Why I Charge a Flat Fee, Not a Percentage of Ad Spend

Most Meta Ads consultants and agencies charge a percentage of what you spend — typically 10-20%. I don't. I charge a fixed monthly fee, regardless of whether your account spends €3,000 or €10,000 that month. Here's the actual reasoning, not just the policy.

The problem with getting paid more when you spend more

A percentage fee sounds fair on the surface — bigger accounts take more work, so a bigger fee makes sense. But it quietly creates an incentive that has nothing to do with your results: the more you spend, the more I'd earn, whether or not that extra spend is actually doing anything useful for you. I don't think most consultants act on that incentive consciously. But it's sitting there in the structure either way, and I'd rather not build a relationship on a model where our interests can drift apart without either of us really noticing.

What a flat fee actually changes

With a fixed fee, there's no version of the conversation where scaling your budget benefits me more than it benefits you. If I'm telling you to spend more, it's because the account has genuinely earned it — not because my invoice depends on it. And if the smarter move is to hold spend flat while we fix something upstream, that's an easy conversation to have, because nothing about my fee changes either way.

The trade-off, honestly

A flat fee isn't automatically cheaper. For a very large account, a percentage model can sometimes work out lower than a flat rate, and I won't pretend otherwise. What it buys instead is alignment — the fee reflects the work and the strategy, not a cut of your media budget. For most of the accounts I work with, in the €3,000-10,000+ a month range, that trade-off is a good one.

I'd rather earn a client's trust by having nothing to gain from a decision I'm recommending, than earn a slightly bigger fee by staying quiet about it.

How this shows up day to day

• Budget conversations are about what the account needs, not what benefits the invoice

• There's no reason to pad a media plan with extra spend that isn't earning its place

• The fee stays the same whether we're testing cautiously or scaling aggressively, so the pace is set by the account's actual results, not by anyone's incentive to move faster or slower

If you're comparing this against what agencies and other freelancers typically charge, here's a real breakdown of current UK and EU pricing across all three common models. And if you're evaluating anyone — me included —