What questions should you ask in an agency pitch?

Ask six questions: who works my account day to day, can I see every pitch you send, what ships each week besides a deck, have you worked my stage and my beat, how do you price and what happens if it stalls, and how will you prove it worked? A capable agency answers all six in plain sentences, because it answers them every week. An agency that hedges now, while it is still trying to win your business, will hedge harder once it has it.

Who does my day-to-day work? - The oldest move in the business is the senior-partner pitch with junior-coordinator delivery: the person who charmed you hands off the account the week you sign. Ask for the account lead by name and confirm that person is in the room. "We'll assign the team after you sign" is a no.

Can I see every pitch, as it goes out? - A serious startup program sends roughly 7,000+ targeted pitches a year to 2,500+ reporters. An agency doing that volume of real work has no reason to hide it. Good answer: a live view, on demand. Weak answer: a monthly summary.

What ships weekly besides strategy? - Strategy decks let an agency bill for months without sending a single pitch. Get the weekly deliverable named in writing, and make sure it is outreach, not "awareness."

Have you worked my stage and my beat? - A strong rolodex aimed at the wrong reporters is worthless. Ask for recent, named coverage for companies like yours. The page on reading case studies covers how to pressure-test what they show you.

How do you price, and what if it stalls? - A confident firm states the number and the exit terms without flinching. Vague pricing in the pitch becomes a scope dispute by month three. Month-to-month beats a long lock-in for a first engagement.

How will you prove it worked? - Accept coverage tied to a business outcome: fundraising credibility, recruiting, customer trust. Impressions and advertising value equivalency, the discredited ad-rate metric, are what agencies report when they cannot point to an outcome. The answer also predicts whether the engagement lasts: industry analyses of agency churn point to the same culprit, work that never connects to a business result.

Two follow-ups after the meeting. Verify what they claimed in the room; the page on checking references covers how to get past the curated list. And note which answers came with a number attached. If you want to see what a straight answer to the pricing question looks like, ours is public on the pricing page.