Key takeaways
• A budget should help agencies design the right approach, not determine what they charge.
• Without a budget, agencies are often forced to make assumptions about the level of support you’re looking for.
• A ‘do not exceed’ budget can provide useful guidance while maintaining commercial control.
• Including a budget often leads to more comparable proposals and fewer rounds of clarification.
• Procurement shouldn’t purely be about extracting the lowest fee; rather creating the conditions for agencies to propose the most appropriate solution.
A budget provides context, not just a number
When an agency prepares a proposal, the team has to make dozens of decisions before it can recommend an approach.
• How much senior input will the programme require?
• How frequently should content be created?
• Is this a strategic partnership or a defined campaign?
• Should activity focus on media relations, thought leadership, digital communications, or a combination of disciplines?
The answers depend not only on your objectives but also on the level of investment you’re prepared to make. Without that context, agencies are left to make assumptions.
Guesswork rarely produces comparable proposals
Budget guidance often saves time – for everyone
One procurement team we worked with recently took a particularly practical approach. Rather than disclosing a fixed budget, they simply stated a ‘do not exceed’ figure. This immediately established the scale of the opportunity while giving agencies the flexibility to recommend the most appropriate solution within those parameters. We knew the level of support the client was looking for and they received proposals designed for the same commercial reality. The process was quicker, simpler, and far easier to compare.
We’ve also experienced the opposite. Another client asked us to ‘keep costs low’ because of the challenging economic climate but chose not to indicate what that meant in practice. Wanting to respect their request, we proposed a deliberately lean programme. Their response? The proposal was far too modest for what they actually needed. Neither side had done anything wrong. We had simply interpreted the brief differently. A clearer indication of the available budget from the start would have avoided unnecessary revisions and helped everyone reach the right solution much sooner.
Better conversations lead to better proposals
Still, there are perfectly valid reasons not to specify a budget. Some procurement processes require budgets to remain confidential, while others are genuinely exploratory, with organisations wanting to understand what different levels of investment could achieve before making a decision. Ultimately, it’s your procurement process. The important thing is recognising what happens when budget information is withheld.
At SE10, we’d always rather recommend the communications programme we genuinely believe will deliver the best outcome than spend time trying to infer what level of investment a client may have in mind. If you have a fixed budget, telling us helps us design the strongest possible solution within it. If you don’t, even a realistic range or a ‘do not exceed’ figure provides valuable context. Either way, the conversation becomes less about guessing numbers and more about solving your communications challenges.
Hannah Kitchener
Associate Director
About the author
Hannah is an associate director in the UK, leading strategic campaigns for industrial clients across the EMEA region. A professionally qualified journalist (NCTJ), she combines specialist sectoral knowledge in construction, energy, and materials handling with a strong network of trade media contacts to secure valuable coverage. Her expertise in inter-cultural communication, honed by degrees in modern languages and translation, is key to executing campaigns that succeed across diverse European markets.
