You receive a quote from an agency. The figure at the bottom tells you what it costs. It tells you nothing about how much work it contains. PAR is the measure that does: one PAR is a fixed amount of agency work, roughly two working days. Convert your scope into PAR, and three quotes finally become comparable.
You ask three agencies the same thing. You get three prices that are far apart. And then? You could take the cheapest, but you do not know whether it contains less work. You could take the most expensive, but you do not know what the extra buys you. You are guessing.
That is not your fault, and it is not the agencies' fault either. It is the unit you are looking through. A price tells you how an agency positions itself, what its people cost and how badly it wants your business. It tells you nothing about how much work is in there.
IKAg has costed out hundreds of agency quotes: cases in which several agencies priced exactly the same request. Two things stood out, and together they explain why comparing quotes is so hard.
On a single line, agencies are wildly apart. For the same regional ad, one agency asked 520 euros and another 4,160. For the same social media post we saw 191 euros against 1,020. A factor of eight is not unusual.
Across the whole assignment, they land surprisingly close. Those same three agencies, that same request: 75,660, 82,090 and 85,025 euros. Twelve per cent between the lowest and the highest. That is the whole spread.
So comparing line by line does not work. Comparing the whole assignment does. All you need is a measure, and there was not one.
PAR stands for Planned Agency Resource. In plain words: a fixed amount of agency work. One PAR is roughly two working days. Not two days of one particular person, but two days of work as an agency delivers it, with the mix of people that inevitably comes with it.
A measure only works if it means the same thing everywhere. A metre is a metre, whether you are buying fabric or building a wall. Same here: designing a logo takes roughly the same amount of work, whichever agency draws it. The price varies a great deal, the work does not. Count in PAR and you are finally comparing like with like.
You use it the way you use any other unit. This campaign is 40 PAR. That monthly contract is 12 PAR a month. And because a PAR is work rather than money, you can also convert it into people: how many staff are on your brand the year round.
One thing matters most, because this is where the misunderstandings sit: PAR is not a price and not an hourly rate. You do not ask agencies to quote in PAR, and you do not bill them on it. How an agency organises its work and what it charges for it stays the agency's business. PAR is a yardstick for laying assignments and quotes side by side. Nothing more, and that is plenty.
A new measure is only worth something if it settles a question that stays open today. Here are three.
A quote becomes a figure that says how much has to be done, not only what it costs. You know where your money goes before you sign, not after.
Three quotes, one measure. No more guesswork about which one is genuinely the sharpest. And no more arguments afterwards about what was and was not included.
An annual contract converts into staffing: half a person working on your brand, or three. A fixed monthly amount becomes tangible for the first time.
That last one is where it usually clicks. A retainer, the fixed amount you pay every month, stops being a subscription you hope is right. You are buying an amount of attention, and you can check whether that amount matches what you expected.
PAR is built for the advertiser, but a fair measure is rarely one-directional. What agencies get out of it:
Two things are underestimated in almost every assignment. Both stay invisible as long as you count in euros, and both jump out the moment you count in work.
A campaign is rarely one thing. It is one idea, and then forty-five banner formats in two languages, a square version for Instagram, a shorter one for TikTok. Each version on its own is small. Together they are large. In one case, working up the formats took more work than the idea itself.
Quarterly reviews, status meetings, feedback rounds, an approver who joins halfway through. Across the cases we costed out, roughly a fifth of the fee goes there. In a quarter of cases, more than a third.
That is the most uncomfortable thing PAR shows, and immediately the most useful, because it is the only part of your invoice you control completely. Cutting one approval round is quicker than negotiating a discount, and it usually saves more.
It varies a great deal by sector. At banks and insurers the share spent on meetings rises sharply; at car brands it stays low. The more heavily regulated, the more people have to take a look. That is not wrong. It is just worth knowing that you are paying for it.
Most people first think of a check after the fact: the quote is in, is the figure right? You can do that, and it works. But the biggest gain sits before.
You convert your assignment into PAR and send that same figure to every agency you approach. Now they all price exactly the same thing. Comparing becomes reading instead of guessing.
The quotes are already in. You add up the work the agency describes, put the fee next to it and read the outcome. And you know straight away what the conversation should be about.
You put the size in PAR next to the fee, and out comes an amount per PAR. We compare that with what comparable agencies in the market charge for the same work. One of four answers comes back.
| Outcome | What it means | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Suspiciously low | Well below what the market charges | Check which work is quietly dropping out of the assignment. Too cheap is a signal too. |
| In line | Around what the market charges | Little reason to negotiate. Spend your energy elsewhere. |
| Explainable | Noticeably above | Ask where that extra work actually sits. There is often a good reason. |
| Needs explaining | Well above | Ask for the assignment item by item and set it against the comparison. |
What «the market» means here depends on the kind of agency you are buying. A small team that stays close to the ball, an agency with every discipline in house, and an international network with access to several countries do not deliver the same thing, and should not cost the same either. PAR compares within the right kind, so every agency is held to its own yardstick.
Which kind suits you best is a strategic choice, not a pricing question. A brand rolling out in eight countries needs something different from a brand operating in Flanders. PAR takes no view on that. It only makes sure you compare fairly within the choice you have made.
An advertiser receives an annual quote from an independent agency. A campaign idea, a TV spot, two radio spots, a set of banners, a landing page, two dozen social media posts, and meetings all year round. All of it in two languages, with three feedback rounds.
Converted, that assignment comes down to almost one full-time person working on this brand the year round. The fee sits a few per cent below what comparable agencies charge for this work. Outcome: in line. There is little to negotiate, and knowing that before you start is worth something in itself.
But the calculation shows something else. Well over a quarter of all that work goes to meetings and account handling, more than in half the cases we know. So the interesting question is not whether the agency can come down a few per cent. It is whether those four quarterly reviews really need six people in the room.
A measure that can do everything can do nothing. These are the limits, without small print.
The market moves, and a good reason may justify a higher price. PAR opens the conversation, it does not settle it.
PAR measures work, not value. A campaign that works is worth more than one that does not, however many hours went into it. The best price is rarely the lowest.
Media budget, production company, photographer, printing, licences: those are separate invoices, not agency work. You do not count them.
A measure that only serves to push fees down wrecks the market in the end. An advertiser gains as little from that as an agency does. PAR shows just as clearly when an assignment grows while the fee stays put.
PAR is not a timesheet and not a billing model. Agencies quote however they like: a fixed amount, per project or per month. PAR only lays those quotes side by side on one measure.
Tick what your agency delivers, tell us about your organisation, and enter your quote. In two minutes you see how much work that scope holds, what the market asks for it, and how much of it goes to meetings.
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Want to know how the measure is calculated? Read the method document. It sets out what PAR is built on and where the limits are.
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