learning curve. Without visibility on where time and effort go, it’s tough to know which types of projects are actually profitable, how much strategy, ideation, or “unseen” labour gets absorbed in a flat fee or whether your pricing reflects value and the real cost of delivery or just your best guess.
Here’s a practical starting point:
When quoting a job, ask yourself what this project will help the client achieve. Then look at what needs to happen, concepting, revisions, strategy meetings, research, internal feedback loops, to get them there.
The difference between the two is where the value lies.
And the more you build that awareness into your pricing, the less you’ll find yourself absorbing untracked hours or discounting your expertise.
4. Start Using Data to Build Better Proposals
Most proposals start out as best guesses, outdated templates, and ‘last time’ quotes.
And for creative agencies, those guesses often underestimate just how much time is truly required, especially once feedback loops, rescoping, and internal reviews start piling up.
But what if your next proposal could be informed not by instinct, but by insight?
That’s the shift.
If you’re serious about growing a profitable agency, not just a busy one, that kind of rearview-mirror thinking won’t cut it.
You need a real-time window into how your team is actually spending their hours.
Not at the end of the project. Midway through. Before the margin starts disappearing.
Because by the time the invoice is sent, it’s too late to change.
That’s why real-time job tracking, not just timesheeting, is crucial.
It’s the only way to:
- See how your team’s time is being used as the project unfolds
- Spot bottlenecks and inefficiencies early
- Understand where (and why) jobs go over budget
- Evaluate pricing models against actual delivery effort
And most importantly, it closes the loop.
This is how you stop guessing and start learning.
Where every project becomes R&D for a smarter, more profitable agency.
And frankly, that should be the job of your job management tool.
It should show you real-time profitability. Not just track tasks or show you half-baked dashboards.
If yours doesn’t?
We’ve built one that does.
It’s called Job Profitability OS by WorkflowMax.
It pulls together your time entries, costs, budgets, rates and value into one sharp, intuitive view, so you can actually see where your margin is (or isn’t).
While the job’s still live.
Not a month later, that’s when it’s too late to do anything about it.
No fluff. No guesswork. Just clarity, visibility and the data you need to be confident in driving each project.
Because when you value every idea and track every job clearly, profit becomes something you plan for, not something you hope for.
5. What’s Next: Start Charging Smarter
Our advice is clear: pricing well isn’t about overhauling your business overnight. It’s about making smarter, more intentional moves, backed by data and experience.
Start here:
- Charge separately for concept development
- Log the “invisible” work (emails, admin, reviews, internal brainstorms)
- Create a checklist that captures every step of the project
- Review completed jobs and compare estimated vs. actual time
- Frequent scope and profit margin reviews throughout the job.
- Identify where you regularly over-deliver, and decide if that’s generosity or missed opportunities
And once you’re capturing that data, don’t let it sit in a spreadsheet.
That’s where Job Profitability OS from WorkflowMax comes in, a real-time job management platform that gives you instant visibility into where your time (and money) is really going.
Because knowing your numbers shouldn’t be a post-mortem.
It should be part of your process.
If you’re ready to run a smarter, sharper agency, here’s where to start:
Download Kathryn’s Free Ebook
“Value & Price” is packed with real-world strategies to rethink your pricing model starting today.
Book a Discovery Call with WorkflowMax
Let’s find out if Job Profitability OS is the right fit for your agency. No pressure. We’ll see if we’re a fit.
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