Every agency knows this message. It's 7:40 pm on a Thursday and the client writes on WhatsApp: "Bhaiya, can you just do one more reel for the Saturday sale? Small one only." The retainer covers twelve reels a month. This would be the fifteenth. Nobody ever agreed a price for reel thirteen, so you do it free, because asking for money at 7:40 pm feels petty.
That's how scope creep usually happens. It's rarely one big argument. It's lots of small favours that were never priced, and by month six they've quietly turned into part of the deal. The fix is boring and it works: a written add-on price list the client has seen before the first favour is asked. Below is the template we use, how we price each line, and the rules that make the client actually stick to it.
What is an add-on price list, and why does an agency need one?
A retainer sells a fixed bundle: say 12 posts, 8 reels, 2 revision rounds, one monthly report. The add-on list prices everything around that bundle, the extras clients ask for again and again. It does three jobs:
- It moves the money conversation earlier. You agree the price in the proposal, when everyone is calm, not at 7:40 pm under deadline pressure.
- It makes saying yes easy. "Sure, that's an extra reel at ₹4,500 plus GST, done by Saturday 11 am. Shall I go ahead?" One line, no awkwardness.
- It shows you when to upsell. If a client buys three extra reels every month, they don't need extras. They need the next package up.
This isn't your main rate card. Our guide on how much to charge for social media management in India covers retainer pricing by city tier. The add-on list sits beside it and only covers the extras.
The add-on price list template
Copy this into a one-page PDF, put your logo on it, and attach it as an annexure to every retainer agreement. The prices are starting points from a small agency in a tier-2 city. Metro agencies and specialist video teams will charge more, so change the numbers to suit you and keep the structure.
| Add-on | Unit | Starting price (+18% GST) | What's included / terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extra reel, client's footage | Per reel | ₹2,500 – ₹6,000 | Edit, captions, cover, 1 revision round. Up to 45 sec. |
| Extra reel, we shoot and edit | Per reel | ₹6,000 – ₹15,000 | One location, up to 2 hours on site, travel within city limits. |
| Extra static post | Per creative | ₹800 – ₹2,500 | Copy + design, 1 revision round. |
| Extra carousel | Per carousel (up to 8 slides) | ₹2,000 – ₹5,000 | Each slide over 8 charged as a static. |
| Story set | 3–5 frames | ₹1,000 – ₹3,000 | Polls/stickers set up; posting included. |
| Half-day shoot | Up to 4 hours | ₹8,000 – ₹20,000 | 1 shooter, our kit. Travel outside the city billed at actuals. Props and talent extra. |
| Full-day shoot | Up to 8 hours | ₹15,000 – ₹40,000 | As above. Overtime billed per hour. |
| Extra revision round | Per round, per creative | ₹500 – ₹1,500 | After the included rounds. A new brief is a new creative, not a revision. |
| Rush delivery | % of the add-on price | +25% under 72 hours; +50% under 24 hours, Sundays and public holidays | Only against a turnaround already written into the contract. |
| Unplanned topical / festival post | Per creative | Unit price + rush if applicable | Moment marketing outside the approved calendar. |
| Licensed music, stock footage, fonts | Per asset | At cost + 15% handling | Licence held in the client's name where possible. |
| Resize for print, ads or other platforms | Per format | ₹500 – ₹1,500 | Hoardings, standees and ad sizes from an approved creative. |
| Influencer coordination | Per creator | Flat fee, from ₹3,000 | Brief, contract, ASCI disclosure check, follow-up. Creator fees billed separately. |
| One-off ad campaign setup | Per campaign | ₹5,000 – ₹15,000 | Setup and 7 days of tuning. Ad spend paid directly by the client. |
| Extra platform | Per month | Priced as a mini-retainer | Never as "free" cross-posting. Each platform needs its own cuts and captions. |
| Raw footage handover | Per shoot | ₹2,000 – ₹5,000, or state "not included" | Drive link to unedited files, held for 30 days. |
Two lines need explaining. Licensed music is there because business Instagram accounts don't get the full trending-music library. Mainstream tracks are licensed for personal use, and brand content is pushed towards royalty-free libraries such as Meta's Sound Collection (Osborne Clarke has a clear summary). When a client wants "that Bollywood song everyone is using", it costs money or carries risk, so it belongs on the list. We go into this properly in copyright music on Instagram Reels for Indian brands. Shoot days are priced separately from reels because the shoot is where agencies lose money: travel, waiting for the owner to arrive, and the "while you're here, can you also..." requests.
How do you calculate the price of an add-on?
Don't guess, and don't copy a competitor's price. Work out what the add-on costs you, then add your margin:
- Hourly cost of the person doing it. An editor on ₹30,000 a month working about 160 hours costs ₹187.50 an hour.
- Load it for overheads. Rent, software, leave and idle time. Multiplying by 1.5 is a sensible starting point, which gives about ₹281 an hour.
