Pricing
What email marketing costs, and how to decide who does it.
There are four ways to get email done: an agency, a freelancer, an in-house hire, or yourself. Each one costs something different and breaks somewhere different. Here is the honest version, including where hiring us is the wrong call, and here is what we charge.
The four ways to get email done
A reader who trusts this comparison and hires in-house still sends us the next person for whom an agency is right. So this is written straight.
Agency
$2,500 to $8,000 a month on retainer, or $3,000 to $15,000 for a fixed-scope build
- What you get
- A team that covers strategy, copy, design, deliverability and analytics at once, plus someone accountable for the result. Ramp is fast because the patterns are already known.
- Where it breaks
- When the work is small and steady. Paying an agency retainer to send four campaigns a month is overpaying for capability you are not using.
- Best when
- Email should be a real revenue channel, the work spans several disciplines, and nobody in-house owns it end to end.
Freelancer
$1,000 to $4,000 a month, or $75 to $150 an hour
- What you get
- One capable person, usually strong in one or two areas: copy, or Klaviyo flows, or design. Lower cost and direct communication.
- Where it breaks
- The moment the work needs strategy, design, deliverability and analytics in the same month. One person cannot be senior in all four, and the gaps do not announce themselves.
- Best when
- The strategy is set and the need is execution in a defined lane. A freelancer is the right answer more often than agencies admit.
In-house hire
$110,000 to $150,000 a year all in: roughly $80k to $100k salary, plus benefits and overhead, plus tools
- What you get
- Someone who lives in your product and your data, in every meeting, learning the customer daily. That context is worth a lot and no outside team fully replicates it.
- Where it breaks
- On the specialist skills you need twice a year. A single hire is rarely senior in deliverability and design and lifecycle strategy, so you end up contracting those out anyway, on top of the salary.
- Best when
- Email volume and complexity justify a full-time owner, and you can pair them with outside specialists for the periodic deep work.
Do it yourself
Platform fees only, plus your time
- What you get
- Full control and the lowest cash cost. Fine for a while, especially early.
- Where it breaks
- When your time is worth more on the parts of the business only you can do, or when the account has grown past what a non-specialist can keep tuned. Deliverability slides quietly and you find out months later.
- Best when
- The list is small, the sending is simple, and the founder still has spare hours. It stops being the cheap option once it costs you a better use of the same time.
What moves the number
Whichever model you pick, four things decide what it costs.
Scope
One abandoned-cart flow is a few thousand dollars. A full lifecycle system, migration, deliverability, a dozen flows and a campaign calendar, is a different order of work. Most engagements start with the one or two systems that move revenue fastest, then expand.
List size and sending volume
A 5,000-person list and a 500,000-person list are not the same job. Larger lists mean more segmentation, more deliverability care, and higher platform fees, which sit underneath any agency or freelancer cost.
Platform and migration
Working inside a healthy Klaviyo account is quicker than untangling a neglected one, and a migration from Drip or Mailchimp adds a defined block of work before anything new gets built.
Build once, or keep going
A fixed-scope build has an end. An ongoing partnership, where someone runs the campaign calendar, watches deliverability, and builds the next system each month, is a monthly cost that compounds.
What we charge
A small senior team. The audit is free, builds are fixed-scope, and the monthly partnership is where most clients land once a build proves out.
Free email audit
$0
Thirty minutes. We look at your list, your offers and what you are sending now, then tell you the one or two things to fix first. You leave with the answer whether or not we work together.
Fixed-scope build
$3,000 to $15,000
A defined system with a clear deliverable and timeline: a deliverability remediation, a full lifecycle flow set, a launch sequence, a migration and rebuild. You know what gets built, when it launches, and what it is designed to produce.
Ongoing partnership
from $2,500 a month
We run the campaign calendar, monitor deliverability, and build the next system each month. Most clients start with one build and move here once it proves out.
Ranges, not a rate card. The number depends on scope, list size and whether a migration is involved, which is what the free audit is for.
Common questions about cost
- How much does an email marketing agency cost?
- For a small senior agency working with ecommerce brands and creators, expect $2,500 to $8,000 a month on retainer, or $3,000 to $15,000 for a fixed-scope build. Large full-service agencies run well above that. The number moves with scope, list size, and whether there is a migration involved. Anyone quoting a flat price without asking those questions is guessing.
- Why do so few agencies publish their pricing?
- Partly because the honest answer is a range, and a range looks weaker than a number in a sales deck. Partly because it lets them price to the client rather than to the work. We would rather you arrive on a call already knowing roughly what this costs, so the call is about whether it is the right move.
- Is a freelancer cheaper than an agency?
- In cash, usually yes: $1,000 to $4,000 a month against an agency retainer. The question is whether the work fits one person. If you need execution in a single lane and the strategy is set, a freelancer is often the better buy. If the work spans strategy, copy, design, deliverability and analytics in the same month, one person will be strong in some of it and thin in the rest.
- What does an in-house email hire actually cost, all in?
- Budget $110,000 to $150,000 a year. That is roughly $80,000 to $100,000 in salary for a capable mid-level hire, plus 25 to 40 percent on top for benefits, payroll tax and overhead, plus tools. And a single hire still will not be senior in every discipline, so the periodic deliverability and design work often gets contracted out on top.
- Do you take one-off projects or only retainers?
- Both. A lot of engagements start as a fixed-scope build, a deliverability fix or a lifecycle system, with a defined deliverable and no ongoing commitment. Clients who want someone running email every week move to a monthly partnership after that. There is no requirement to.
- What is the smallest sensible way to start?
- The free audit, then one fixed-scope build aimed at whatever will move revenue fastest for you: often a deliverability fix or the two or three flows that are missing. You are not signing up for a monthly retainer to find out whether this works.
Deciding between models in more depth? Outsourced vs in-house email marketing walks through where each one actually fails.
In seven years of working with consultants, and over 40 contractors hired, I've never been more pleased with an agency's work, or their price.
Get a number for your situation, not a range.
Thirty minutes on your list, your offers and what you are sending now. You leave knowing what to fix first and roughly what it costs, whether or not we are the ones to do it.