BRIEFING

The Price of Work: Agency Labour Is Shrinking. Has the Bill Followed?

Published 2026-10-02 by Marketingz, Laval.

The argument going around is that AI has cut the labour inside marketing work, so the price of that work should be falling. The first half has some evidence behind it: an industry analyst estimates agencies cut staff in 2025 and forecasts deeper cuts in 2026, and in Quebec, Statistics Canada counts fewer agency employees in each of the last two years, though neither source pins the change on AI alone. The other half, that buyers are paying less, has no measured evidence behind it in any of the sources checked for this issue.

This issue's thesis is narrow: agency labour is shrinking, slowly in Quebec; the price has not been shown to move; and, on our reading, a buyer in Laval is better placed asking to re-price the scope than waiting for rate cards to drop.

The short version

• Forrester estimated in October 2025 that agencies had cut headcount by an average 8 percent that year, and forecast a further 15 percent reduction in 2026. The 2026 figure is a forecast for a year that is not over (Forrester, 1 October 2025). Quebec's official count fell by much less: employees in advertising, PR and related services slipped 1.4 percent in 2025, to 12,527, and 5.5 percent from the 2023 peak (Statistics Canada, Table 14-10-0202-01).
• None of the price sources checked here measures rates falling. One reports most surveyed agencies raising prices or planning to. The case for paying less rests on one practitioner's argument, which cites no client data.
• Salaries, wages, commissions and benefits came to about 36 cents of each revenue dollar at Quebec firms in this industry in 2024, by our arithmetic on Statistics Canada figures. So fewer staff hours trim an agency's costs by much less than the hours themselves. That is our arithmetic, not a measured effect on prices.

Is the labour behind agency work actually shrinking?

Yes, on the evidence available, but by less in Quebec than the forecast numbers suggest.

Forrester analyst Jay Pattisall wrote on 1 October 2025 that agencies had made an "average 8% headcount cut in 2025" and predicted a "15% reduction in 2026" (Forrester, 1 October 2025). He gives several causes, not one: AI and automation, low-margin project work replacing retainer fees, two decades of marketing insourcing saturating the market, and procurement pressure. The 8 percent was written before 2025 ended, so it is an in-year estimate. The 15 percent is a forecast. The piece gives no figure for Canada or Quebec.

Statistics Canada counts the Quebec side. Its annual table of employment by industry has a line for "advertising, public relations, and related services", the official category for the agencies a small business hires. It counts employees, so the self-employed are not in it.

Quebec employment in the industry peaked at 13,260 in 2023 and has fallen two years running, to 12,700 in 2024 and 12,527 in 2025: down 1.4 percent in the last year and 5.5 percent from the peak, by our arithmetic. It is still above the 12,245 of 2019. Nationally the count went from 57,490 in 2024 to 57,015 in 2025, under 1 percent (Statistics Canada, Table 14-10-0202-01, released 26 March 2026; select Quebec or Canada and industry 5418 to see these figures). The two sources do not measure the same thing: Forrester writes about agency headcount in general, and Statistics Canada counts employees in one industry code. Quebec's decline is real but gradual, not a collapse, and the table gives no reason for it.

Has any of that reached the price?

Not in any source checked for this issue. The price data that exists is either undated, not a trend, or comes from someone selling the service.

The American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's) runs the industry's billing-rate benchmark (4A's). Swydo, a reporting-software vendor, reports that the 2025 survey covers 886 rate cards and more than 36,000 data points, and in the same passage that "the national median sits at $84.40/hour" (US dollars), apparently from that survey (Swydo, published 16 February 2026, updated 20 May 2026). Neither figure could be checked against the 4A's report itself, and a single median says nothing about direction.

The same Swydo article cites an SE Ranking survey of 260 agencies, in which "70% either increased their prices recently or plan to increase them this year". Swydo does not date that survey, so "this year" cannot be pinned down (Swydo, updated 20 May 2026).

On the freelance side, MarketerHire, which places freelance marketers, lists hourly bands of US$50 to $100 for juniors, $100 to $175 at mid level, $175 to $250 for seniors and $250 to $350-plus at fractional-CMO level. It also reports average engagements of $7,000 to $10,000 a month for mid-to-senior specialists working 15 to 20 hours a week (MarketerHire, 17 June 2026). Those are its own network's rates, not an independent survey, and they are one snapshot.

