Ask three crypto agencies for a price and you will get three numbers with no obvious relationship to each other. That is not because the work varies that much. It is because they are selling different things.
The variables that actually move a quote
Anyone giving you a number before asking about these is guessing:
- Channel count. Press, community, creators, paid and content are five separate operations with five separate teams.
- Market count. Each market means separate creative and a separate review cycle. This scales faster than people expect.
- Legal review depth. The variable most underestimated. A campaign where every asset goes through counsel runs at a fraction of the pace of one where it does not.
- Whether there is a dated launch. A fixed date compresses everything and removes the option to sequence.
- What already exists. A team with a brand, a site and a community is buying something quite different from one starting at zero.
Two business models, one label
A large share of crypto agencies are coordination layers. They take the brief, subcontract each discipline, and add margin at each step.
That is not dishonest — coordination has value. But it explains the opaque pricing, the thin reporting and the difficulty getting a straight answer about who is doing the work.
Ask which disciplines run in-house and which are resold. An agency that answers directly is worth talking to. One that gets vague has answered.
The percentage-of-spend problem
Some agencies take a cut of media budget. It is common enough to look standard.
It gives them a direct financial incentive to spend more rather than spend well. When the question is whether to increase budget, the person advising you is not neutral.
Scope-based pricing removes that. We price against defined scope plus your actual spend, and we do not take a percentage of media budget or run on a flat monthly retainer that bears no relationship to what was delivered.
Sequencing is worth more than budget
The cheapest improvement available to most teams is not a lower rate. It is doing things in the right order.
Community, content and founder visibility all take months and cost time rather than media budget. Starting them early means having them when a launch arrives.
Paid acquisition multiplies whatever your funnel already does. Scaling it before people who arrive are visibly staying multiplies a leak, expensively, while producing data that looks like channel performance rather than a product problem.
Teams that run everything at once from day one spend the most and learn the least.
What a proposal should contain
- Named deliverables, not disciplines. “PR” is not a deliverable.
- Who does the work — specific people, and whether they are employees.
- Reporting format and cadence, agreed before signing.
- What is explicitly out of scope.
- What happens when something underperforms, and who decides.
The last two tell you more than everything above them. A proposal with no exclusions is a sales document, and one with no failure path has not thought about the engagement past the first month.
What you should not be promised
A return figure. Nobody can quote one before seeing your product, your funnel and your spend history, and a number in a pitch deck is a sales device rather than a forecast.
We do not promise a return before a campaign, during one, or after one. What we commit to is the work, honest written reporting on what it did, and adjusting against what the data shows.
Common questions
How much does crypto marketing cost?
It depends on scope, channel count, market count, how much legal review the material needs and how much already exists - and an agency quoting a figure before understanding those is guessing. What you should expect instead is a scoping conversation, then pricing against defined scope plus your actual spend. Corum8 does not price on a flat monthly retainer and does not take a percentage of media budget.
Why do crypto marketing agencies price so differently?
Because some do the work and some coordinate it. A coordination layer subcontracts press to one vendor, creators to another and design to a third, adding margin at each step, which is why its pricing is opaque. A team doing the work in-house can tell you what each discipline costs and who performs it. Ask which model you are buying before comparing numbers.
Should an agency take a percentage of ad spend?
It gives them a direct incentive to spend more rather than spend well, which is a poor alignment for you. Scope-based pricing removes that conflict. We do not take a cut of media budget, and we would treat any agency proposing it as something to question rather than a standard arrangement.
What makes a crypto marketing budget go further?
Sequencing. Starting community, content and founder visibility early - all of which cost time rather than media budget - then scaling paid once people who arrive are visibly staying. Teams that run every channel simultaneously from day one spend the most and learn the least, because nothing has had time to tell them what works.
What should be in a marketing proposal?
Defined scope with named deliverables, who specifically does the work, what the reporting looks like and how often, what is explicitly out of scope, and what happens when something underperforms. A proposal without the last two is a sales document. Ask for the exclusions - they tell you more than the inclusions.
