The price of entry: 82% of US agencies that disclose a minimum will start at $10,000 or less
Minimum project sizes across 1,648 disclosing US growth vendors show an accessible market floor — $5,000 is the most common gate, and six-figure minimums are rare.
1,648 listings in The Wall's index publish a minimum project size. The most common gate is $5,000, and the overwhelming majority of the market opens below the level many mid-market buyers assume:
| Minimum project size | Firms | Share of disclosed |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000+ | 461 | 28.0% |
| $5,000+ | 534 | 32.4% |
| $10,000+ | 365 | 22.1% |
| $25,000+ | 182 | 11.0% |
| $50,000+ | 66 | 4.0% |
| $75,000+ | 22 | 1.3% |
| $100,000+ | 14 | 0.8% |
| $250,000+ | 4 | 0.2% |
1,360 of 1,648 disclosing firms — 82.5% — will open an engagement at $10,000 or less. Only 106 firms (6.4%) set the gate at $50,000 or above, and just four firms in the entire index require a quarter-million dollars to start.
Reading a minimum correctly
A minimum project size is a qualification filter, not a price list. Firms use it to screen out engagements too small to staff properly. For a buyer at $5M+ in revenue, the data says the filter is rarely the obstacle: the market's entry gates cluster far below a serious quarter's marketing budget. The more useful signal is the combination — a firm's minimum, its hourly band, and its team size together sketch what a real first engagement looks like before the first call.
90 firms in the engagement-data set (5.2%) publish no minimum at all.
How this was computed. Figures are computed from The Wall's index of 2,286 approved, US-based, machine-verified-live listings as of August 3, 2026. Engagement data (rates, minimum project sizes, team sizes, founding years, ratings) are provider-declared figures published on public Clutch profiles and are present for 1,738 of the 2,286 listings; percentages of "disclosed" values exclude listings that publish no figure. Nothing in this briefing is estimated or modeled. Sourcing standards: editorial policy.