Fixed-fee, retainer, equity, performance — when to charge what, the actual numbers we use, and the scripts that move pricing conversations forward instead of into a Calendly black hole.
I ran a Los Angeles social media marketing agency for three years before TrainYourAgent. I tried every pricing model on the planet — performance fees, equity slices, day rates, hourly, fixed scope, monthly retainer, revenue share. The hard-won lesson: the pricing model decides what kind of work you do, more than the work decides what pricing model you should use. Now I'm at ~$20K MRR on TrainYourAgent — voice and chat agents for SMB. Here's the actual playbook I use to scope and price deals in 2026.
Real numbers, real scripts, real margins. The four pricing models that work for AI agencies There are exactly four pricing structures that survive contact with real customers: 1. Fixed-fee monthly retainer ($799 / $1,499 / $2,500 / $5,000 / mo tiers) 2. Project + retainer ($X build fee + $Y/mo to maintain) 3. Performance ($X per booked appointment, $Y per converted lead) 4.
Fixed-fee, retainer, equity, performance — when to charge what, the actual numbers we use, and the scripts that move pricing conversations forward instead of into a Calendly black hole. It is filed under AI Strategy because that is where operators looking for this problem actually start, and it is written from production work rather than from a content calendar.