How to write a marketing agency invoice

What goes on a marketing agency invoice

Six things, in the order they belong on the page. The invoice generator opens a marketing agency document with the lines already in place, so most of this is checking rather than typing.

1. Put ad spend and your fee on separate lines. A client who cannot see the split assumes the worst about both numbers. This is the single most important line on the invoice.
2. Name the month or campaign. Which period, which campaign. Retainer invoices that all read the same are the ones that get queried in month four.
3. Itemize creative production. Design, copy, video and photography are work, not overhead. Named separately they get valued; folded in they look like padding.
4. Show the reporting. Reporting is a deliverable. Naming it on the invoice is what connects the fee to the numbers you send.
5. State what the retainer covers. Hours, channels, deliverables, or all three. A retainer with no definition is renegotiated at every renewal.
6. Set terms in days. Marketing budgets sit inside finance cycles. Give them a date.

The lines a marketing agency invoice usually carries

The generator opens with these lines when you pick Marketing agency. The figures are placeholders to type over, not a going rate.

Add, rename, reorder or delete any line, and set tax per line where it applies. Priced as they open, that comes to $3,150 before tax.

How to write a marketing agency invoice, step by step

1. Name the month and the campaign. Open the marketing agency invoice and put the campaign and the period at the top, such as Fall launch, September. A client with several campaigns needs to know which one this is.
2. Keep ad spend out of your fee. Ad spend paid to the platform on the client's card never appears as your income. If you paid it and are recharging it, it is its own line at cost with the platform statement.
3. Bill management and strategy as separate lines. Strategy is the plan agreed before money went into ads; management is running and adjusting them each month. Different work, different lines.
4. Itemize the creative. How many ads, in how many sizes, for which platforms. Creative production is what a client forgets they received by the next month.
5. Attach the report, then send. Send the invoice with the month's figures, not a week later. Set 30 days and make sure out-of-scope work has its own line.

Marketing agency invoice example, filled in

The first month of a paid social campaign: the strategy, a month of management, the creative and the report. Ad spend is not on it at all, and the note says so, because the client paid the platforms directly.

Subtotal $3,150, tax $315, total $3,465. The note about ad spend is the sentence that keeps this invoice from being compared with a platform bill. Strategy, management, creative and reporting each have a line, so when the client asks what the $900 covers, the answer is on the page.

Ad spend versus management fee, and why they must never share a line

If you buy media on a client behalf, that money is passing through you. It is not revenue and it should never be blended with your fee.

Two lines minimum: the spend at cost, and your management fee, whether that fee is a percentage of spend or a flat monthly figure. If it is a percentage, show the percentage and the base so the client can check the arithmetic rather than trust it.

This also protects you. When a client questions performance, a blended number invites them to question your fee at the same time. Split lines let you have one conversation about results and a separate one about cost, which is the only way either conversation goes well.

Retainers, scope creep and the month the work doubled

A marketing retainer is the easiest arrangement to sell and the easiest to lose money on, because the work expands to fill the relationship.

Define the retainer on the invoice in units the client can see: number of posts, campaigns managed, hours included, channels covered. Then when a month runs well over, you have a document to point at rather than a feeling to describe.

Bill work outside the retainer as its own line in the month it happens, not as a quiet increase later. An extra line with a name is a normal invoice; a larger total with no explanation is a dispute waiting to happen.

Getting the renewal signed with the invoice

The invoice arrives every month and is one of the few things a client always opens. That makes it the cheapest place to make the case for what you are doing.

Send the month's numbers alongside the month's fee, with the reporting line named on the invoice so the two documents are visibly connected. The client who reads results next to cost renews without a meeting.

Where the account is performing, that is where the case for a scope increase is easiest to make, and where it is not, showing the numbers first is still better than being asked for them.

Hourly, fixed price or per unit: how marketing agencies price the work

Agency work is priced as a retainer, a project, or a percentage of spend, and most agencies run all three at once. The recurring problem is that the client cannot tell your fee apart from the money that passed through you to a platform.

Show pass-through costs as their own clearly labeled section with the platform named. It protects the perceived value of your fee, it makes the invoice reconcilable against the ad accounts, and it is the difference between a finance team approving it and a finance team querying it.

Working out what to charge

Agency fees depend on the channels, the ad budget you manage and the client's expectations, so a figure from a web page is no guide. The retainer calculator prices a monthly retainer from your hours, and the profit margin calculator checks a campaign was worth running.

Getting paid once it is sent

Retainers are billed monthly in advance, with the first month paid before work starts, so you are never funding a client's campaign from your own account. If the due date passes, the late fee calculator works out what your terms allow and the due date calculator sets the new date.

Five dates decide whether a marketing agency gets paid on time, and four of them are set before the work starts.

Mistakes that cost marketing agencies money

• Ad spend blended with the fee. Both numbers look wrong, and a performance question becomes a fee question.
• Percentage fees with no base shown. If the client cannot check the arithmetic, they will ask you to.
• An undefined retainer. It gets renegotiated every renewal because nothing says what it bought.
• Out-of-scope work absorbed quietly. It teaches the client the scope is soft.
• Identical invoices every month. Name the period and the campaign or month four gets queried.

Marketing agency invoice questions

Free marketing agency invoice template

The free marketing agency invoice template opens with the lines above already priced, in any of 30 designs made for the trade, and exports a print-ready PDF with nothing saved to a server. Opening a design needs a free account.

Invoicing guides for related trades

Everything on this site, set up for marketing agencies

The whole toolkit, with the reason each one matters to marketing agencies rather than in general. The four marked links open with marketing agency already selected.