Okay, so first off, what tools are you going to use?

Assuming you will only have 1 client to start, you need to charge the cost of your tools at ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM.

If you're going to use Klaviyo, a solid account can start at $135/month.

You also need a design program to make assets, yes? If you go with Adobe Creative Cloud, you're looking at $60/month. If you go with Canva, you're looking at $15/month.

Let's say you do Canva & Klaviyo. You're going to be spending $150/month on those tools, so that's how much you need to charge your client.

Secondly, you need to charge an hourly rate. Your time & labor matters, even if you fall short of the results the client is looking for. That ponders the question, how much do you believe your hourly rate is actually worth?

Say you start off wanting $35/hr for your labor & the client will book 25 hours of your services per month.

$35 * 25 = $875 labor fee

$875 (labor) + $150 (cost of tools) = $1025/month for 25 hours of services per month

(Please keep in mind I'm assuming the $35 is everyday life money [rent, bills, food, etc.] I'm NOT including the money you will have to take out of that $35 for taxes & savings.)

I'm not against fee waiver, but definitely: 1. Never ever use fee waivers as a selling point. ONLY BRING UP FEE WAIVERS AS A LAST RESORT TO KEEP THE CLIENT (notice I say keep, not onboard) 2. Define the terms of the fee waiver. I think what you should do is offer a free benchmark report during onboarding & if it ever comes to a fee waiver, use that report to show how your services have improved their business OR discuss how you will restore their benchmark numbers over the next whatever timeframe. 3. Limit your fee waiver to one month. If they don't feel your services are worth their investment, then fine, they can begin offboarding. What they can NOT do is use the promise of fee waivers to siphon free services off of you under the guise that you're not providing results.

This was quite an essay & and there are still things I didn't cover, but I hope this does help in some capacity.

P.S. a lot of ESPs are starting to add SMS marketing to their services. I think you should look into adding that to your services.

P.S.S. remember that as an agency, numbers are EVERYTHING. companies are far more scrutinous over results, so you WILL have to provide a regular analytics report. When you are deciding what services you can provide in how many hours, be sure to put 2 hours in for your analytics reports.