The short answer
A retainer pays for an agency's time and thinking: strategy, creative, channels and reporting for a fixed monthly fee. Pay per lead charges per enquiry, but your team still chases each one. Pay per appointment (or pay per meeting) charges only when a qualified prospect is booked into your calendar. Each suits a different situation, and some businesses combine two.
Last updated 6 October 2026
Every NZ business that spends money on marketing eventually faces the same question: should you pay a monthly retainer to an agency, pay per lead, or pay per booked appointment?
The answer isn't as simple as most websites make it sound. Each model has real strengths and real trade-offs, and the right choice depends on your industry, your sales cycle, your close rate, how much sales capacity you have, and how much of your marketing you want handled.
We sell all three, including a retainer, so this isn't a pitch against any one of them. Here's an honest breakdown, including how to run the maths for your own business.
Retainer vs pay per lead vs pay per appointment at a glance
| Retainer | Pay per lead | Pay per appointment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| You pay for | Agency time, strategy and management, every month | Each lead delivered | Each qualified appointment booked in your calendar |
| Who carries the risk | Mostly you, in exchange for the widest scope of work | Shared | Mostly the provider |
| Your team still has to | Work the leads the marketing generates | Call, qualify and book every lead | Turn up and sell |
| Best for | Businesses that want brand, creative, website and multi-channel marketing run as one programme | Teams with spare sales capacity to call fast | Busy teams who only want sales conversations |
| Watch out for | Fees run before results are proven, so agree up front how success is measured | Shared or resold leads, slow follow-up | How "qualified" is defined, so agree the questions up front |
| With OneAdsphere | Growth Partner, scoped monthly | Lead store, $60 + GST per lead | Pickup System, from $95 + GST per confirmed appointment, priced by industry |
How the Retainer Model Works
You pay a fixed monthly fee, scoped to the work, plus your ad spend. Fees vary widely between agencies because the scope varies widely: one retainer covers a single ad channel, another covers strategy, creative, websites, CRM and reporting. The agency plans and manages your marketing, produces creative, and optimises for results. You're paying for their time, expertise and the infrastructure they bring.
What you get:
- Full campaign management (strategy, creative, optimisation)
- Regular reporting and strategy calls
- Control over messaging, targeting and brand
- Ownership of data, audiences and ad accounts (check the contract says so)
- Work beyond leads: brand, website, SEO, CRM and automation, depending on scope
- A team invested in your long-term growth
The trade-off:
You pay the fee whether or not a given month goes well, and a new programme needs time to test, learn and build before it can be judged fairly. That isn't a flaw in the model, but it does mean you should agree up front how success will be measured, what reporting you will see each week or month, and what happens if the numbers are not moving.
How the Pay-Per-Lead Model Works
You pay a fixed price for each lead delivered. No retainer and no ad spend to manage: you receive leads into your CRM and pay for what you get. Prices vary with the industry, how deeply each lead is qualified, and whether it is exclusive to you or shared.
What you get:
- Predictable unit economics (you know exactly what each lead costs)
- Little cost in slow months (no leads, no invoice)
- No ad spend to manage or monitor
- Lead flow that can start quickly, without a long setup period
- Simple ROI calculation: revenue from leads minus cost of leads
The trade-off:
With many providers, you don't control the lead source, and you don't own the ad accounts, the audiences or the data. The provider can change prices or quality, or stop supply. Some marketplaces sell the same lead to several buyers, which makes each lead harder to close than an exclusive one. And every lead still needs your team to call it quickly, qualify it and book it.
The Maths: An Illustrative Comparison
The figures below are made-up round numbers for an imaginary Auckland solar installer, chosen only to show how the maths works; they are not typical results or industry benchmarks, so swap in your own numbers.
Scenario A: Retainer Agency
- Monthly retainer: $4,000
- Monthly ad spend: $5,000
- Total monthly cost: $9,000
- Leads generated: 120
- Cost per lead: $75
- Qualified rate (assumed): 60% (72 qualified leads)
- Cost per qualified lead: $125
- Close rate on qualified (assumed): 15%
- Installs: 10.8
- Average install value: $15,000
- Revenue: $162,000
- Revenue per dollar of marketing cost: 18x
Scenario B: Pay-Per-Lead Provider
- Cost per lead: $50
- Leads purchased: 120
- Total monthly cost: $6,000
- Qualified rate (assumed): 40% (48 qualified leads)
- Cost per qualified lead: $125
- Close rate on qualified (assumed): 10%
- Installs: 4.8
- Average install value: $15,000
- Revenue: $72,000
- Revenue per dollar of marketing cost: 12x
In this made-up example both models are profitable, and the whole difference comes from two assumptions: the qualified rate and the close rate. Change those and the answer can flip. That is the real lesson. The pricing model matters less than whether leads are exclusive, how well they are qualified, and how fast your team follows up, so run this sum with your own numbers before you choose.
When Pay-Per-Lead Makes More Sense
The pay-per-lead model is the better choice in specific situations:
- You need leads soon and don't want to wait for a new marketing programme to bed in.
