Agency remuneration refers to the process of the determination of the fees for the services of agencies by their clients. These agencies include practitioners in sectors like public relations, marketing and advertising. There are several methods for the determination of the payments for the services performed by such professionals, which may include commission, hourly rates, retainer fees, scale fees and payment by result.
Since most of the work required from agencies is geared toward the promotion of the client's service or product, the client usually expects some form of benefit as a result of the association with the agency. The result in question is usually in the form of an increase in sales due to the application of marketing tactics, creative advertising concepts, and other forms of promotion of the company’s services or products. As a result, the company or client and the agency may come to an agreement where the agency remuneration will be based on commission. Commission, as a form of agency remuneration, is advantageous because it streamlines the process by making it easier for the client and agency to negotiate the exact commission by calculating the expected service from the agency.
In the application of the hourly rates as a basis for the calculation of agency remuneration, the agency will tally the total number of hours that the related staff will spend on the portfolio of the client. This will be multiplied by the number of staff who will be expected to work on the client’s project as well as allowances for the addition of profit for the agency handling the portfolio. Agency remuneration is also simple because the expectations form both parties are spelled out clearly, and it allows the client to pay for actual work done in contrast to the payment of a lump sum regardless of the outcome of the business relationship.
The scale fee method of agency remuneration is in direct contrast to the hourly rate method, because it is based on a fixed rate that may be an agreed percentage of the calculated total marketing budget for the project. Where this is the case, the client and the agency may also agree to a clearly defined bonus in addition to the fixed fee. The reasoning behind this type of agency remuneration is that the bonus and the fixed fee are hinged on the outcome of the services performed by the agency, serving as a motivation for them to deliver results. This method is similar to the payment by result method, which is also based on the performance of the agency.