Marketing proposal template: the month they add a channel.
Four months in, a bedding brand is running four channels instead of three and selling into a second country, on the retainer it signed in month zero. Whether any of that is billable comes down to one section nobody reads at signature.
A marketing proposal has to survive the month the client changes shape. Marlbrook Bedding Co. signed the one below at $5,450 a month to run three channels, and by November they were running four, selling into a second country, and spending $67,500 on ads against a fee that had assumed $40,000. The whole $56,700 document is printed on this page, and you can copy it, download it as a Word file, or take it as a PDF.
Retainer money leaks in a way that project money doesn't. A website build grows by pages and a rebrand grows by revision rounds, and both of those get bought once, so a single rate settles them. A retainer grows by raising a number that then repeats: one more channel, four more posts, a second market, a bigger media budget. Each of those arrives looking like a small favor and then bills itself every month for the rest of the term, which is why what scope creep costs an agency over a year is so much worse on retainers than on builds.
What does a marketing proposal have to settle before it's signed?
Two things, and the published versions do only one of them well. A marketing proposal has to describe the work you're going to run, which every version of this document handles competently, and it has to say what happens to the price when the client changes the shape of that work halfway through, which none of the three we read does at all.
Indeed's career-advice guide builds a marketing proposal out of eight elements: a cover page, a table of contents, an executive summary, a solution section, an investment section, team introductions, a case study and an agreement section with signatures, followed by nine steps for putting them together. Proposify's template keeps seven and swaps the case study for a section it calls the unique approach, with the deliverables and the pricing page sitting next to a contract and sign-off block. PandaDoc takes the opposite approach and publishes a library of more than fifty named proposals sorted by vertical, from social media to email to affiliate marketing, which is genuinely useful when you want a cover that already says your service on it.
What none of the three prints is a dollar figure. Indeed gives pricing strategy and no numbers, Proposify describes its pricing page as showing prospects what the services will cost without filling one in, and PandaDoc's page carries its own $19 a month product price and nothing else. None of them says what happens when the client asks for more in month four either, which is a strange gap to leave on a retainer, because a retainer is the one agency document everybody expects to change shape while it runs. It's the same silence that lets a number written to win the work go on committing you months after anybody remembers writing it.
How does a nine-month retainer get written down?
As a list of counts with a fee attached to it. The proposal below does that for Marlbrook Bedding Co., a bedding brand selling direct to consumers online and through three showrooms, with nineteen staff and one marketing manager who has never run paid media. Their own numbers are in section 2 and they're the reason they're hiring: revenue is flat year on year while media spend is up by 41%, and nobody inside the company can say which of the three channels is carrying it.
The document has a short half and a long one. Section 3.1 is a three-week strategy and measurement sprint with a fixed fee and an end date, and it's the easy part to write. Section 3.2 is the retainer, and it has no end in the same sense, so everything that makes it safe to sell comes down to counting. Three named channels, twelve social posts, four emails, one landing page a quarter, one report, one review call. Every number in 3.2 appears twice in this document: once as what Marlbrook gets, and again in section 6 as what a further one costs, which is the same reason a deliverable without a count is only a description.
Engagement: Marlbrook Bedding Co. paid acquisition retainer
Reference: [MBC-01]
Date: [date] · Version: 1.0
1. WHO THIS IS FROM, AND FOR
1.1 Prepared for: Marlbrook Bedding Co., [address]. Client contact: [name, title, email].
1.2 Prepared by: [your agency name], [address, email].
1.3 Named approver: [name, title, email]. Only this person's written yes changes anything priced in this proposal.
1.4 Everything priced here holds for 30 days from the date above.
2. WHAT MARLBROOK ASKED FOR
2.1 Marlbrook Bedding Co. sells mattresses, bases and bedding direct to consumers online and through three showrooms, with 19 staff and one marketing manager.
2.2 Media spend rose 41% last year and revenue finished level, and no report in the business separates the three channels well enough to say which one did what.
2.3 Paid search, paid social and one retail media account are each run by a different freelancer, on three different reporting cycles, none of which reconciles to the store.
