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    What does a cold email agency cost?

    By Joshua at SunMatch Advisors · Updated · 3 min read

    The three ways agencies charge

    1. Monthly retainer

    A fixed fee each month for building the list, writing, sending and handling replies. It's predictable, and you pay whether or not meetings happen that month. Published ranges cluster around $2,500 to $6,000 a month.

    2. Pay per meeting

    You pay for each qualified meeting the agency books, usually about $200 to $700 each in the guides we checked. It sounds safer, so ask exactly what counts as "qualified". A meeting with someone who can't buy still costs you the fee.

    3. Hybrid

    A smaller monthly retainer plus a fee for each meeting. It splits the risk between you and the agency.

    What's often left out of the quote

    • Sending setup: extra domains and inboxes, warm-up and sending tools, and contact data. The published guides put these at about $500 to $2,000 or more a month, often billed separately from the retainer.
    • Setup fees: one-time charges of about $1,000 to $5,000 in the guides we checked.
    • Minimum terms: three-month minimums are common.

    Ask for the all-in monthly cost in writing before you compare two agencies.

    What drives the price

    • How many companies you want to reach each month.
    • How hard your buyers are to find. A narrow niche takes more work than a broad one.
    • How much research goes into each email. A real personal line costs more than a mail merge.
    • Who handles the replies.
    • How many inboxes it takes to send safely. Volume comes from more inboxes, not more email per inbox.

    Questions to ask before you sign

    1. What's the all-in monthly cost, including domains, inboxes, data and tools?
    2. Whose domains and inboxes are they, and what happens to them if we stop?
    3. Can I see real emails written for my prospects before anything sends?
    4. Where do the email addresses come from? Do you ever guess them?
    5. How many new emails a day go out from each inbox?
    6. What happens when someone says no or asks to opt out?
    7. What's the minimum term, and what counts as a qualified meeting?

    If an agency won't answer these plainly, keep looking. And whoever sends for you, you share the legal responsibility: here's what CAN-SPAM requires.

    How we price

    We don't publish a price, because it depends on how many companies we email and what you need. We build you a free outreach plan first, walk you through it on a Google Meet, and quote from there. There's no obligation. See how our cold email outreach works.