Why is one quote $5,000 and another $20,000 for the exact same deliverable?
The price gap isn’t about what you’re getting. It’s about how you’re getting there.
One approach follows a proven framework. Established structure, plug in your specifics, make refinements, move on. The other approach builds everything from scratch. Original strategy, custom structure, nothing borrowed.
Same deliverable. Completely different process to get to the end. That’s where the price gap comes from, and often where the implied quality difference lies as well.
But it doesn’t mean one is automatically better than the other.
Once you understand what actually drives creative pricing, it stops feeling like agencies are just making up numbers. The confusion comes from nobody explicitly naming the approach and how it will affect price, timeline, and quality.
Two ways to make the same thing
Most creative work falls somewhere on a spectrum between two approaches. Understanding where your project sits determines almost everything about cost, timeline, and what’s going to be expected from you.
Custom work is exploration-led. Copy and design aren’t handed off sequentially. They iterate together. There’s natural back-and-forth, exploratory directions, room to follow interesting threads. More art direction, more approvals, more touchpoints. You’re paying to discover the right answer through the work itself.
This approach has the highest ceiling because it lets the work evolve as you learn. It also means more hours, more timeline, and more of your energy. You’ll be in meetings. You’ll make decisions. You’ll review work multiple times. That’s the deal.
Framework-led work is efficiency-first. Structure gets locked early. Content fills a proven framework. You skip the exploratory phase and the separate approval rounds that come with it. Faster, cheaper, less demanding of your time.
Framework-led work only works when the framework is senior-built. It’s years of pattern recognition turned into constraints that hold up. Once those frameworks exist, execution is faster, but the underlying structure represents real expertise. That’s different from cheap.
The container is the structure. The content is the thinking. In a framework-led approach, the container is standardized. The layout, the format, the constraints. But the content is still 100% custom. Your strategy, your story, your insight. You’re not getting a template with your logo slapped on it. You’re getting a proven structure filled with thinking tailored to your business.
Both approaches produce high-quality work. Framework-led excels within a known pattern. Custom is where you pay to discover the pattern, and where you get the freedom to take something from good to great. The difference is exploration versus execution, not good versus bad.
What this actually looks like
Example: Services pages for a website
Let’s say you need ten services pages added to your website. Eight of them are pretty straightforward offerings, and a smart framework can get you there. Same sections, same flow, same content model. Each page gets tailored content, but the container is consistent. Efficient to produce, easy to maintain, and honestly, this is the right call for most companies. Visitors scanning your services don’t need each page to be a unique experience. They need clarity.
But perhaps two of those services are more complex. Sub-offerings. A completely different buyer journey. Those might need custom treatment. Each page thoughtfully different because the target audiences are different, the problems being solved are different, or the specificity required varies. Your consulting page might need more depth and credibility signals. Your implementation page might be more conversion-focused. You’re not just filling a structure. You’re figuring out what each page needs to do and building accordingly.
If you force those two complex services into the same template as your other eight, you could be doing a massive disservice to those deeper offerings. You may lose sales just because you’re trying to make them fit a mold they don’t belong in.
The framework-led approach might be perfect for eight of your ten services pages. The other two might genuinely need custom treatment because they serve a different buyer or carry more strategic weight. That’s a real conversation to have before you price the project.
Example: Printed case studies
If the goal is giving salespeople credibility and ammunition to hand to prospects, a consistent framework-led format could more than likely work. A discovery questionnaire captures the key details. The case study follows a proven structure. Challenge, Solution, Results. Maybe something else that’s worked across dozens of clients. Two review rounds. Maybe three touchpoints total, delivered in a couple weeks.
But let’s say those case studies are for completely different types of products or services. One is an easily defined deliverable that can get done in a short time. The other could be a multi-variant service that spans years. Trying to force both into the same template could be doing a disservice to the more complex one. The longer engagement might need stakeholder interviews to find the real story. Narrative exploration to figure out what makes this case study different from every other case study in your industry. A structure that emerges from the content rather than containing it.
The same logic applies to other creative work. Sales enablement materials, marketing collateral, brand identity, campaign creative. Sometimes a smart framework gets you there. Sometimes the nature of what you’re communicating genuinely requires custom treatment.
The cost that isn’t dollars
The cost isn’t just budget. Custom work costs more of your time and your mental energy. You’re involved more. You’re deciding more. Framework-led work saves brain space, not just money. For a lot of marketing leaders juggling fifteen priorities, that’s actually the bigger consideration.
Why custom costs more
When you deviate from a framework-led approach, it will absolutely cost more. Not because someone’s padding the price, but because of the actual process.
More exploration. More internal back-and-forth. More approvals, both internally and with the client. More iterations. It’s not following an established path, so it takes more hours to get there.
Custom has more iteration, more decision points, more people at each stage. Framework-led front-loads decisions, then executes efficiently. That’s the expected variation, and it’s completely legitimate.
Where surprise costs actually come from
The upstream problem
This is the insight that explains most project friction: you can’t execute within a framework if you collect inputs designed for exploration.