2.4 You asked us to take all three channels onto one team and one report, and to run them through the fourth quarter and the spring season that follows it.
3. WHAT WE'RE PROPOSING TO DO
3.1 Strategy and measurement sprint, weeks 1 to 3, one time. We audit twelve months of spend against orders, rebuild conversion tracking across the site and the three showrooms, agree the target cost per order by channel, and deliver one written plan with a recorded walkthrough.
3.2 Monthly retainer, months 1 to 9. Each month includes: management of three named channels, which are Google Ads, Meta and [retail media account]; twelve social posts produced and scheduled; four marketing emails written, built and sent; one report covering all three channels against the targets agreed in 3.1; and one 60-minute review call with the people named in 3.3.
3.3 The named participants for the review call are [name], [name] and [name]. A call or a report prepared for anybody else is priced in 6.7.
3.4 One landing page designed, written and built each quarter, so three across the term. An unused quarter doesn't carry forward.
3.5 The fee in section 7 assumes managed media spend of up to $40,000 a month across the three channels in 3.2. Spend above that is priced in 6.5.
4. WHAT THIS RETAINER DOESN'T INCLUDE
4.1 The media spend itself, which Marlbrook pays to the platforms on Marlbrook's own cards and accounts.
4.2 A fourth channel of any kind, including any channel a platform launches during the term. Adding one is priced in 6.1.
4.3 Selling into a market outside the United States, which changes the creative, the currency, the shipping promise and the reporting. Priced in 6.6.
4.4 Photography, video production, influencer fees, product sampling and any licensed music or stock.
4.5 Changes to the Marlbrook website beyond the landing pages in 3.4.
4.6 Software and platform licenses, which Marlbrook buys and keeps.
5. HOW THE WORK RUNS
5.1 Start date: [date]. The sprint in 3.1 is delivered three weeks later and the nine retainer months run from the first of the following month.
5.2 The sprint needs admin access to all three ad accounts, twelve months of order data and the showroom point-of-sale exports by [date]. Each working day those are late moves every date in 5.1 by a working day.
5.3 Posts and emails are sent to the approver named in 1.3 five working days before they run. Anything not answered in three working days goes live as drafted.
5.4 Product photography, prices and stock dates come from Marlbrook. A post or email held because those are missing still counts toward the month's twelve and four.
5.5 Unused posts, emails or calls don't carry into the following month.
5.6 The plan in 3.1 is accepted when the named approver says so in writing, or ten business days after delivery if nobody replies.
6. WHAT ANYTHING ELSE COSTS
6.1 A fourth channel added to the managed set: $2,450 once to open it, covering account structure, tracking and the first creative set, then $1,350 a month for every remaining month of the term.
6.2 A social post beyond the twelve in a month: $185.
6.3 A marketing email beyond the four in a month: $420.
6.4 A landing page beyond the one a quarter in 3.4: $3,150.
6.5 Managed media spend above the $40,000 a month named in 3.5: 8% of the amount above it, billed with the following month's fee.
6.6 A second market or language: $4,150 once to open it, then $960 a month for every remaining month of the term.
6.7 A report or a call prepared for an audience other than the people named in 3.3, such as the board or an investor: $680 each.
6.8 Anything not named above: $165 per hour, quoted in writing and agreed before it starts.
7. WHAT IT COSTS
7.1 Strategy and measurement sprint: $7,650.
7.2 Monthly retainer, nine months at $5,450 a month: $49,050.
7.3 Total: $56,700.
8. WHEN IT GETS PAID
8.1 $7,650 on acceptance of this proposal.
8.2 $5,450 on the first day of each retainer month, nine times.
8.3 Anything charged under section 6 is invoiced with the following month's fee.
8.4 Invoices are payable within 14 days of issue.
9. HOW A CHANGE GETS AGREED
9.1 Anything in section 3 that Marlbrook changes after accepting this proposal is requoted before it's done, at the rates in section 6 where one of them applies.
