What is pay per appointment?

Why it matters for a contractor.

It moves the risk of a bad campaign onto the vendor. Almost nobody in contractor marketing prices this way, which is usually the first question worth asking one.

Under a retainer, a bad month costs the contractor the retainer plus the ad spend and costs the agency nothing. Under pay per appointment, a bad month costs the vendor the media they fronted and produces no invoice. That is the whole argument, and it is why the model is rare: it only works for a vendor confident enough in the engine to fund it.

The details decide whether it is real. Ask whether media sits inside the price or on top of it, because a pay-per-appointment fee with a separate ad budget is a retainer with extra steps. Ask what happens to an appointment that no-shows, and whether the replacement is automatic or negotiated. Ask whether there is a volume floor you owe regardless of performance.

It is also the model that forces both sides to agree on what qualified means before anyone spends money, which is the most useful conversation in the engagement and the one retainers let you skip indefinitely.

What to ask a vendor about it.

• Is media included in the price, or billed separately on top of it?
• What happens when an appointment no-shows or falls outside the criteria?
• Is there a minimum I owe in a month where nothing gets booked?
• What is the term, and what does exiting it look like?