- Count the real hours, including the hidden ones. A "small reel" is rarely 2 hours. With the brief, editing, captions, the revision round and posting, 6 hours is closer, so about ₹1,690 of cost.
- Divide by (1 − target margin). At a 50% margin: ₹1,690 ÷ 0.5 ≈ ₹3,375. Round to ₹3,500.
- Add pass-through costs at actuals (music licence, travel, props), plus a small handling percentage.
Then check it against the retainer. An add-on should cost more per unit than the same item inside the retainer, usually 15–25% more. The retainer price is a volume rate for planned work. An add-on interrupts a schedule that's already full. If extras are cheaper than the package, clients work that out quickly and shrink the retainer to buy everything à la carte.
How much should an agency charge as a rush fee?
There's no legal standard, only common practice. Pricing guides for agencies and freelancers usually put the floor at 25% over the normal price, and 50% when the client needs the work in roughly half the usual time or it pushes the team into evenings or weekends (Memtime's rush-fee guide sets out this tiering). Agency consultants Sakas & Company argue for a +50% surcharge as their default (their rush-fee guide), and also advise that if you waive the fee, you tell the client you're waiving it, so it doesn't quietly become the norm.
The rush fee only works if your normal turnaround is written down. Ours reads: "Add-ons requested by 12 noon are delivered within 3 working days." Without that sentence, every request is urgent and none of them is a rush. In India, also set a festive cut-off. Requests for Diwali, Navratri or a Republic Day sale that arrive after the agreed calendar freeze date are charged at the rush rate. Our guide on handling client revisions explains how a content freeze date works.
Seven rules that stop add-ons turning into scope creep
- Write deliverables as numbers. "8 reels a month", not "regular reels". An add-on only exists if the base scope has a number on it.
- Quote first, every time. One line in the same WhatsApp thread: item, price plus GST, delivery time. Start work only after a written yes, and screenshot or save that yes.
- Bill add-ons with the next monthly invoice, as separate lines with GST at 18%, the same as the retainer. Don't send ₹2,500 invoices mid-month. They annoy the client's accounts team and get paid late.
- Show waivers on the invoice. If you give one free for the relationship, list it at its full price and then mark it "waived". The client sees what the favour was worth, and you have a record of it.
- Don't let unused deliverables roll over. "We skipped two reels last month, so do two extra this month" turns your capacity planning into a bank. Allow swaps within the month, not carry-forwards.
- Review the list each April. Salaries and software costs go up every year, and add-on prices should go up with them, at the start of the financial year when clients expect changes.
- Turn regular add-ons into an upgrade. If a client buys the same extra three months in a row, offer the next package. It's cheaper for them per unit and more predictable for you.
How should you present the price list to clients?
Keep it to one page, with no small print. It goes in three places: as the last page of the proposal, as an annexure to the signed retainer, and pinned in the client's WhatsApp group. When the "one more reel" message arrives, reply with the line from the list. You're not negotiating, you're quoting something they've already signed off.
Most clients take this well. The ones who push back on paying for extras after agreeing to a price list are usually the same clients who'll argue about the retainer later. It's better to find that out early, and our piece on letting a bad client go covers what to do next.
Frequently asked questions
What should an agency add-on price list include?
Every extra a client regularly asks for: extra reels and statics, shoot days, extra revision rounds, rush delivery, unplanned festival or topical posts, licensed music or stock, influencer coordination, one-off ad setups and extra platforms. Give each a unit, a price, what is included and the turnaround, and note that GST at 18% is added.
How much should an agency charge as a rush fee?
Agency and freelancer pricing guides commonly cite 25% on top of the normal price as the floor, and around 50% when the work is needed in half the usual time or pushes the team into evenings or weekends. Write your standard turnaround into the retainer first, because a rush fee only works against a stated baseline.
Should add-ons cost more than the per-unit price inside a retainer?
Yes. A retainer buys planned, predictable work, so the per-reel price inside it is a volume rate. An add-on breaks into a schedule that is already full, often at short notice. Pricing add-ons 15 to 25 percent above the retainer's per-unit rate is fair and also nudges regular extras into a bigger package.
How do you stop add-ons from turning into scope creep?
Attach the price list to the retainer agreement, define deliverables as numbers, and treat anything beyond those numbers as an add-on. Quote before starting, get a written yes (a WhatsApp reply is fine, save it), and bill every add-on on the next monthly invoice. If you waive one, show it as a zero-value line.
Sources
- Memtime — Rush fee explained: 25% surcharge for moderately compressed deadlines, 50% for roughly half the normal turnaround or evening/weekend work; no legally mandated rush rate.
- Sakas & Company — How to charge agency rush fees: a +50% rush surcharge as a default, and telling clients when a rush fee is waived.
- Osborne Clarke — Use of music on social media platforms: why commercial accounts are limited in the music they can use, and royalty-free libraries as the safer route.
- Prices in the template are illustrative starting points from our own agency practice, not a market survey. Set yours from your own costs using the method above.
Retainer, add-ons and waivers on one invoice.
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