Your & Business
03
CHAPTER THREE · SERVICES · FOUR LANES · FY 2026 RATES

Four lanes.
One on calendar.

Three of the four lanes here are entry points into the practice. Only one — the quarterly retainer — produces the calendar-on-calendar compounding archive that is the actual product. The other three are how a relationship usually starts.

We've kept the service catalog deliberately short. A long-form practice does one thing well, and the temptation to expand the menu — short-form, social, video, podcasts — is exactly the temptation that makes most content shops mediocre. Four lanes, in increasing order of commitment.

01
SERVICE 01 · STARTING POINT · 6-WEEK ENGAGEMENT

The content audit.

A six-week diagnostic engagement. We read every piece in your archive, score it against our editorial rubric, and produce a single working memo with a publication strategy, a kill list, and a six-month editorial calendar.

SCOPE
  • Read and score the existing archive (up to 200 pieces)
  • Interviews with three to five internal practitioners
  • Competitor archive review (top 5 in category)
  • One 40-page working memo with publication strategy
  • Six-month editorial calendar with proposed pieces, authors, and beats
  • Two presentation sessions — to leadership, then to the content team
Fee
$28k flat
Timeline
6 wks
02
SERVICE 02 · A SINGLE PIECE · 4 TO 6 WEEKS

The flagship essay.

A single 4,000-to-6,000 word essay, end-to-end. Senior writer, full editorial process, fact-check, and design. Best for companies who want to test the format before committing to a retainer.

SCOPE
  • Editorial briefing call (90 minutes) with the writer + editor
  • One to three practitioner interviews
  • 4,000–6,000 word essay, two rounds of revision
  • Independent fact-check pass
  • Custom title-card illustration or photography brief
  • Distribution outline — placement, syndication, internal use
Fee
$14k per essay
Timeline
4–6 wks

The retainer is the only one of the four that produces a compounding archive. The other three are how the relationship begins.

— Practice memo, Q3 2024
03
SERVICE 03 · QUARTERLY · ON CALENDAR

The retainer.

Four, eight, or sixteen essays a quarter, on calendar, indefinitely. The actual product. A senior writer + editor + practitioner-source for every piece, on a quarter-locked publication schedule, billed monthly.

SCOPE · 4-ESSAY TIER (BASE)
  • Four essays per quarter, sixteen per year
  • Editorial calendar locked one quarter ahead
  • Dedicated editor + assigned writer pool
  • Practitioner sourcing and interviewing
  • Independent fact-check on every piece
  • Quarterly editorial review with leadership
  • Annual archive audit and strategy reset
From
$14k monthly
Annual
$168k

Two larger tiers (eight and sixteen essays per quarter) for companies running a fully owned-media operation. Retainer rates and tiers →

04
SERVICE 04 · BYLINE-OPTIONAL · ON RETAINER

Ghostwriting for executives.

A subset of the retainer, structured around a single executive byline. The work moves through the same editorial pipeline as our practice work — interview-led, fact-checked, edited — but ships under the executive's name.

SCOPE
  • Bi-weekly forty-five minute interview with the executive
  • One long-form essay per month under their byline
  • Editorial alignment with the company's broader publication
  • Final say on voice and stance remains with the executive
  • Pull-out memo of three short-form posts mined from each long piece
Fee
$9k monthly
Min term
12 mo

Not ready to inquire? Read first.

Our five most-cited essays, packaged as a single PDF. Free, gated by email. Most retainers begin here.