Fully funded training · Fully funded until August 2026
Book AI training for your team.
We run accredited AI training courses for agency teams at no charge. Practical, role-specific, and certified. A useful way to understand what AI can realistically do for your business before engaging any vendor. Standard rate is £650 + VAT per person per day — we're covering it in full until August 2026. Delegates leave with a certificate of completion.
Why agencies specifically
Client revenue grows. Operational cost grows faster.
Digital agencies typically grow by adding clients, not by reviewing internal spend. Each new account brings new tools, new subscriptions, new contractor relationships — and because the focus is always on delivery, the housekeeping rarely happens.
The result is a cost base that drifts upward independently of headcount or revenue. By the time it's visible on a P&L, the damage is already done.
What we'd investigate
Eight areas where cost typically hides in agencies.
We don't guarantee savings in every area. We investigate each one systematically — and only invoice from what we actually find.
SaaS & tool sprawl
The average agency accumulates 15–25 tools over time. Project management, analytics, reporting, design, scheduling, CRM — many overlap, carry unused seats, or were purchased for a specific campaign and never cancelled. We audit every active subscription against actual usage.
Freelancer & contractor rates
Rates agreed in different economic conditions, across different hires, with little cross-referencing. There's often significant variance for equivalent work — and scope that expands without formal review. We benchmark rates and identify where consolidation or renegotiation is realistic.
Seat-based licence waste
Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack — all priced per seat. Agencies tend to buy for peak headcount and forget to right-size when staff leave or roles change. We map licence allocation against active users and flag what can be reduced.
Client hosting & infrastructure
Hosting packages scaled up for launch, then left running at full cost for years. CDN, backup, uptime monitoring, security tools — often one per client, rarely reviewed. We identify consolidation opportunities and hosting tiers that are overspecified for actual traffic.
Internal reporting overhead
A meaningful portion of agency time goes into compiling reports that aren't billed — manually pulling data from platforms, formatting client dashboards, reconciling ad spend. We identify where automation can reduce this labour cost without changing the output quality.
Finance & billing administration
Invoice chasing, expense reconciliation, timesheet processing, and monthly media billing. For most agencies this is a significant hidden overhead — often falling on account managers or the MD rather than dedicated finance resource. We map the true cost and identify what can be automated.
Overlapping communication tools
Slack, Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and email — often running concurrently, sometimes at paid tier across the board. We look at actual usage patterns and identify where consolidation is practical.
Contract renewal drift
Supplier contracts — hosting, software, data feeds, API access — that auto-renew on terms agreed several years ago. Market rates move, but only someone actively watching the renewal calendar would notice. We track every contract and flag where renegotiation makes sense.
How we deliver it
Our platform.
Owlpen.
Owlpen is our proprietary intelligence platform — purpose-built to find, verify, and sustain cost reductions and operational performance improvements across every area of your business. It powers every Coaley Peak engagement.
Compatible with Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, Llama, Mistral, and others. BYOK available. Full compatibility →
Owlpen
Verified cost reduction and performance improvement — independently confirmed, billed only from results.
Connects to your existing platforms, maps every workflow against your cost base, and benchmarks spend and throughput against sector peers. Owlpen can target cost savings, efficiency gains, or both simultaneously. £0 upfront. No retainers.
15–30%
Cost savings, typically
20–40%
Efficiency gain, typically
Share of results
Billing model
£0
Setup cost
Figures are illustrative. Billing is a pre-agreed share of independently verified savings or performance gains. Actual results depend on your cost base, industry, and scope — confirmed during your process audit. No invoice is raised until results are verified.
Explore Owlpen →
The commercial terms
No-obligation audit
We scope what we can find before you commit to anything.
£0 upfront
No retainer. No setup fee. We only invoice from verified savings.
Independent verification
Every saving confirmed by a qualified third party — funded by us — before we invoice.
30 days' notice
No lock-in. You can exit with 30 days' notice if you're not satisfied.
Find out what your agency is overspending.
We run an audit of your cost base and tell you what we can find before you commit to anything. No obligation, no sales pressure.
Use cases and capabilities — important notice. The use cases, needs, and capabilities described on this website are illustrative examples of areas where AI and automation may be able to add value. They are not representations, warranties, or guarantees that any specific outcome, saving, or improvement will be achievable for any particular client. The applicability of any use case depends on the client's specific IT infrastructure, data architecture, operational processes, workforce arrangements, contractual obligations, and regulatory environment. Coaley Peak will assess compatibility — including system integrations, data handling requirements, and human and technical constraints — during the scoping and audit process before any engagement begins. No work will commence on a specific use case until its feasibility has been assessed and agreed in writing. Nothing on this website constitutes advice, a representation, or a commitment in relation to any specific use case or technology. Descriptions of approaches, methods, and techniques are general in nature; Coaley Peak makes no representation as to whether any specific implementation may be subject to third-party intellectual property rights — including patents — and clients are responsible for obtaining independent legal advice where required. Where use cases reference regulated activities — including but not limited to anti-money laundering, FCA-regulated functions, KYC, data protection compliance, employment law, or sector-specific regulatory obligations — implementation does not reduce, replace, or discharge any statutory or regulatory duty incumbent on the client, and clients remain solely responsible for compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements. Data handling capabilities are subject to the client's infrastructure, applicable data protection legislation (including UK GDPR), and the terms of any data processing agreement in force between the parties. Queries: legal@coaleypeak.co.uk.
Pay on results — eligibility notice. Results-based pricing applies exclusively to commercial contracts signed on or after 24 March 2026. All engagements entered into before this date — including any subsequent renewals — are not subject to pay on results terms and are governed solely by the pricing structure in the original agreement, unless a separate written addendum specifically incorporating pay on results terms has been executed by both parties. All pay on results contracts carry a document reference beginning contract_payonresults. If you are unsure which terms apply to your engagement, please contact legal@coaleypeak.co.uk.
All claims on this page are general descriptions of Coaley Peak's service model and are not guarantees of specific outcomes. Results vary by business, cost base, and baseline efficiency. "No upfront cost" refers to the pay-on-results pricing model; ancillary costs (e.g. third-party integrations) may apply and are disclosed before engagement. Independent verification is funded by Coaley Peak and conducted by a qualified professional who is not an employee of Coaley Peak. The "30 days' notice" exit term applies to standard commercial contracts; bespoke terms may differ. See our Terms & Conditions, Guarantee, and Independent Verification pages for full details.
Document reference: ISO_webpage_industries-digital-marketing-agencies_v1
Last modified: 24 March 2026
Industries·Digital Marketing Agencies