A marketing consultant in Australia usually charges in one of three ways: by the hour, by the project, or through a monthly retainer of agreed hours. What you actually pay depends on four things more than anything else: how senior the person doing the work is, how many disciplines the scope covers, how much production sits inside it, and how long the engagement runs. The fee for the thinking and the doing is also separate from costs like ad spend, printing and venue hire, which is where most quotes become hard to compare.
By Claudia High Impact Marketing, Brisbane
The three ways consultants charge
Hourly. You pay for time as it is used. It suits short pieces of advice, a review of an existing plan, or a workshop. It is the most flexible model and the hardest to budget, because the total is only known at the end.
By project. A defined piece of work with a defined outcome: a campaign, a brand refresh, a product launch, an event. The price is agreed before work starts, so you know exactly what you are buying. Projects suit businesses with one clear priority, and they are a good way to see how a consultant works before committing to anything longer.
On retainer. A set number of hours every month, usually on a fixed term. A retainer is the closest thing to having a marketing department without employing one. The hours go wherever they are worth the most that month, across strategy, campaigns, social, content, search and events. This is how most businesses buy ongoing marketing, and it is how we work with the majority of our clients. See our packages for how the hours are structured.
What moves the price
Seniority. The biggest variable in any quote is who actually does the work. A senior marketer who writes the strategy and delivers it costs more per hour than a junior, and usually costs less overall, because there is no learning on your budget and no handover between the person who planned it and the person who builds it.
Breadth of scope. A brief that covers social media alone is priced very differently from one that covers brand, paid media, content production, podcasts, search and events. Broad scopes are often better value per discipline, because one plan connects them instead of several suppliers working against each other.
Production. Shoot days, video editing, podcast recording and design time all add hours. A month with a content shoot in it looks different from a month of planning and paid media.
Term length. Longer terms usually attract a better rate, and more importantly they give the work time to compound. Marketing rarely shows its full value in the first month.
Travel. Work in person outside the consultant's home city is normally scoped separately. For us that means Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast are part of normal scope, and interstate work is built in when a shoot, a launch or an event needs someone on the ground.
What is usually not in the fee
A consultant's fee covers their time. Most quotes leave out the money that goes to third parties, and it is worth asking about each of these before you compare numbers: advertising spend on Google, Meta and other platforms; photographers, videographers and talent where a wider crew is booked; printing, signage and merchandise; venue hire and event suppliers; and paid software subscriptions your business keeps.
None of these are hidden costs if they are discussed up front. They only cause problems when one quote includes them and another does not.
How our retainers are structured
We work in four tiers of monthly hours, each on a six month term. Starter is 8 hours a month, Boost is 16, Core is 28 and Impact is 40. The tier sets the hours; the scope is agreed at the start of the term and the hours then go wherever they are worth the most for your business that month.
We share the numbers in a discovery call rather than publishing them, together with an honest view of which tier you actually need. Plenty of businesses start smaller than they expected once the scope is clear.
How to compare quotes properly
Put every quote side by side and ask the same five questions of each. Who does the work, and how senior are they? What disciplines are included, and which are extra? How are hours accounted for? How long is the term, and what happens at the end of it? Which third party costs are in the price and which sit on top?
Two quotes that look far apart often turn out to be close once they are compared on the same basis. Two that look the same can be very different once you know who is doing the work.
Consultant or full time salary
A full time marketing hire costs more than the salary. There is superannuation, leave, equipment, software, recruitment time and the months it takes for a new person to learn the business. A consultant on retainer is paid only for the hours you need, brings experience from many businesses, and can usually start within two weeks.
The right answer depends on how much work there is. We have written a full guide on choosing between a consultant and an in house hire.
Related services: Campaign Creation, Brand Strategy, Social Media.