9.2 A request arrives as one written line, comes back with a price and the month it starts, and begins when the approver named in 1.3 replies yes.
9.3 A rate in section 6 that runs monthly is added from the month it starts and runs to the end of the term in 7.2, unless the written yes says otherwise.
9.4 Work paused by Marlbrook for more than twenty business days is requoted at the rates in force when it restarts.
10. WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END
10.1 The retainer finishes after the ninth month unless both sides agree in writing to continue it, either at the rates in section 6 or under a fresh proposal.
10.2 The ad accounts, the tracking, the creative and every report are Marlbrook's and stay in Marlbrook's own logins throughout.
10.3 Either side may end the retainer on 30 days' written notice, and the month in which notice falls is payable in full.
11. ACCEPTANCE
11.1 This proposal sets out the work and the price. It becomes binding when both signatures below are dated, or when a separate agreement names it by reference and version.
11.2 Signing it accepts sections 3 through 10 as written.
For Marlbrook Bedding Co.: ____________________ Date: __________
For [your agency]: ____________________ Date: __________
Why does a marketing retainer need a rate for a fourth channel?
Because a fourth channel isn't more of the work you're already doing, it's a new account to structure, new tracking to wire in, a creative format nobody on the account has made yet, and another column in every report from then on. The client asking for it is picturing none of that. They're picturing a checkbox, because from where they sit the agency is already doing marketing and this is simply marketing.
So 6.1 prices it as two numbers rather than one. There's $2,450 to open the channel, which buys the setup that only happens once, and $1,350 a month after that, which buys the running. Splitting it that way is the part worth copying, because a single blended number is always wrong in one direction: quote the setup alone and you run a fourth channel free for the rest of the term, quote a monthly figure that hides the setup inside it and the first month looks expensive enough to talk the client out of something they wanted. Two numbers describe what actually happens and neither one has to be padded.
Clause 4.2 is doing quiet work underneath all of it. Naming the three channels in 3.2 isn't enough on its own, because a retainer that lists three things without saying the list is closed reads to a client as an example rather than a limit. The line that closes it, including the part about a channel a platform launches mid-term, is what makes 6.1 a price rather than an argument.
How do you sell a month of marketing as something countable?
By naming a quantity for everything that arrives and keeping hours out of the document entirely. Twelve posts, four emails, one report, one call, one landing page a quarter. Marlbrook's marketing manager can picture every one of those and check them off, and none of them invites the conversation where a client works out your effective hourly rate and decides how they feel about it.
A marketing count behaves differently from a build count, though, and 6.1 against 6.2 is where the difference shows. A thirteenth page template on a website gets bought once, so a proposal for a build can price it with a single line. A thirteenth social media post is different depending on why it exists. If Marlbrook wants one extra post for a showroom opening in March, that's $185 and it's over. If Marlbrook wants sixteen posts a month from March onward, treating it as four lots of $185 charges them once for something you'll now do six more times. That's the most expensive kind of rounding error on a retainer, and the fix is a written rule about which changes are one-offs and which raise the monthly line, which is what clause 9.3 says out loud.
A count you can raise for free isn't a count, it's a suggestion.
What happens when Marlbrook's ad spend hits $67,500 in November?
Clause 6.5 turns it into $2,200 on the December invoice instead of a 69% workload increase nobody gets paid for. The fee in 7.2 assumed up to $40,000 a month across the three channels, November ran to $67,500, and 8% of the $27,500 above the band comes to $2,200.
The reason to write it as a band rather than a flat percentage is that the two models are honest about different things. A pure percentage-of-spend fee pays the agency more for spending more of the client's money, which is a conflict a smart client will eventually notice and resent, and it makes a good month where you cut waste look like a pay cut. A flat fee has the opposite problem, and it's quieter: it treats a $40,000 month and a $67,500 month as the same amount of work, when the second one means more creative in rotation, more budget decisions, more sitting with a report that now has real money riding on it. The band keeps the fee attached to the work and prices only the part where the work genuinely grows.
Who approves a second market, and what does it cost to open?
