EPISODE 3: Nobody Agreed the Height of the Wall

Gareth wrote a Substack post recently about a garden wall — inspired by a pricing conversation on one of Callum's client projects where nobody, not the agency, not the client, had actually agreed what they were building. That's this episode's strange title, and the starting point for a much bigger problem in how agencies price their work.In this episode Gareth and Callum unpack why marketing agencies have stayed hooked on hourly billing for decades, why AI is finally forcing the issue, and what it actually takes to move to value-based pricing — clarity on the brief, clarity on the outcome, and clarity on what that outcome is actually worth to the client. They get into why hourly pricing quietly punishes agencies for getting faster, and how AI itself can be used to interrogate your own service delivery and surface the value you're not currently charging for. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thestandoutagencypodcast.substack.com