When a new brief arrives, one of the most common and least useful questions asked is: “What did we charge last time?”
It makes sense. Previous prices offer a starting point, give you a gauge on what clients will pay, and save you from building estimates from scratch. But the price tag alone tells you nothing about whether it was actually a good commercial decision.
The number might be the same, but the commercial outcome rarely is.
The danger of reusing the number
Imagine finding a past project sold for £60,000. It looks like the perfect benchmark. However, looking at what happened afterwards might reveal a very different story:
- The project consumed 15% more resource than estimated.
- The client introduced out-of-scope requirements that were absorbed for free.
- The final margin was 30%, falling far short of the expected 45%.
Meanwhile, another similar project sold for £55,000 might have delivered a highly profitable 46% margin.
The most useful question isn’t “What did we charge?” but rather, “What happened when we charged it?”
Past projects are evidence, not templates
Agencies naturally reuse past proposals to save time. But there is a massive difference between blindly reusing a precedent and genuinely learning from it.
A past proposal tells you what you assumed. The finished project tells you if you were right.
To price accurately, you must look at the evidence:
- Which types of work consistently underestimate senior strategy time?
- Which specific clients routinely expand the scope during delivery?
- Which services produce stronger margins on a fixed fee rather than a day rate?
Look beyond the headline margin
Even a healthy margin doesn’t tell the whole story. Two projects with identical margins can have vastly different commercial impacts.
To understand true performance, you need to evaluate the hidden costs:
- Resource drain: did the project tie up your senior management for months?
- Friction: were there repeated, painful scope negotiations?
- Outcome: did the work lead to a larger account, or did it sour the client relationship?
Turn history into commercial intelligence
An established agency has a significant advantage over newcomers: a deep well of commercial experience.
The problem is that this knowledge is usually scattered across CRM systems, spreadsheets, and the minds of veteran staff.
When the next brief lands, stop asking what you charged last time. Instead, ask what your previous work tells you about this new opportunity.
By comparing scopes, actual resource burn, and final margins, your history stops being a collection of old projects and becomes a genuine commercial advantage.