The person named in 1.3, at $4,150 to open it and $960 a month after that under 6.6. A second market is the request that looks smallest and costs most, because to the client it's the same products with a different flag on the site, while on your side it's a different currency, a different shipping promise, different creative, a separate audience to learn and another set of rows in the report.
Put Marlbrook's month four together and the arithmetic settles quickly. Canada opens under 6.6 at $4,150 plus $960 a month for the six months left in the term, which is $9,910. The fourth channel opens under 6.1 at $2,450 plus $1,350 a month for those same six months, which is $10,550. November's spend adds $2,200 under 6.5. That's $22,660 of change against a $56,700 engagement, taking it to $79,360, and not one line of it needed a renegotiation or an awkward call, because the document that won the work already said what each of those cost. The same month without section 6 bills $5,450 and absorbs all three.
The spend band is the clause a flat monthly fee is missing
If you copy one line out of this document, copy 6.5: managed media spend above the $40,000 a month named in 3.5 is charged at 8% of the amount above it, billed with the following month's fee. It's the only clause here that prices something the client will do without ever thinking to ask you first, because raising a budget doesn't feel like a request. It feels like confidence in the work, and it arrives as a notification rather than an email.
Everything else in section 6 gets triggered by a sentence somebody types to you, which means you at least get the chance to quote it. The spend line is the one that moves on its own, and a retainer without it spends the fourth quarter running twice the budget for the same money and calling it a good problem. Write the band, and the good quarter is one you also get paid for. Once the term is running, the discipline that makes any of this hold is the boring one: quote every request the day it lands, keep the yes attached to the line it answered, and treat the scope of work that follows the proposal as the place those agreed numbers go to live rather than a document that starts the argument over.
Frequently asked questions
What is a marketing proposal template?
A marketing proposal template is a reusable document you send to win a retainer or a campaign, setting out what you found in the client's current marketing, which channels you'll run, what arrives each month, what it costs and when it gets paid. On retainer work it has a job the published versions skip, which is to put a number on the things that grow while the engagement runs, so the version on this page prices a fourth channel, a thirteenth post, a second market and the ad spend that runs past the band the fee assumed.
Is this marketing proposal template free to use?
Yes, with no sign-up and no email address. The whole proposal is printed on this page, and you can copy it to your clipboard or download it as a Word file or a PDF from the buttons under it. Swap in your own client, rewrite the counts in section 3 and the rates in section 6, keep sections 5 and 9 close to the wording here, and cut anything your retainers never involve.
What should a marketing proposal say about ad spend?
It should say whose money it is, how much of it the fee assumes, and what happens above that. The proposal above names $40,000 a month across the three managed channels and charges 8% of anything over it, billed the month after it happens, which keeps the fee attached to the work rather than to the budget. A flat management fee with no band in it quietly treats a $67,500 month and a $40,000 month as the same amount of work, and they are not.
How many channels should a marketing retainer cover?
As many as you can name in the document, and no more than that. Section 3.2 of the proposal above manages three, listed by name, because an unnamed set has no edge and a retainer with no edge absorbs the fourth one for free. The number itself matters much less than whether the document says what a further channel costs to open and what it adds to the monthly fee, which is what 6.1 is for.
What is the difference between a marketing proposal and a marketing scope of work?
The proposal is written to win the retainer and the scope of work is written to run it. A proposal argues, so it carries what you found, what you would do about it and the reasons to pick you, while a scope of work drops the argument and keeps the countable half: what arrives, how often, for how much, and what happens when one of those moves. Plenty of retainers never get a second document, which is a good reason to write a proposal you would be happy to have signed on its own.
How do you charge for extra work on a marketing retainer?
Split it by whether the client is buying one more of something or permanently raising the count. A single extra post or email is a one-off charge, and the proposal above prices those at $185 and $420, while a channel or a market the client wants from now on is priced twice, once to open it and again as a monthly line, because you will be running it every month for the rest of the term. Charging a permanent addition as a one-off is the most expensive rounding error on a retainer.