Ontario marketing agencies usually charge a retainer in the thousands — here is what each pricing model really buys
Ask three Ontario agencies for a price and you will get three different structures: a monthly retainer, an hourly rate card, or a project quote with a change-order clause. None of them is dishonest — but they price the agency's time, not your outcome. This page opens up each model, shows what it typically includes and excludes, and puts a flat platform plan beside them so the comparison is finally apples to apples.
$99 USD per month · Plan details apply
Illustrative dashboard
Marketing Agency · Ontario · Marvic AI
$99–$499
USD per month — the full published plan ladder
14 days
free trial before any payment
<60s
callback on new leads, included in the plan
0
hourly meters, setup fees or term contracts
Why Agency Prices in Ontario Are So Hard to Compare
The first obstacle is that agencies do not sell the same unit. A retainer buys a share of a team's month — so many hours of attention, divided among every client the account manager carries. An hourly rate card buys effort by the clock, which means the meter runs during meetings, revisions and the learning curve on your industry. A project quote buys a defined deliverable and then charges again for every change the real world requests. Under all three sits the same quiet problem for a local Ontario business: the everyday work that actually produces customers — the service page that should exist for your town, the question customers keep asking search engines and AI assistants, the lead answered inside a minute, the phone picked up at 7 p.m. — is either outside the scope, at the back of the queue, or billed as an extra. That is why two businesses can pay similar retainers and end the year with wildly different results: they were never buying output, they were renting availability. A platform plan prices the opposite thing. Marvic AI's plans run from $99 to $499 USD a month and buy finished, countable work — pages published, calls answered, leads called back, rankings tracked — executed daily and visible in a dashboard. The rest of this page walks through each traditional model on its own terms before returning to that comparison, so you can judge what your current arrangement is really charging for.
Know what a month buys before it starts
A flat plan names its output in advance — publishing volume, answering coverage, callback speed, tracking — instead of a block of hours whose allocation you learn about afterwards.
The daily work is inside the price
Local pages, AI-visibility work, answered phones and one-minute lead callbacks are the plan itself, not scope additions quoted separately when you ask for them.
No hourly meter on questions or changes
Asking for a correction, a new service page or a different emphasis does not start a clock; the work queue adjusts inside the same monthly figure.
An exit that costs nothing to use
Month-to-month billing with a free trial first means the plan competes for your renewal every thirty days — the opposite discipline from a retainer with a notice period.
What's Included in Marketing Agency
Everything your business needs to win in Ontario.
Output counted in a dashboard, not narrated
Pages live, calls answered, leads returned and rankings moved appear as they happen, so the monthly figure can be audited against finished work any day you choose.
Search and AI-answer visibility together
Ontario customers now ask Google, ChatGPT and Gemini the same question; the plan works all three surfaces instead of billing AI visibility as a separate engagement.
Answering and callbacks inside the same plan
The enquiries your marketing creates are answered around the clock and new leads are telephoned within a minute — work agencies typically leave to you or a second vendor.
Priced for one location or many
Tiers scale with locations and publishing volume across Ontario, so a second shop in another city extends the same system instead of starting a second retainer.
Approvals before anything ships
Every page, article and post is presented for your approval first; a flat price never means work goes out in your name unseen.
Simple Process. Real Results.
Price your current model honestly
Add the retainer or hours you paid over the last quarter, then list the finished work that quarter produced — pages, bookings, answered enquiries. Most owners find the ratio, not the rate, is the surprise.
Match a tier to the output you need
Plans run $99, $199, $299, $399 and $499 USD a month by volume. Pick by the work you actually want done monthly, not by a salesperson's bundle.
Judge a 14-day trial against the retainer
Two weeks, no card: the platform publishes, answers and calls back for your real business while your agency arrangement would still be scheduling its kickoff meeting.
More Than Just Marketing Agency
Marketing Agency is part of the Marvic AI all-in-one platform. Combine it with AI-powered customer communication and marketing automation to support the entire customer journey in Ontario.
AI Receptionist
AI Chatbot
Social Media
Email & SMS
Marketing Agency Performance in Ontario
Example analytics visualization
Get Started with Marketing Agency in Ontario
Start with a 14-day free trial. No credit card required.
Marketing Agency in Ontario — Frequently Asked Questions
What do marketing agencies in Ontario typically charge?
Most bill one of three ways: a monthly retainer that commonly runs into the thousands of dollars for a local business, an hourly rate card for defined tasks, or project quotes for one-off builds. The structures price the agency's time, and extras — extra pages, revisions, after-hours anything — are usually billed on top.
Why is a platform plan so much cheaper than a retainer?
A retainer rents human hours, including meetings, coordination and revisions. A platform performs the repetitive daily work with software supervised by specialists, so the same output costs a flat $99 to $499 USD a month. The saving is structural, not a discount that expires.
What exactly does the $99 starting plan include?
The entry tier covers the core stack for one business: visibility publishing on a monthly rhythm, AI receptionist answering, instant lead callbacks and a dashboard showing all of it. Higher tiers raise publishing volume, locations and features. The pricing page lists each tier's contents in full.
Are there hourly charges, setup fees or a minimum term?
None of the three. No hourly meter runs on changes or questions, there is no setup fee, and billing is month to month after a 14-day free trial that requires no card.
Can a flat plan replace an agency for a local Ontario business?
For the work local businesses actually buy agencies for — being found on Google and by AI assistants, answering every enquiry fast, and proving it — yes, and that is the comparison this page invites. Businesses running large brand campaigns or television creative still need a traditional agency; a plumber, clinic or law firm in Ontario usually needs customers, which is a different purchase.
How do I compare my current retainer fairly?
Take last quarter's total agency spend and divide it by the finished, customer-producing work it delivered: pages published, enquiries answered, bookings created. Then run the free trial and do the same division. The two ratios, not the two brochures, are the honest comparison.