- You have limited budget and aren't ready to commit to a monthly fee plus ad spend.
- You're testing a new market and want to validate demand before investing in a full funnel.
- Your sales team is small and can only handle a modest number of leads each month, so lead volume isn't the bottleneck.
- Your industry has simple qualification: if a lead just needs to be a homeowner in the right area, deep qualification isn't critical.
- You have sales capacity to call every lead fast, because a lead that waits is a lead that cools.
When a Retainer Makes More Sense
The retainer model is the better choice when:
- You want marketing run as a whole, not just leads: strategy, brand, creative, website, SEO, CRM and reporting handled by one team on one plan.
- You need exclusive leads: in competitive markets such as insurance and real estate, a lead from your own funnel isn't being called by competitors, which makes it easier to convert.
- Your sales cycle is long: mortgage and finance leads can take months to close. You need to own the nurture sequence, not just the first touch.
- Brand matters: if your prospects need to trust your brand before buying (professional services, financial advice), you need to control the whole experience from ad to conversation.
- You're scaling: buying leads from a provider is capped by the provider's supply. Building your own lead engine lets you grow past it.
- Data ownership is important: with a well-written retainer, you own the ad accounts, the audiences, the creative and the CRM data. If you part ways with the agency, you keep everything.
The Third Option: Pay Per Appointment
Pay per appointment moves furthest along the risk line. The provider runs the ads, follows up every enquiry, qualifies it against criteria you agree, and books the appointment. You pay only when a qualified prospect is booked into your calendar.
It suits a business whose bottleneck is follow-up rather than demand: the leads are arriving, but nobody has time to call them all within minutes. It does not replace the brand, website and strategy work a retainer covers, which is why some businesses run the two side by side.
The catch? The price per unit is higher than a raw lead, because you are paying for the follow-up and qualification as well. Compare it on cost per sale, not on price per unit.
How to Evaluate Any Lead Generation Proposal
Whether you're looking at a retainer, pay per lead, pay per appointment or a hybrid, here are the five questions that actually matter:
- What's the cost per qualified lead, or per sale? Not cost per lead, but cost per lead that actually meets your criteria, and ideally cost per sale.
- Are leads exclusive or shared? If shared, how many buyers get each lead? Every extra business calling the same person makes the sale harder to win.
- Who owns the data? If you stop working together, do you keep the ad accounts, audiences, CRM data and creative?
- What's the verification process? Are phone numbers and emails verified before delivery? Are fake leads filtered?
- What does the optimisation feedback loop look like? Can you see which lead segments actually convert, and does that data feed back into targeting?
If a provider can't answer these clearly, they're selling volume, not quality.
Our Model
We run all three models, because different businesses need different things.
- Growth Partner (retainer): your outsourced marketing team, scoped monthly: strategy, creative, Meta and Google ads, websites and reporting. How the Growth Partner works.
- Pickup System (pay per appointment): Voice AI, SMS and chatbot pick up every lead within 60 seconds, qualify it against questions you sign off, and book a confirmed appointment in your calendar. From $95 + GST per confirmed appointment, priced by industry. See the Pickup System.
- Lead store (pay per lead): exclusive insurance, real estate and solar leads at $60 + GST each, never resold. Open the lead store.
Whatever the model, you own the ad accounts, the data and the CRM. Every price is on our pricing page.
If you want more than leads, the Growth Partner is our retainer: one monthly fee, scoped to your brand, covering strategy, competitor and market intelligence, creative, Meta and Google ads, websites, CRM and AI automation, and weekly reporting. If you want to see what any of the three looks like for your industry, book a 30-minute strategy call and we'll walk through the numbers together.
Pay per lead vs retainer: common questions
Is pay-per-lead better than a monthly retainer?
Neither is better in general; they suit different situations. Pay per lead suits teams with spare sales capacity who can call every lead within minutes. A retainer suits businesses that want strategy, creative, website and brand work as well as leads. If your team is stretched on follow-up, pay per appointment can suit better, because you only pay for booked sales conversations.
What is pay per meeting, or pay per appointment?
You pay only when a qualified prospect is booked into your calendar, not for clicks, leads or agency hours. The provider runs the ads, follows up, qualifies against criteria you agree, and books the appointment. Our Pickup System works this way, from $95 + GST per confirmed appointment, priced by industry.
Pay per meeting vs retainer: which costs less?
In a slow month, pay per meeting costs less because you only pay for appointments that happen. In a strong month, the total can be higher than a fixed retainer. A retainer also usually covers more than appointments, such as brand, creative and website work. Compare models on cost per booked appointment and cost per sale, not on the size of the monthly invoice.
What does a marketing retainer usually include?
Strategy, campaign management, creative and reporting, and depending on the agency, websites and CRM work. Ad spend is usually billed separately. Before you sign, ask exactly what is included, who owns the ad accounts and data, and how results will be measured.
Can you combine a retainer with pay per appointment?
Yes. A common setup is a retainer for brand, creative and ongoing channel management, with pay per appointment for the sales pipeline. Marketing stays consistent and you still only pay for sales conversations that are actually booked.