Hourly? or Set Prices for projects/programs? What are the best practices for creative agencies pricing models?

I've worked in digital marketing since 1997, led business operations at two digital marketing agencies, and advise digital agency owners on improving the business side of their agencies. Agencies tend to use some version of the standard consulting phases: Discovery, Analysis, Recommendations, and Implementation. Some agencies like to give them cutesy, proprietary-sounding names. In my experience, I'm not sure that really fools anyone. You also want to convey that you understand their problem. When I evaluate proposals by agencies, the biggest problem is talking about the agency and not the client. Focus on how they'll benefit (including likely metrics and potential results), not what you'll do. Milestones and deliverables will depend on the nature of the project. If it's implementation work, you might list typical deliverables (e.g., landing pages, nurture campaigns, or eBooks). If it's strategy work, your deliverables will be the research, analysis, and meetings you do to make recommendations. Beware of getting too specific about granular deliverables -- you don't want to prescribe a solution before you [get paid to] diagnose the problem. Which leads to your second point -- don't give them the plan/strategy you have in mind until they pay for your help. Don't treat your strategy advice like the free coathangers at the drycleaner (so value-less that they're thrown in with your cleaned shirt). Many prospects won't like this. I think you should refuse to do business with them. When agencies deliver spec work (a la 1960s ad agency pitches from "Mad Men"), they're making it harder for everyone else (and themselves), by showing prospects and clients that strategy has so little value, you're willing to give it away. What can you do instead? Position yourself as an expert as solving their problems in their industry niche. (If you call yourself a "full service agency," you're already doing it wrong.) People hire specialists. If you need heart surgery, would you hire the surgeon who does general heart surgery or who's done your specific procedure 500 times? I know I'd pick the specialist-specialist! Instead of sharing specific recommendations, use case studies of how you've solved similar problems for similar clients before. And if you don't have similar clients yet, use the closest analogy you can. You've got to start somewhere. And it's a reminder about doing the same type of work over and over again, rather than jumping around to a million types of projects. Ultimately, don't over-invest in the proposal process. Once it becomes clear someone isn't a good match, gracefully bow out and invest your energies in working with clients who value your expertise by paying for it. Good luck on your proposals! I'm glad to do a call to answer any followup questions.

For me personally, no. However, what you really need is a larger data set. Gumroad just did a post on prices ending in "9": http://blog.gumroad.com/post/64417917582/a-penny-saved-psychological-pricing 37signals started with prices that ended in 9: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1287-ask-37signals-how-did-you-come-up-with-pricing-for-your-products ... but they later did research and found it didn't matter (for them). The answer for YOU will likely be to test these things for yourself on your SaaS app.

Yes, a consistent sales process is vital so that you know where you are. You also want to know why you lost some orders and won others--I was over a decade into my career before I realized I had no idea why. And that's what lead to the change. You need to understand your numbers. You need to know what the process steps are, and how to proceed to the next one--or let the opportunity die if it should (hint: if you're trying to turn every prospect into a client, you're doing it wrong.) And you must have your fulfillment process dialed in, which at present with the description of murky data-gathering and pricing it sounds like you do not. Loads of info my my blog at http://www.salestactics.org Let's discuss specifics on a call.

Many well-known SaaS companies have doubled their prices. I've personally worked with a few that have gone through it. In most cases, your conversion rates stay the same and you see a huge jump in revenue. This is because people tend to under-price themselves. Also, your product improves over time so it provides more value and can support a higher price. But don't raise prices for old customers. Grandfather them in so their plans stay the same price. In the long run, it won't make a difference to your growth since most of them will churn out anyway. If you raise prices on current customers, you'll get a huge backlash. It gets nasty. I'm pretty sure that Zendesk tried it and had to reverse the price increase. I highly recommend raising your price by 100% for a month on new customers. Keep a close eye on your revenue and your conversion rates. If things don't go well, you can easily reverse it and discount everyone that paid for the more expensive plan. Either way, you'll know what your market will actually support.

Remember when you start a business or are an established business you have to decide who is your perfect customer, since not all potential customers are equal, and not all potential customers are profitable. It is likely that the type of customer who is purely price orientated like those on Elance etc. may not be profitable to your overall business success as it is very unlikely they will pay you more in the future. You would be better focusing your marketing attempts on finding customers who do appraciate your work and understand the added value your agency has to offer, than chasing jobs, by people that only value you and your business by lowest price, which is a business model that can only lead to failure.