How to Run an Agency Pitch or RFP
A formal pitch process is the right tool for a large or high-stakes engagement, and it goes wrong in predictable ways: too many invitees, no scoring criteria set in advance, and unpaid requests for finished creative work. This guide covers how to run one well, from the invite list to the scorecard.
Key takeaways
- Invite three to five agencies. Fewer gives you no real comparison; more spreads your attention thin and asks too much of agencies with little chance of winning.
- If you're asking for original creative work, pay a pitch fee. Asking several agencies for free finished work is poor practice and tends to attract weaker partners, not stronger ones.
- An RFP is a creative brief plus process details: submission deadline, format, evaluation criteria, and whether a live pitch is required.
- Set your scoring rubric and weightings before you see a single proposal, then apply it identically to every agency.
- Notify every agency of the decision, and give the ones who didn't win real feedback. Agencies remember, and so does the market.
What this guide covers
1. When you need a formal pitch, not just a brief
Most engagements never need a formal pitch process. A clear brief sent to a shortlist of three to five agencies, followed by conversations and a chosen partner, is the right amount of process for the large majority of projects. Our guide on how to choose an agency covers that path in full.
A formal pitch or RFP earns its extra weight for large, high-stakes, or highly competitive engagements: a major rebrand, a national campaign, or any project where procurement rules or internal governance require a documented, comparable process across several agencies. The trade-off is real. A formal RFP takes longer to run and asks more of every agency involved, so reserve it for work that justifies the overhead.
2. How many agencies to invite
Three to five is the number that works for almost every pitch. Fewer than three does not give you a genuine comparison; you are really just negotiating with your favorite. More than five spreads your own evaluation time thin across proposals you will not read as carefully, and it asks meaningful, often unpaid, effort from agencies who have a low real chance of winning.
Build the list the same way you would a shortlist: from work you already admire and credible, curated sources, filtered by relevance to your specific problem and, where it matters, location. A shortlist built from New York branding agencies or Chicago advertising agencies starts you with agencies that already fit the specialty and market, rather than a broad search you then have to narrow yourself.
3. What goes into the RFP
An RFP is everything in a standard creative brief, background, goal, audience, budget, timeline, and success metrics, plus the process details that make a competitive pitch fair to run and easy to compare:
- Submission deadline and format. Exactly when and how proposals are due, and what format you expect (a document, a deck, a live presentation, or some combination).
- Qualifications requested. Relevant case studies, the proposed team's experience, and references if you plan to check them.
- Pitch requirements. Whether a live presentation is required, how long it will run, and who from the client side will attend.
- Evaluation criteria. How proposals will be scored, shared up front so every agency understands what actually matters to you.
- Pitch fee, if any. Whether agencies will be compensated for original creative work produced during the process.
- Decision timeline. When you expect to notify finalists and make a final decision.
4. Should agencies be paid to pitch
For a written proposal built on existing case studies and a proposed approach, payment is not always expected. The moment an RFP asks for original creative work, concepts, designs, or campaign ideas made specifically for your pitch, a pitch fee becomes the industry-standard practice, and a meaningful signal of professional respect.
Asking several agencies to produce free, finished creative work on speculation is widely regarded as poor practice across the industry. It tends to select for agencies desperate enough to accept the terms, not the strongest fit for your problem, and the best studios frequently decline unpaid spec pitches outright. If the budget cannot support paying every invited agency, consider narrowing the list, asking for strategic thinking rather than finished creative, or paying at least the finalists who reach a live presentation round.
5. A scoring rubric that keeps things fair
Set your criteria and their relative weight before a single proposal arrives, then score every agency against the identical rubric. This is what keeps the most polished presenter from beating the agency that is actually the better fit.
| Criteria | Suggested weight |
|---|---|
| Portfolio relevance and quality | 30% |
| Understanding of the brief | 20% |
| Proposed team and seniority | 15% |
| Price fit to budget | 15% |
| Timeline feasibility | 10% |
| Chemistry and communication | 10% |
These weights are a starting point, not a rule. A brand-defining rebrand might weight portfolio and team more heavily; a tightly budgeted project might weight price fit higher. Whatever you choose, write it down before the proposals arrive and score every agency against the same sheet, so the decision has a clear paper trail if anyone asks how it was made.
6. Running the pitch meeting
Give every agency the same amount of time and the same format, and put the same client stakeholders in the room for each one so the comparison is apples to apples. Save real time for questions. The most useful part of a pitch meeting is rarely the rehearsed section of the deck, it is how an agency responds to a question it did not prepare for. Our guide on questions to ask in the first call works just as well inside a formal pitch.
Resist deciding in the room. Give yourself, and any co-evaluators, time afterward to score independently against the rubric before comparing notes, so early impressions or a strong closing line do not quietly override the criteria you set in advance.
7. After the decision
Notify every agency, not just the winner. A short, direct note to the agencies who did not win, including honest, specific feedback where you can offer it, is a professional courtesy that costs little and is remembered. The market for agencies you might want to hire next time is smaller than it looks, and how a pitch process treats the agencies who lose says as much about a brand as how it treats the winner.
Once you've chosen, move quickly into a written scope of work covering deliverables, revisions, and pricing, the same document our guide on understanding how agencies price recommends insisting on before any retainer or project begins.
Frequently asked questions
What is an agency RFP?
An RFP, or Request for Proposal, is a formal document a client sends to several agencies at once, describing a project in detail and asking each one to propose an approach, a team, a timeline, and a price. Agencies then compete for the business through written proposals and, usually, a live pitch presentation.
How many agencies should you invite to pitch?
Three to five is the range that works for almost every project. Fewer than three does not give you a real comparison, and more than five spreads your own attention thin while asking a lot of unpaid or under-compensated effort from agencies that have little realistic chance of winning.
Should agencies be paid to pitch?
For strategy and written proposals, payment is not always expected. For any pitch that asks an agency to produce original creative work, concepts, designs, or campaign ideas, paying a pitch fee is the industry-standard practice and is considered a baseline of professional respect. Asking multiple agencies for free, finished creative work is widely regarded as poor practice and tends to attract weaker agencies to your search, not stronger ones.
What should be in an agency RFP?
Everything in a standard creative brief, background, goal, audience, budget, timeline, and success metrics, plus process-specific details: the submission deadline and format, what qualifications or case studies to include, whether a live pitch is required, how proposals will be evaluated, and whether a pitch fee is offered.
How do you score agency pitches fairly?
Set your scoring criteria before you see a single proposal, and use the same rubric for every agency. Common categories are portfolio relevance, understanding of the brief, the proposed team, price fit to budget, timeline feasibility, and chemistry. Weighting the criteria in advance keeps the strongest presenter from beating the strongest fit.
Build your invite list
Every agency on Agency Showcase is chosen by hand for the quality of its work. Browse by specialty or city to build a shortlist worth inviting to pitch.
Browse the directory →Related reading: How to Write an Agency Brief, How to Choose an Agency, and Agency & Creative Glossary.
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