Process choice affects everything before execution, not just during it. If you’re going framework-led, the person conducting discovery needs to know that. They need to gather information that fits the structure. If they don’t, you end up with a mess.
Two interview questions:
“Tell us about your blue-sky vision for the brand voice.”
That question opens a huge door. It invites exploration, nuance, possibilities. Perfect for custom work.
“Which of these three archetypes best fits your current goals?”
That question focuses the input. It fits a framework. It gives the team exactly what they need to execute efficiently.
When the information gathering doesn’t match the approach, projects break down. You end up either forcing content into a structure it doesn’t fit, or going custom anyway and blowing the budget.
That’s where surprise costs come from. Not from agencies being shady. From misalignment between how inputs were collected and how outputs were supposed to be produced. I’ve seen this happen dozens of times, and it’s almost never malicious. It’s just that nobody explicitly chose an approach.
The revision problem
“Small change” and “small decision” are very different things.
Revisions in creative work aren’t just about execution time. They’re about whether a decision gets reopened.
In custom work, decisions are intentionally open longer. That’s the point. You’re exploring.
In framework-led work, decisions lock early. That’s how the process stays efficient. When you reopen a locked decision, you’re not making a small tweak. You’re breaking the system that made the project affordable in the first place.
“Change the hero headline” sounds small. But that headline informed the supporting sections, the page flow, the CTA logic, maybe the visual hierarchy. Now you’re not moving one piece. You’re reopening the narrative. That’s why “one small tweak” can trigger a change order that feels disproportionate.
I know it feels like the agency is being difficult. Usually they’re just trying to protect the process that’s keeping your costs down.
The hybrid trap
The danger zone is trying to force custom flexibility into a framework-led budget. I get why it happens. You want the exploration but not the price tag.
You can absolutely move from framework-led to custom mid-project. Sometimes that’s the right call. But recognize it for what it is: a scope change, not a small adjustment.
The flip side is just as dangerous. Trying to force complex, nuanced work into a framework when it genuinely needs custom treatment. You save money upfront and lose effectiveness. Maybe you lose sales because the work couldn’t do its job.
Pick a lane. If you want to stray from the framework, that’s completely fine. Just make that choice explicitly rather than accidentally.
When to use which
Go custom when the direction isn’t known yet and the asset has to differentiate. Brand-defining work. Unsettled messaging. Situations where the answer has to be discovered, not executed. Or simply when it really needs to be great, not just good.
Custom earns its cost through exploration and the freedom to find something exceptional.
Go framework-led when speed matters and the direction is clear. When stakeholders are already aligned. When you need consistent output at volume. Case studies, services pages, sales sheets, campaign assets.
Framework-led earns its efficiency by trading away exploration.
Most companies need both at different times. Framework-led for the content engine that keeps the lights on. Custom for the moments that actually move the needle.
The real question becomes: is the reward worth the lift? That’s something every business has to decide for themselves based on what they’re trying to accomplish.
How to actually avoid surprise costs
This isn’t about negotiating down or catching agencies in gotchas. It’s about choosing intentionally and running the project well on your end.
Before kickoff, get specific:
“Which approach are you proposing, and why?” You want to hear whether they’re recommending custom or framework-led for this specific deliverable, and the reasoning behind it.
“What’s locked versus flexible?” Understand where decisions get made and where they can’t be reopened without cost implications.
“What triggers a change order?” Knowing the boundaries helps you stay inside them.
“What do you need from us, and by when?” This is where the upstream alignment happens.
Name the decider
This causes more project friction than almost anything else, and it’s entirely on the client side.
Be clear about who has final approval. Know how many stakeholders get input versus veto power. Decide whether feedback gets consolidated before it reaches the agency or whether everyone broadcasts separately.
Projects with unclear decision ownership become custom projects by default. Every stakeholder’s input creates a new thread to explore. That’s fine if you’re paying for custom. It’s a problem if you’re expecting framework-led pricing.
I’ve watched projects double in cost not because the agency did anything wrong, but because six people on the client side all had opinions and no one had authority. That’s an expensive way to learn that lesson.
Lock things explicitly
At kickoff, name the approach out loud. Define what “locked” means. What can’t change after a certain point without reopening scope?
Pre-commit to review rounds. If the budget includes two rounds, plan to make them count rather than assuming you can add a third.
Consolidate feedback internally before sending it. This one practice prevents more budget overruns than anything else I could tell you.
The actual point
Creative work feels like a black box when you only talk about deliverables. It gets predictable when you talk through processes.
The same deliverable can legitimately cost five times as much depending on how it’s produced. That’s not padding or corner-cutting. It’s the difference between exploring possibilities together and executing against a proven framework efficiently.
The mistake is not being intentional about choosing one approach versus the other. Figure out what the goal actually needs. Sometimes efficiency wins. Sometimes best-in-class is really the only way to get there.
Just make sure you’re picking. Not defaulting.
