Nobody Bought the Pay-for-Results Deal. Offering It Still Closed Sales.
Eric Weisgarber has spent months offering outcome-based pricing at AMG Team. Clients taking it so far: zero. Deals closed anyway, and the offer is why.
August 20, 2026
·
1 min read
Asked whether the experiments with new business models were working, Weisgarber, CEO of AMG Team, an analytics and marketing agency, gave the honest version instead of the conference-stage version.
The mechanism, in his own telling: putting fees at risk signals so much confidence that clients relax. You are saying, pay me more this way and I take the risk off of you. Faced with that offer, clients feel much more at ease writing the ordinary monthly retainer, and they choose it.
The room named the catch, and it is real: when every client defaults to the old way, revenue stays capped at the retainer. The at-risk offer is winning trust, not upside. As an instrument for closing, it works today. As a pricing model, it has not converted a single buyer yet, and Weisgarber said exactly that.
Why it matters to you.
There is money in this confession in both directions. First, the willingness to put fees at risk is a credibility instrument with immediate close-rate value, even if nobody ever takes the deal, because confidence is the thing the buyer is actually pricing. Second, do not confuse the trust lever with a revenue model. If the outcome-based option exists only to make the retainer feel safe, your upside is still capped at the retainer, and you have shifted perception without shifting economics. Knowing which of the two you are running is the difference between a sales tactic and a pricing strategy.
“I've been trying to experiment on outcome-based pricing. And it has not moved people yet to doing it. It's opened up the conversation, and it has helped close deals the existing way. - Eric Weisgarber, CEO, AMG Team”
Your one thing.
Put an outcome-based option in your next proposal, priced meaningfully above the standard fee. Watch what it does to the conversation, whichever option the client picks.
Collective 54 is where boutique service firm founders go to make more money, scale with less friction, and build a firm worth buying.
See if it’s a fit →