The argument that prices should fall comes from digital marketing consultant Avinash Kaushik. He says clients should renegotiate existing agency work down 25 to 75 percent, and pay 15 to 25 percent more for genuinely new work (Kaushik, Occam's Razor, undated). Search Engine Journal reported the argument on 17 July 2026; its report describes the framework and cites no client results (Search Engine Journal, 17 July 2026). It is a negotiating framework from one practitioner. It is not a measurement of what anyone pays.

So the evidence splits. The labour estimate points down, the one price survey cited points up, and the case for lower prices is an argument rather than data. A buyer who assumes the market rate has already dropped is assuming something no source here shows.

Where does the money in a Quebec agency actually go?

A little over a third, about 36 cents per revenue dollar, goes to pay. So fewer staff hours trim an agency's costs by much less than the hours themselves, by our arithmetic.

Statistics Canada's annual survey of the same industry puts Quebec operating revenue at C$2,898.5 million in 2024, and salaries, wages, commissions and benefits at C$1,048.8 million (Statistics Canada, Table 21-10-0033-01, released 27 March 2026; select Quebec and the years 2019 to 2024 to see these figures). Dividing one by the other gives about 36 percent. The rest is other operating costs and profit. 2024 is the latest year published, so this table cannot show anything that happened in 2025 or 2026.

Quebec margins in this industry peaked at 17.6 percent in 2021, fell to 12.2 percent in 2023 and recovered slightly to 13.3 percent in 2024, a little below the national 13.6 percent. Our reading, and it is a reading, not something the table states: an industry whose profit rate fell by more than five points in two years has less room to hand labour savings straight to clients. That fits the SE Ranking survey, undated and not specific to Canada, in which 70 percent of 260 agencies said they had raised prices or planned to. It does not prove it.

For a small business in Laval, our reading is that a request for a lower rate on the same work may meet resistance, and that asking to drop tasks you no longer need may be an easier conversation, since it cuts the agency's costs along with your bill. No source here tests that.

What does the in-house alternative cost in the Montréal region?

The comparison most owners make is against hiring someone. The local wage data is better than the local agency data, though it is still a wage and not a total cost.

Job Bank puts the median for advertising, marketing and public relations managers at C$52.40 an hour in the Montréal region, C$52.88 for Quebec and C$55.29 for Canada. The figures come from Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey for 2023-2024 and were last updated 19 November 2025. The Montréal-region range runs from C$27.16 at the low end to C$72.12 at the high end (Job Bank, updated 19 November 2025). The page shows no separate figure for Laval. It also reports that 97.5 percent of Quebec workers in the occupation receive at least one non-wage benefit, such as a pension plan, insurance or leave, so the hourly wage understates what an employer pays.

For scale, US figures are far higher: the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median annual wage for US marketing managers at US$166,790 in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, last modified 27 August 2026). That is a different occupation definition in a different currency and labour market, and it should not be used to price a Quebec hire. For a Laval business, the comparison that holds up is the Job Bank wage plus benefits and the cost of managing the person, against an agency quote for the same scope. No public source found for this issue gives Quebec agency or freelance rates to complete that comparison, so the agency side has to come from quotes.

What can a business buying marketing in Laval do with this?

Ask about the scope, not just the rate. The evidence supports three questions and no more.

1. Which tasks in my current scope are now done differently, and has the price of each changed? Forrester's estimate says agencies have fewer people. It does not say your contract has been re-priced to reflect that.
2. What am I paying for that I could drop? Our reading, which no source here tests, is that removing work may be an easier conversation than cutting the rate on work that stays.
3. What would the same scope cost in-house, at a Montréal-region wage plus benefits? The Job Bank range gives you the wage side of that sum.

What the evidence does not support is assuming market rates have already fallen, or citing a percentage discount as if it were the going rate. The 25 to 75 percent figure is one consultant's proposal, not a market price.

What to watch next

• Statistics Canada, Table 21-10-0033-01, when it adds 2025: whether Quebec agency margins and payroll costs moved in a year when the industry's Quebec employment fell 1.4 percent.
• The 4A's 2026 Billing Rate Benchmark Survey, when it is published: whether its rates move from the 2025 survey's.
• Any dated survey of what clients actually paid after renegotiating, which would turn Kaushik's argument into something that can be measured.

Questions, or a correction: marketingz@campaigncrush.org or (438) 813-2465.