<div class="gn-article"><div class="gn-hero gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-hero__image"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/6a29d685c4f291462bbfc6af_two-sides-banner-6a2160aa63271230922307.jpeg" alt=""></div> <div class="gn-hero__head"> <span class="gn-kicker"><span class="dot"></span>Expression</span> <h1 class="gn-title">Two Sides: Should Brands Pay for Pitches?</h1> <div class="gn-meta"> <strong>The GO Network</strong> <span class="pip"></span> <span>5 June 2026</span> <span class="pip"></span> <span>5 min read</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gn-body"> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/6a29d686c4f291462bbfc717_6a292ec4c8fcc7da0410096b_121144-6a21614871d26502858788.jpeg" alt=""></div> <figcaption>Pitch fees: the debate that surfaces every time a high-profile review ends badly.</figcaption> </figure> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">01</span>What Agencies Tell Us</h2> <p class="gn-lede gn-reveal">Agencies tell us, almost universally, that pitching is the most expensive thing they do. When we ask them to put a number on it, the estimates range from uncomfortable to alarming: senior strategist time, creative director hours, production costs for presentation materials, and the opportunity cost of work that does not get done for paying clients while the pitch is live. The consistent agency-side line is that none of this is theoretical. It is cash out of the door.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">What we hear when we sit on the agency side of a call is that pitch fees are not really about the money itself. They are about signal. A brand that pays a fee, even a modest one, has made a commitment. It has skin in the game. Agencies tell us that paid pitches produce better briefs, more decisive timelines, and markedly fewer situations where the review quietly disappears or the incumbent is retained before the first chemistry meeting is over.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Agencies are also candid with us about the competitive disadvantage they feel relative to larger networks. A holding-company agency can absorb pitch losses across a portfolio. An independent with thirty or fifty people cannot sustain two or three expensive failed pitches in a year without it showing up on the balance sheet. What we hear from independent agency leaders in particular is that unpaid pitching is not a level playing field, it is a structural bias towards whoever can afford to lose.</p> <aside class="gn-quote gn-reveal"><q>Unpaid pitching is not a level playing field, it is a structural bias towards whoever can afford to lose.</q><cite>Independent agency leaders · as reported</cite></aside> <p class="gn-reveal">There is a subtler point underneath all of this, and agencies do raise it, if not always in these terms. When a brand asks for significant strategic thinking, original creative concepts, and media or channel recommendations across a competitive pitch, it is receiving something of genuine commercial value. Whether it appoints the agency or not, that thinking does not disappear. The consistent agency-side frustration is that the industry has normalised the idea of receiving that value for free, and dressed it up as a fair test of merit.</p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/6a29d686c4f291462bbfc71b_6a292ec51fc2178de8c5aa86_9197-6a21614871d26872750611.jpeg" alt=""></div> <figcaption>The brand side of the pitch debate carries its own costs and constraints.</figcaption> </figure> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">02</span>What Brands Tell Us</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">Brands tell us the fee question is simpler than agencies make it sound. Running a competitive review is expensive on their side too. There is internal time from marketing, procurement, legal and senior leadership. There are briefing documents, NDAs, tours of the building, and weeks of stakeholder alignment before a decision can be reached. The consistent brand-side position is that they are investing heavily in the process, even if that investment is not visible to the agencies competing in it.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">What we hear when we sit on the brand side of a call is genuine concern about what a fee commits them to. If they pay four agencies to pitch, the argument goes, they are now obligated to see the process through regardless of what the work looks like. They worry it compromises their ability to pause, restart, or widen the search if the field turns out to be wrong. Some procurement teams are also operating under internal policies that make payments to non-contracted suppliers genuinely difficult to approve, and brands tell us this is a practical constraint, not an excuse.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Brands also push back on the characterisation that they are extracting free value. The view we hear repeatedly is that speculative creative work presented in a pitch is not production-ready, that it requires significant development before it could ever be used, and that the risk of actually commissioning the wrong agency is far greater and more costly than any pitch fee. From their perspective, the process is a form of due diligence, not a content acquisition exercise.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">There is one more thing brands tell us, which tends not to make it into the public debate. Many of them are genuinely uncertain what a fair fee looks like. They are not opposed in principle so much as they are unclear on the mechanics: who sets the rate, how it is calculated, whether it creates legal complications around the resulting IP, and whether paying one agency but not another mid-process creates problems. The hesitation is sometimes principle, but it is often just a lack of a workable framework.</p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">03</span>What's Actually Happening</h2> <p class="gn-reveal">Both sides are right about the costs they incur. Where both sides miss the point is in treating pitch fees as a binary question, paid or not paid, rather than as one design decision within a broader process architecture. The actual behaviour we observe tells a more nuanced story. Reviews that include some form of payment, whether a formal fee, a paid strategy stage, or a remunerated discovery sprint, consistently run more efficiently. Not because money fixes relationships, but because financial commitment from both sides changes how seriously each party treats the process.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The agency side is correct that unpaid pitching has a structural cost, and that the industry has normalised something it should not have. But agencies sometimes undermine their own argument by continuing to pitch for free while publicly objecting to the practice. The pattern we see is that agencies with the clearest new-business criteria, those who decline reviews without adequate process rigour, a realistic timeline, and some form of commitment from the brand, tend to win at a higher rate than those who chase volume. The fee conversation is, in practice, a proxy for a broader question about whether the review has been properly designed.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Brands that resist fees on principle often do so while spending more, in aggregate, on poorly run reviews that do not produce a confident decision. The reviews most likely to collapse midway, produce a split committee, or result in the incumbent being retained by default are almost always the ones with the least structured process and the least financial commitment from the brand side. The data we see does not suggest that paying agencies guarantees a good outcome. It suggests that brands who have thought carefully enough about the process to agree on a fee tend to have thought carefully about everything else too.</p> <div class="gn-divider gn-reveal" aria-hidden="true"></div> <h2 class="gn-reveal"><span class="num">04</span>The Question Both Sides Should Be Asking</h2> <aside class="gn-callout gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-callout__label">What this means for you</div> <h4>Instead of asking whether brands should pay for pitches, both sides should be asking: what does a well-designed review actually look like, and are we each willing to commit to running one?</h4> <ul> <li><strong>Fees are a signal, not just a sum.</strong> Agencies tell us that paid pitches produce better briefs, more decisive timelines, and markedly fewer situations where the review quietly disappears.</li> <li><strong>Agencies with clear criteria win more.</strong> Those who decline reviews without adequate process rigour, a realistic timeline, and some form of commitment from the brand tend to win at a higher rate than those who chase volume.</li> <li><strong>Brands who think carefully about fees tend to think carefully about everything else.</strong> The data does not suggest that paying agencies guarantees a good outcome, but it does suggest better process design overall.</li> </ul> </aside> </div></div>