A startup hires a marketing agency for one reason: it needs customers faster than it can build the machine that finds them. Everything else, the brand, the content calendar, the awareness, is a means to that end or a distraction from it.
This guide is for founders choosing an agency around a launch, a round or a product that has to find its first thousand users. The numbers come from the launch directory, which measures every AI and tech launch on X we can find, and from the launches Doomers has run.
The four kinds of startup marketing agency
The phrase covers four businesses. Knowing which one you are talking to explains the proposal.
- Performance agencies run paid acquisition and charge a share of spend. They work when the product has a search term people already type and a payback period that survives the ad cost. Early-stage AI and developer products rarely have either.
- PR agencies place stories. The right buy for a funding round that needs a headline, and the readers of that headline are investors and journalists, not the people who try the product.
- Content and SEO agencies build pages that rank. A compounding asset with a six-month fuse, which is longer than most seed-stage runways allow for a first result.
- Launch and distribution agencies put the announcement in front of the buyer on the day, through the people the buyer already follows. Fast, measurable, and dependent on the network behind the agency. What a launch agency does.
Which kind fits which stage
The right agency changes with what the company has to prove next.
Pre-seed and seed. The job is the first users and the first signal that anyone cares. A launch is the cheapest way to get both at once, because one good post from a small account can reach a thousand times its following when the right accounts carry it.
Coming out of stealth covers the launch that has to carry everything.
Series A and B. The job is a repeatable channel. The launch becomes a cadence, one announcement a month that each start from a warmer account than the last.
Higgsfield ran six releases through the same channel in four months for 40M views and 1.8M engagements, and the floor under each launch was the asset.
Growth and later. The job is beating the company's own last launch, with a market that already has an opinion. Here PR, content and distribution run together, and the agency that matters is the one that owns the day the news lands.
What to buy first
Buy the launch before the retainer. A retainer is a bet that steady output compounds.
A launch is a test with a date and a number at the end of it. For a startup that has not yet found its channel, the test is worth more than the bet.
The directory shows why. The median AI launch post does about 690K views from a median account of a few thousand followers. 1.8M views puts a launch in the top quarter.
A startup that lands in that quarter has learned its channel and its message in a day, which is what a six-month retainer is meant to find out.
The second thing to buy is whatever the launch proved. If the demo requests came from X, the next spend is the account and the network. If they came from the TechCrunch piece, it is PR.
What a startup marketing agency costs
Performance agencies take a percentage of spend with a monthly minimum. PR and content agencies run monthly retainers. Launch agencies price per launch or per month of launches, and the number is fixed before the work starts.
Compare them on cost per outcome. Name the outcome before signing, a signup count, a demo count or a follower target, and ask each agency what the budget buys against it.
What a product launch on X costs breaks the budget into creator placements, management, narrative, creative and reporting so quotes can be read line by line.
Doomers launches start at $100,000 and are scoped to the announcement.
Questions that get a straight answer
- Show me three launches from accounts our size, with links to the posts. A link lets you read the result yourself. A logo wall does not.
- What does a launch like ours normally do? An agency should know the baseline before it promises to beat it. The directory median is public, so this is checkable.
- Who carries the post, and how were they picked? You should see a shortlist before signing, so you know the type of founders, engineers and creators amplifying your launch.
- What happens in the four days after? The post is a day. The replies, the follow-ups and the inbound are the week. An agency with no plan for day two is selling a spike.
- What do you guarantee? Nothing is the honest answer. A guaranteed view count means a guess or bought engagement, and bought engagement is the thing that gets an account throttled.
How to diligence a marketing agency has the full list and the flags that should end the conversation.
Questions we get asked
What does a startup marketing agency do?
It buys a startup something it cannot build in time: paid acquisition, press coverage, pages that rank, or a launch that lands in front of the buyer. The four kinds of agency sell one of those each, and the proposal reads differently once you know which one you are talking to.
When should a startup hire a marketing agency?
When there is a moment to carry, a launch, a round or a release, and no channel yet to carry it. Before product-market fit, buy the launch rather than the retainer, because the launch tells you in a day what the channel is.
How much does a startup marketing agency cost?
Performance agencies take a share of ad spend. PR and content agencies run monthly retainers. Launch agencies price per launch.
Doomers launches start at $100,000. Compare on cost per named outcome, with the outcome fixed before signing.
What should a startup ask a marketing agency before signing?
For three launches from accounts its size with links to the posts, the baseline a launch normally hits, a shortlist of who will carry the post, the plan for the four days after, and what is guaranteed. The right answer to the last one is nothing.